MOORPARK : Shakespeare Group May Leave County

The California Shakespeare Company’s home in a converted Moorpark storefront is so small that the director plans to build a plywood room onto the back of the building before the group begins performing “Hamlet” in two weeks.

The play’s 14 actors will use the shed to change costumes and wait while they are offstage.

“So basically we’ll change clothes outside,” said Newbury Park resident K. Jill Solgen, 22, who will play Ophelia. “That’ll be very cold.”

Partly because of the space limitations posed by the 1,000-square-foot facility, Ventura County’s only year-round Shakespeare theater group may soon leave the county. Director Bill Fisher is looking for a larger space in Agoura Hills or Westlake. He said he may move the company after its production of “Hamlet,” which will run from Jan. 17 through Feb. 29.

Fisher, who lives in Westlake, said he chose the Moorpark location because it is two blocks from the 10-year-old Magnificent Moorpark Melodrama & Vaudeville theater and because of the city’s central location in the county.

But after one year of operation, the company has outgrown “the world’s smallest theater,” he said. Besides the small stage, the theater seats only 40.

Agoura Hills or Westlake would be “a better traffic location” to attract a larger audience, said actor Mark Reyes, 34, who will play Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius.

“People love the theater,” said Reyes, who lives in Thousand Oaks. “But they don’t like to be inconvenienced to see it.”

In addition, many of the actors who perform in Fisher’s productions live in Los Angeles County.