TOM TITUS -- Theater

The year 1965 was quite significant for theater in Costa Mesa. It was

the nativity year for both South Coast Repertory -- born in Newport Beach

but soon to relocate to Costa Mesa -- and the Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse.

SCR -- with professional aspirations it eventually fulfilled, thus

moving north to a two-theater complex in South Coast Town Center -- was a

tremendous success. Its story has been chronicled and re-crhonicled many

times in these pages.

The Civic Playhouse, a community theater operation, has enjoyed

success on a more modest scale. Born in a World War II era building on

the Orange County Fairgrounds, it was relocated in 1981 to its present quarters at 611 Hamilton St., on the grounds of Rea Elementary School.

There, it operates on a comparatively shoestring budget.

Founding director Pati Tambellini often referred to the operation as

the “pinchpenny playhouse.” The theater, originally a city-sponsored

activity, now functions under the auspices of the Newport-Mesa Unified

School District, which is mulling plans to construct a two-story adult

education facility on the site now occupied by the Civic Playhouse.

Playhouse director Damien Lorton, along with theater president Lynn

Reinert, is mounting a campaign to save the 36-year-old program.

“During the summer, both SOY and the Boys & Girls Club close, but the

playhouse opens its doors to the children of the area for a youth summer

camp,” Lorton said. “No tuition is charged. The children are taught about

theater and production, they paint the sets, help make the costumes and

perform in a fully staged show.

“We not only have them four to five hours a day, but we feed them at

least once a day,” Lorton adds. “This program is not sponsored by anyone,

and no funding is given by the city. The playhouse absorbs the cost,

which runs between $3,000 and $6,000.”

Lorton -- whose current production of “The Sound of Music” is the

third of five consecutive musicals he’s directing for the playhouse --

works during the day as an instructor at Newport Harbor High School. This

gave him an opportunity to open a doorway to local teenagers interested

in the theater.

“Not only do they perform at our theater, they run thetechnical aspect

as well,” he notes. “With this, they are taught responsibility and

discipline. It also gives the teens a place to feel accepted and needed,

keeping them off the streets and involved in an activity that allows them

to expand and explore themselves at such an important time in their

lives.”

Lorton has been appealing to theater patrons to make their feelings

known to the district.

“With your help and persistence, we may be able to stay in our home,

or even be reestablished in a new location,” he writes in a letter to

patrons in the current “Sound of Music” program.

It wasn’t long ago that Lorton and Reinert were striving to take the

playhouse out of the red. Now that the theater is self-sustaining, “we

have a new beast to conquer,” Lorton said.

What is required this time is not money but support -- vocal and

written. Lorton is urging patrons and theatergoers in general to make

their opinions known to the school district and the city of Costa Mesa.

“We need phone calls and letters,” he declares, “telling why the doors

should, and must, stay open.”

* TOM TITUS writes about and reviews local theater for the Daily

Pilot. His stories appear Thursdays and Saturdays.