TOM TITUS -- Theater

After a year as Costa Mesa’s “new kid on the block,” the Trilogy

Playhouse is beginning to settle in -- bolstered by favorable responses

to both its adult and children’s theater offerings. But the theater is

still wondering if a more substantial diet will prove as financially

palatable as its standard menu of comedies and musicals.

“We’re still trying to find our true audience,” admits Alicia Butler,

the artistically dynamic but publicity-shy managing director of the

Trilogy, located at 2930 Bristol St., in The Lab. “We’d like to do the

heavier shows, but we don’t know yet if we’d have the support we draw for

the musicals and comedies.”

This factor led the Trilogy to cancel two of its more mature scheduled

productions last year -- “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “The Bad Seed.”

Whether shows of this nature have a place at the theater is yet to be

determined.

The Trilogy made its Costa Mesa debut last January, after eight years

in Laguna Niguel, where family theater was the order of the day. Seeking

to shatter that image, the company opened with Ira Levin’s

mystery-thriller “Deathtrap,” but soon gravitated to such family-oriented

fare as “The Wizard of Oz,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and Neil

Simon’s comedy “Fools.”

Ironically, the Trilogy’s finest effort last year, the musical

“Little Shop of Horrors,” didn’t translate its artistic excellence into

box office gold. Still, the theater’s overall product was met with enough

encouragement to keep the doors open for a second season.

Keeping those doors open is a full-time job for Butler, who directed

all seven of the playhouse’s productions last year -- despite suffering

a broken leg -- as well as conducting acting workshops for youngsters and

teenagers. She’s now putting the finishing touches on the venerable

comedy “Arsenic and Old Lace,” which will open Feb. 9, and has started

rehearsals for “The Secret Garden,” the family-oriented musical that

will open April 16.

Butler, a native of Tennessee who migrated to California 21 years ago,

has been involved in theater all of her adult life, working as a stage

manager and casting director in Los Angeles before moving to Orange

County in 1991. When her husband’s work brought her south, she wasted no

time in organizing Children’s Theater Productions in Laguna Niguel.

That company attracted other people who now form the core of the

Trilogy Playhouse -- scenic artist James Mulligan, who’s also an

accomplished actor; actress and technician Sharon Simonian; and front

office worker Pat Cain. Mulligan has designed and built all the sets, as

well as turning in such notable performances as Seymour in “Little Shop,”

while Simonian sunk her teeth into that classic villainess, the Wicked

Witch of the West, in “Wizard.”And, while Butler is the heart and soul

of the Trilogy Playhouse, don’t look for her on stage -- ever -- in the

future. This dyed-in-the-wool theaterholic doesn’t even own a head shot.

“My creativity comes from making magic happen,” she declares. “I love

pulling out emotions. I’ve always loved backstage work, but I don’t have

to be out there. I don’t even like to have my picture taken.”

Now a single mother, Butler has brought her 11-year-old daughter,

Hailey Villaire, into the family business, where she impressed as Little

Red Riding Hood in “Into the Woods” and the gum-chomping Violet in

“Chocolate Factory.” She’s also one of her mom’s prize pupils in the

theater’s children’s acting workshops, which, Butler declares, “provide

a nurturing, learning environment for youth.”

The classes have been going very well, Butler notes, crediting the

Newport Harbor Unified School District for its support. “We try to

instill confidence and self-esteem in our young people.”

Once she puts “Arsenic” and “Secret Garden” on the boards, Butler will

be looking at a 2001 production schedule that includes the musicals

“Ruthless” and “Forever Plaid,” the family drama “Anne of Green Gables”

and the classic thriller “Frankenstein,” scheduled, naturally, in late

October.

These shows, plus the youth workshops, add up to a full plate, even

for someone as energetic as Butler. But this year, she doesn’t have the

early 2000 headaches of transporting the Laguna Niguel operation to Costa

Mesa.

“It’s like starting all over again,” she says, “but this time not at

the beginning.”

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

Pilot. His stories appear Thursdays and Saturdays.