A look at Phil de Barros’ 35 years with the playhouse

Tom Titus

Back in the fall of 1966, Phil de Barros, newly arrived in Huntington

Beach, took a foggy drive along Main Street looking for what he’d heard

was the city’s local community theater group.

He found the Huntington Beach Playhouse, then located at “The Barn” on

Main Street at Yorktown Avenue, a ramshackle annex of the Huntington

Beach Company, which the theater group had turned into an intimate

performing facility. He also found auditions in progress for “The

Rainmaker.”

Director Ron Albertsen, impressed with the newcomer, cast him in the

leading role of Starbuck. Thus began de Barros’ association with the

Huntington Beach Playhouse that’s currently 35 years old and continuing.

Along the way the theater group has performed in five different venues

and de Barros’ imprint has been an indelible one.

Now at 81, after three and a half decades of performing and directing,

de Barros holds the honorary title of president emeritus at the

playhouse. He’s been the actual president on several occasions, and his

involvement with the theater’s fortunes is an ongoing lifelong

commitment.

Long the director of the playhouse’s summer “Shakespeare in the Park”

series, he’s passed that baton on to his daughter Wendi, who’s staging

“The Merry Wives of Windsor” in Lake Park, opening June 30. And yes, Phil

has a role.

“I’m the host of the Garter Inn,” he says with a characteristic grin.

Born in New York, de Barros moved west with his family at the age of

8, settling in the West Los Angeles area. Young Phil got his first taste

of greasepaint at Beverly Hills Grammar School and continued performing

through his teens -- playing Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice” at 16.

His longevity at the playhouse is rivaled by his 33 years at the

former McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing), where he was director of the

company’s Procedures Group. He also developed his skills as a

concert-level pianist and a pretty fair Ping-Pong player.

When The Barn was dismantled in 1976, de Barros directed the closing

production of “Harvey,” a reprise of the comedy that introduced the group

in 1963. The playhouse moved across Main Street to the Seacliff Village

Shopping Center, and de Barros staged the opener there, “Boeing Boeing.”

While at Seacliff, the playhouse elected to put on an original

children’s Christmas show, “Visions of Sugar Plums,” (written and twice

directed by my then-wife, Beth Titus). De Barros provided the original

musical score for the production, which has now been staged in four

different incarnations.

Like most others in community theater, de Barros has performed and

directed at other local playhouses, and our paths have crossed on a few

occasions. He’s also done background work in movies such as “Air Force

One.” But his center of operations always has been the Huntington Beach

Playhouse.

De Barros became president of the playhouse the first time when his

predecessor moved east in the mid-1980s, and he’s stayed on the theater’s

board in one capacity or another ever since. He was directly involved in

getting the group relocated from Gisler School to the Huntington Beach

Library complex in 1994.

Looking back on his 35 years with the playhouse as actor, director and

board member, de Barros cites the dramas “Picnic” and “Laura” as his most

satisfying as a director. Both shows launched professional careers for

their stars, Lisa Wilcox and Carrie Mowery, respectively.

As for his favorite role as an actor, that would be the one he

discovered when he first cut through the fog to find the playhouse back

in 1966. That of Starbuck in “The Rainmaker.”