Theater -- Tom Titus

Orange Coast College’s theatre arts department bills itself as one of

the country’s most active, and this month is a case in point as the

collegiate thespians set out in three separate directions.

OCC opened the Pulitzer Prize-nominated play “North Shore Fish”

Thursday night and has two more productions on the drawing boards -- the

musical drama “John Brown’s Body” and the college’s traditional

melodrama, in a spring staging rather than a holiday season production.

“North Shore Fish” by Israel Horovitz centers on a faltering

fish-packing plant in Gloucester, Mass., a play labeled by one critic as

“angry, passionate, raw, funny and sad.”

OCC’s John Ferzacca, who’s directing the show, commented that “It’s a

complex character study that captures the small joys, humor and

helplessness of a group of unskilled and underpaid workers in a fish

packing plant. While dealing with the mundane events of the working day,

the play skillfully exposes the tensions that lurk below the surface --

the petty intrigues, sexual frustrations and job-loss anxieties.”

The play, which contains adult situations and language, “gathered the

most favorable reviews any play of mine has ever garnered,” playwright

Horovitz has said. The author of “The Indian Wants the Bronx” and many

others also said “North Shore Fish” focuses on the role of women in

Gloucester’s working-class society and “is about love and dignity in the

workplace.”

Heading the cast for the OCC production is Maria Hall-Brown, associate

producer and reporter for the nightly KOCE-TV news program “Real Orange,”

and Jessica Hutchinson, a veteran of several OCC shows and the Daily

Pilot’s woman of the year in theater for 2001. Other performers include

Greg McClure, Isabella Melo, Nancy Troia, Sean Hesketh, Emily Reud and

Jessica Rubinstein.

“North Shore Fish” plays this weekend and next, with performances

Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets may

be obtained by calling OCC at (714) 432-5880.

The last time “John Brown’s Body” was produced locally was back in

1965 in Laguna Beach, where one of the leading actors was a young man

billed as Harry Ford who took his full first name, Harrison, and went on

to Hollywood superstardom.

OCC will give the Civil War musical drama, based on the epic poem by

Stephen Vincent Benet, a revival in May, and will hold auditions Monday

from 5:30 to 7 p.m. and Tuesday from 7 to 9 p.m. Alex Golson, head of the

college’s drama department, is directing.

“‘John Brown’s Body” is a moving and patriotic stage reading of

Benet’s poem, with the chorus remaining on stage for the entire play. The

show opens its two-week run May 2 and audition information is available

at (714) 432-5640.

Later this month, OCC will revive what has become an irregular holiday

season tradition, the “Old-Fashioned Melodrama and Ice Cream Social.” The

show will be produced by the college’s Repertory Theater Company.

Performances will be given March 21-24 only in the OCC’s Drama Lab

Studio. Curtain will be 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday with matinees at

2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday and a closing performance Sunday at 7 p.m.

The family-style melodrama, at which audiences will be encouraged to

cheer the hero and boo the villain, is priced at $6 in advance and $7 at

the door. Call (714) 432-5640 for more information.

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

Pilot. His stories appear Thursdays and Saturdays.