Theater -- Tom Titus

There are people you encounter who effectively change the course of

your life merely by their presence in it. For me, one of those people was

Pati Tambellini.

Pati did more than create the Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse and operate

it for almost a quarter of a century. She also cast me in my first

community theater role back in 1965. The civic playhouse and I started

out together, and we’ve both been at it ever since.

This remarkable lady, who died Saturday, had a plethora of theater

experience behind her when she answered the summons of the city of Costa

Mesa and its cultural arts coordinator, Bette Berg, to become the

founding director of the playhouse in what was then a virtual firetrap on

the Orange County Fairgrounds.

The first playhouse building contained a stage, an auditorium and

sufficient dressing area, although backstage space was a bit scant. It

was fertile enough ground for Pati’s creative genius to take root. She’d

use the main stage, the auditorium floor and, on occasion, the area

behind the audience for multi-set shows such as “The Women.”

First she started a children’s theater, and she and musical director

Anita Grossman created several original shows for young people. Then came

a teen group, with now-retired Estancia High School drama teacher Barbara

Van Holt staging a production of “The Young and Fair” to launch this

phase of the operation.

Finally, in June 1965, she brought forth the first adult production,

the light comedy “Send Me No Flowers.” I made my debut as the cemetery

lot salesman, the part Paul Lynde played in the movie version. That minor

role lighted a flame that has yet to be extinguished.

Pati presided at the fairgrounds auditorium for nearly two decades,

finally moving with the theater to its present location at 611 Hamilton

St., Costa Mesa, in 1984. I returned the following year to play the

“Father of the Bride” in the playhouse’s 20th anniversary show -- an

experience that helped prepare me for the real thing a few months ago

when I escorted my daughter Mindy down the aisle.

Not only was she a creative and prolific director (staging most

seasons single-handedly for years), Pati also was an accomplished

actress, as she proved as Big Mama in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” Madam

Arcati in “Blithe Spirit” and many other roles. But her primary thrust

was her plays’ (and her theater’s) direction. She also taught many a

young thespian how to build and paint a set.

The end of the Pati Tambellini era at the civic playhouse arrived in

1988 with a bouncy production of “Call Me Madam.” Soon afterward, the

theater began giving out acting trophies dubbed the “Pati Awards” in her

honor.

Now the curtain is closed on an extraordinary community theater

career. Pati Tambellini made it happen for 23 years at the Costa Mesa

Civic Playhouse, and while she’d surely scoff at such sentimentality, it

is doubtful that we’ll see her like again.

A memorial service for Pati is planned later this month at the Orange

County Fairgrounds, near the building she turned into a theater in 1965.

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

Pilot. His stories appear Thursdays and Saturdays