Costa Mesa is Broadway bound

Lolita Harper

Costa Mesa’s Broadway is no longer just a small residential street on

the Eastside. It’s metropolitan. It’s culture. It’s the Bank of

America Broadway Series at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

For years, performing arts insiders have talked about putting

Orange County on the map and sealing its reputation as a national

cultural hub. After a great journey, the area once known only for its

proximity to Los Angeles has arrived.

“I do think we are pretty much there,” said Todd Bentjen, Center

vice president of marketing and communications. “There is so much

support for everything we do.”

Bentjen said producers of critically acclaimed shows such as

“Urinetown,” “Starlight Express” and “Oklahoma!” -- which are among

those in the 2003-04 Broadway Series -- are eager to come to the new

center of suburbia. Many shows set records in Orange County, Bentjen

said, and if they don’t, they come really close.

“Shows love coming here as much as we love having them here,”

Bentjen said.

The Center announced last week its 2003-04 Bank of America

Broadway Series, which includes “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Flower

Drum Song,” “The Producers” and “Michael Flatley’s Lord of the

Dance.” Officials have touted the series as star-studded and balanced

-- the best entertainment for all audiences.

ON THE MAP

Brian Langston, spokesman for the Orange County Museum of Art in

Newport Beach, said the Center’s Broadway series is one of the things

that has put Orange County on the cultural map. He was not at all

surprised at the Center’s phenomenal line up.

“I think it is fair to say the Center has established itself as a

logical venue,” Langston said. “Not to say anything to compromise

their efforts in getting those shows, but they are so established

that it is not extraordinary that they get them.”

Orange County is no longer just tract homes just south of Los

Angeles. It is not just the home of Disneyland and orange groves.

Still one of the nation’s richest counties, despite a bankruptcy in

the 1990s, Orange County has the resources to support a strong

cultural center.

“We are beyond the point where we have to contrast ourselves to

L.A.,” Langston said. “We have our own identity, and it is a very

strong and sophisticated identity, and growing more so all the time.

You don’t have to talk people into coming to Orange County anymore.”

While there is a strong support for the arts in Newport-Mesa, one

Daily Pilot reader, Garry Short, questioned locals’ reaction to the

title “Urinetown.”

“It looks like another great season of Broadway musicals coming to

the Orange County Performing Arts Center, but a couple of questions,”

Short wrote in an e-mail. “A play with the name ‘Urinetown’ might win

Tonys in New York, but will it really sell in conservative Orange

County?”

A BIT OF FUN

Bentjen acknowledged a hurdle with the show’s name and said even

New Yorkers had to learn to love it. Producers and theaters launched

a “just say it” campaign, which had the folks of New York uttering

its name up and down the streets, he said.

People really need to see the musical, which Bentjen describes as

a loving parody of Broadway, to understand why the name was chosen.

The show pokes jabs at its own name, as well as making loving

references to “Les Miserables,” “Cabaret” and “Starlight Express.”

“People who really love Broadway will appreciate the loving

tribute that it is,” Bentjen said.

Season tickets cost from $200 to $433 and can be bought by calling

(714) 556-ARTS or visit the Center Web site at www.ocpac.org.

* LOLITA HARPER writes columns Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and

covers culture and the arts. She may be reached at (949) 574-4275 or

by e-mail at lolita.harper@latimes.com.