OCC theater tuning up for spring and ‘Pippin’

Tom Titus

There may not be as many coming attractions as there were before

budgetary problems necessitated some cutbacks in the season, but

Orange Coast College still is gearing up for an active spring season.

Six productions, highlighted by a revival of the musical “Pippin,”

await OCC audiences over the spring theater session. Some will be

blink-and-you-miss-’em one-weekend engagements, but the activity will

be there, nevertheless.

Up first in the six-show spring lineup will be an evening of short

plays, scenes and monologues for and about women entitled “Telling

Our Stories.” This event, staged by OCC’s Repertory Theater Company,

runs Feb. 14 to 15 and 21 to 22 in the college’s Studio Theater.

More monologues are on tap for March 6 and 7 when the Rep produces

its brief “Solo Voices” program. These, as the title suggests, are

all one-person attractions.

“Pippin,” the Steven Schwartz musical about the son of the ancient

ruler Charlemagne, has been presented at OCC once before, in 1979.

This time around, the college has recruited veteran musical

performer/director Beth Hansen to stage its production.

Hansen, who performed in a one-woman show at OCC last September,

has gained attention locally with such productions as “Little Shop of

Horrors,” “Tintypes,” “And the World Goes Round,” “Funny Girl,” “42nd

Street,” “Side by Side by Sondheim” and the only locally mounted

version of Forbidden Broadway -- so enjoyable (20 years ago) that I

went back for second helpings so that my children could experience

the show.

Another OCC Repertory show, yet to be determined, will be staged

by the Rep April 16 to 18 in the Studio Theater. It’ll be a

full-length play mounted by an advanced directing student in the vein

of such past impressive attractions as “Oleanna” and “Some Men Need

Help.”

The college will offer its annual “Spring One-Act Play Festival”

May 5 to 9 in the Studio, featuring over a dozen different

student-directed one-acts. The program usually includes classic and

modern works, as well as original pieces by the students.

Finally, OCC will offer a whale of a show May 19 to 22 -- an

advance look at the college’s annual touring production. This one,

available for staging at local schools, will be an adaptation of

Herman Melville’s classic novel “Moby Dick,” under the direction of

Alex Golson, who heads the OCC theater department.

You can get all the details on OCC’s theater classes or

productions by calling the college at (714) 432-5640.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews

appear Fridays.