Season opens with a roar

Tom Titus

Traditionally, it’s March that’s supposed to come in like a lion, but

that adage also could be applied to September on the local theater

scene.

The 2004-05 season not only will arrive next week, it’ll wash over

the local playhouses like a tidal wave of greasepaint with five

productions opening, followed by two more the following week.

No sooner will Labor Day herald the unofficial end of summer than

the Orange County Performing Arts Center will turn up the spotlight

on its first show of the new season. This will be the musical revue

“Side by Side by Sondheim,” featuring local luminary Teri Ralston,

who works across the street, teaching musical theater at South Coast

Repertory.

“Sondheim,” a tribute to Broadway’s uber-composer Stephen Sondheim

and featuring musical numbers from his greatest (and not so great)

shows, will be in the center’s Founders Hall for two weeks, from

Tuesday through Sept. 19. The center’s main stage comes alive the

following Tuesday, Sept. 14, with the third visit of the abrasive

urban musical “Rent.”

South Coast Rep, where world premieres abound, has another in the

works to kick off its new season. Donald Margulies’ “Brooklyn Boy”

arrives next Friday on the Segerstrom Stage as the first SCR

production to move directly from Costa Mesa to Broadway -- it’s

ticketed for the Biltmore Theater in New York, opening Feb. 3.

The Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse, which closed its last season with

the musical “Cabaret,” opens the new campaign a week from tonight

with another play dealing with the ominous threat of Nazi Germany

during World War II. “The Diary of Anne Frank” recounts a teenage

Dutch girl’s written memoirs of her desperate family’s days in hiding

from their inevitable fate.

“Poetry 101” is the subject at Orange Coast College as OCC’s

Repertory Theater Company launches its 20th season. The

student-operated troupe will open this celebration of the spoken word

next Friday for the customary two-weekend run.

Also on the collegiate scene, Costa Mesa’s Vanguard University

will kick off its new season with the musical revue “Starting Here,

Starting Now,” opening next Friday for two weekends. This show places

its emphasis on the search for love and companionship.

The following Friday, Sept. 24, will see the Newport Theater Arts

Center back in business with Herb Gardner’s most well-known comedy “A

Thousand Clowns.” That particular play holds special memories, since

it was the first show I reviewed for the Daily Pilot nearly 40 years

ago, and 25 years later I took on the role of Murray Burns in a

community theater production.

OCC’s Rep company again will be out to prove that less is more,

starting Sept. 30, with its annual “10 or Less Festival.” This

program will be a series of one-act plays, each running for a maximum

of 10 minutes, and all will be student-directed.

“The Retreat From Moscow” on South Coast Rep’s Julianne Argyros

Stage doesn’t deal with the Napoleonic wars directly, but rather

their impact on an unraveling 33-year modern marriage in this West

Coast premiere by William Nicholson. Opening night will be Oct. 1.

Vanguard University is back in action Oct. 15 with a revival of

the classic vintage comedy “Life With Father.” The show details a

patriarch’s struggles with his four sons and his wife, who’s

determined to have him baptized. It runs through Oct. 24.

The SCR spotlight swings back to the Segerstrom Stage Oct. 22 with

“Habeas Corpus” by Alan Bennett, a farcical piece focusing on some

young Brits in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. It’s described as a

comic whirlwind of lechery within the medical profession.

Orange Coast College will round out the first two months of the

season with “View of the Dome,” a new satirical play by Theresa

Rebeck touted as a comic journey through the sexual politics and

intrigue of the nation’s capital. It’ll be on view for only four

days, Oct. 21-24.

November will bring another gust of theatrical wind, with SCR’s

Young Conservatory staging “The Hoboken Chicken Experiment,” Vanguard

University staging “A Murder is Announced,” Newport Theater Arts

Center opening the “Redwood Curtain” and, late in the month, SCR

mounting its 25th annual production of “A Christmas Carol.”

Yes, it’s nearly that time again.

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

appear Fridays.