Greenberg’s ‘Naked Girl’ set for SCR premiere

Tom Titus

The play entitled “A Naked Girl on the Appian Way” might not ring any

bells with South Coast Repertory playgoers, but its author, Richard

Greenberg, certainly will strike a responsive chord.

Greenberg’s plays have enjoyed six world premieres at SCR and

“Naked Girl,” the seventh, will open April 8, filling the last

remaining production slot on the theater’s 2004-05 season schedule.

Greenberg’s baseball-themed play “Take Me Out” won a Tony award as

best play of last year’s Broadway season. It was one of the few plays

of his that hasn’t seen the first light of production at SCR.

Past seasons have introduced Greenberg’s “The Violet Hour,”

“Everett Beekin,” “Three Days of Rain,” “Hurrah at Last” and “Night

and Her Stars.” His “The Dazzle” was a West Coast premiere at SCR

after winning the Outer Critics’ Circle award in New York.

“A Naked Girl on the Appian Way” is, as the title might suggest, a

comedy. It centers on married couple Jeffrey and Bess, an eccentric

genius and cooking show host, respectively, whose two children return

from a year’s tour of Europe. The news they bring triggers a chain

reaction of neighborhood revelations.

Directing “Naked Girl” will be Mark Rucker, who staged “Cyrano de

Bergerac” as the season closer of 2003-04. It’ll be Rucker’s 17th

stint in an SCR director’s chair. Past directorial credits by Rucker

at SCR include, “The Dazzle,” “Hold Please,” “So Many Words,” “The

Triumph of Love” and Shakespearean plays “Much Ado about Nothing,”

“The Taming of the Shrew” and “Two Gentlemen of Verona.”

Greenberg’s new work will be the fourth world premiere of the SCR

season. The others are the currently running “Brooklyn Boy” by Donald

Margulies, Christopher Shinn’s “On the Mountain” (January) and

Lucinda Coxon’s “Vesuvius” (April). “Vesuvius” and “A Naked Girl on

the Appian Way” will be the featured productions in SCR’s eighth

annual Pacific Playwrights Festival the weekend of May 6 to 8.

OCC PLAYING SHORTS

Orange Coast College will attempt to show its audiences that less

is more next weekend when the OCC Repertory Theater Company mounts

its annual “Ten or Less” festival.

A collection of short plays -- each running 10 minutes or less in

length -- will be staged Thursday through Oct. 3 in the college’s

Drama Lab Studio. Curtain is 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2

p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday.

Some of the playlets are original, hatched in the fertile minds of

OCC students, and others will be from recognized playwrights. All are

student-directed.

Tickets, at $7, may be reserved in advance by calling (714)

432-5640, ext. 1, where callers also may receive a performance

schedule.

Tickets at the door are $8, and seating is limited.

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

appear Fridays.