Local playhouse celebrates 40 years

TOM TITUS

The Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse is celebrating its 40th birthday

today. I know, because I was present at the creation.

Back in the spring of 1965, when I was barely out of knee pants,

I’d just started reviewing local plays and writing about the theater

for the Daily Pilot when it occurred to me that my columns might be

more informed if I had some practical experience.

(Besides, it looked like a lot of fun and a great way to meet

girls.)

In May of that year, the Civic Playhouse, under its founding

director, Pati Tambellini, announced plans for its first

community-theater project, having already put a children’s play and a

youth show on the boards. The maiden production was the comedy “Send

Me No Flowers.”

I auditioned, won the cameo role of the cemetery lot salesman (the

smarmy guy played by Paul Lynde in the movie version), and got my

feet wet in community theater on this day in 1965. And I experienced

my first and last taste of entrance applause.

I’d been a reporter at the Pilot, covering the city of Costa Mesa,

for about a year and a half, and many of the local city officials

were in attendance on opening night. When they responded

enthusiastically to my first entrance, the resultant shock nearly

erased all 40 or so lines I’d painstakingly committed to memory.

The Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse was born the same year, at least

locally, as South Coast Repertory, which dates its birth from its

fledgling summer in Long Beach as the Actors Workshop in 1964.

While the repertory was stretching its artistic muscles in a

converted marine swap shop on the Balboa bayfront, the Civic

Playhouse was making do in what once was the base theater on the old

Santa Ana Army Air Base.

I was around for quite a few of those early productions -- the

most memorable being “Mister Roberts,” in which I played the role

that won Jack Lemmon his first Oscar, Ensign Frank Thurlo Pulver. It

was worth all the hard work (and transporting the goat to the theater

and back each night) just to be able to rattle off that last line:

“Captain, it is I, Ensign Pulver, and I just threw your damn,

stinking palm trees overboard. Now what’s all this crap about no

movie tonight?”

As the years went on, I appeared in several other shows for the

playhouse, as well as other local theater groups, then I started

directing in 1968. For 31 years, I was artistic director of the

Irvine Community Theater, a pro bono but exhilarating position I

finally hung up two years ago.

But the Civic Playhouse always was home, since that’s where it all

started. In 1985, Pati announced “Father of the Bride” as the

theater’s 20th anniversary show. Feeling nostalgic, I auditioned and

wound up with the title role (the father, not the bride). By that

time, the playhouse had relocated from its vintage auditorium on the

fairgrounds to its present location in the Rea School complex on

Hamilton Avenue.

My fondest memory of that show was walking with the actress

playing my daughter, Kelly Miller, arm in arm off stage in the final

scene -- then having my own 6-year-old daughter, Mindy, come

backstage and take my arm so I could escort her to the dressing room.

It turned out to be good practice for that day more than three years

ago when I walked Mindy down the aisle for real.

Now 20 more years have passed, and the playhouse is celebrating

the big 4-0. It serves to remind me just how fast time really does

fly when you’re having fun. And believe me, performing or directing

in community theater is about as much fun as you can have with your

clothes on.

Yes, it’s a lot of work, and it’s very time consuming. And the

show doesn’t always come off exactly the way you’d like it to. But

that’s part of the exhilaration of live theater, the part that

differentiates it from movies or television. When it really does

work, it’s a terrific high.

Pati Tambellini finally retired after about a quarter century at

the playhouse helm and died a few years ago. Younger, fresher talents

are maintaining the legacy, though now it takes about six volunteers

to do what Pati did. The show, as they say, must go on, and it is.

Here’s to at least another 40 years of the Costa Mesa Civic

Playhouse.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot.