Greasepaint runs in this family

Tom Titus

It’s always advantageous, in any marriage, for the partners to share

a common interest. In the case of Alex Golson and Harriet Whitmyer,

it’s more of a mutual addiction.

Both are knee-deep in theater, Golson, 55, is practically

neck-deep as the chairman of Orange Coast College’s theater arts

department, where he’s directed more than 100 productions in a

lengthy and varied career.

Whitmyer, 54, has a fairly voluminous resume of her own, having

performed in more than 70 plays, two of them just this year at the

Newport Theater Arts Center. She displayed her dramatic ability in

“The Little Foxes,” then followed it with a high comic turn in the

recently concluded farce “Breath of Spring.”

The theatrical couple first met in 1981 at the Laguna Playhouse,

where Golson was directing the original play “Thornhill” and Whitmyer

was working backstage. Following a two-year courtship, they were

married at that same venue with Laguna actor George Woods, an

ordained minister, officiating.

Golson isn’t quite a native Californian -- he came to Costa Mesa

from Texas at the age of 2 -- but his Golden State credentials have

been pretty solid ever since. He graduated from Estancia High School

(where he played the leading role in “The Music Man” in his

introduction to the theater) and Orange Coast College.

Golson has been associated with the college since 1978, first as a part-time teacher and later as head of the drama department. In

between, however, he spent two years in New York where he found

himself in a small operation called the Actors Repertory Theater.

“I took a job as the janitor,” he recalls, “and worked up to

managing director of the theater.”

The experience proved invaluable.

Whitmyer, on the other hand, is a native, born in Downey and

raised in Northern California. But she put in “nine or 10 years” in

New Jersey before returning to her roots. Since then, she’s served on

the boards of directors at the Laguna Playhouse and Newport Theater

Arts Center, but dropped off both because she decided that she really

preferred the stage. “

Aside from the aforementioned plays, she’s also been seen at the

Newport Theater Arts Center in “The Guys,” “Young Man From Atlanta”

and, her personal favorite, as the mother in “Quilters.” She’s played

Myrtle Mae in “Harvey” and Lucille in “Gemini” at the Costa Mesa

Civic Playhouse.

And, of course, she’s seen plenty of stage time at Orange Coast

College, where she ranks “Equus” and “Bleacher Bums” among her top

memories. She and Golson also shared the Orange Coast College stage

in the leading roles of “Sweeney Todd,” and she portrayed would-be

presidential killer Sara Jane Moore in the college’s production of

“Assassins.”

Golson’s directorial highlights at Orange Coast College include

“Inherit the Wind” (which I remember quite well, having played Brady

in that 1989 production), “Hamlet,” “South Pacific,” the recent

“Othello,” “1776,” “Scapino” and “Tom Sawyer” (which featured my

then-teenage daughter, Mindy, as Becky Thatcher).

He stretched his acting muscles at UC Irvine as Sky Masterson in

“Guys and Dolls,” and as Teddy in “When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?”

among other productions. At Cal State Fullerton, he played Tom in

“The Glass Menagerie,” Brick in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and,

significantly, Prince Hal in “Henry IV.” Hal is the name of his and

Whitmyer’s 15-year-old son, who’s cast in his dad’s summer melodrama

opening this weekend.

“We also ran an acting school out of the Laguna Playhouse from

1982 to 1983 and ’84 to ‘86,” Whitmyer said. “It was an adult acting

class, and we had between 300 and 400 students.”

Down the road, Golson is particularly excited about a new play

he’ll direct at the Costa Mesa college in October -- “A Patch of

Earth” by Kitty Felde.

“It’s about the war in Bosnia,” he said. “Pretty heavy stuff.”

Light or heavy, big or small, it’s all theater; and for Alex

Golson and Harriet Whitmyer, it’s what they live for.

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

appear Fridays.