ON THEATER:

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third and final column reviewing 2008 in local theater.

The Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse has been around just as long as South Coast Repertory — both were inaugurated in 1965, the former as a community theater organized and operated for its first quarter century by its founding director, the late Pati Tambellini.

Following Tambellini’s retirement two decades ago, the playhouse has succeeded under various stewardships, the latest including some supremely dedicated individuals who delight in pushing the envelope, offering a sort of off-Broadway experience in comparison to South Coast Repertory’s professional and well-funded operation.

Two people whose contributions have been particularly noteworthy of late are the theater’s president and artistic force of nature and an actress whose work on the Costa Mesa stage has been exemplary. They are Ryan Holihan and Laura Lindahl, the Daily Pilot’s man and woman of the year in theater for 2008.

Holihan has a plethora of impressive and contrasting stage credits in Costa Mesa, including a wimpy clerk (“She Loves Me”), a sadistic drill sergeant (“Biloxi Blues”) and a repressed homosexual (“Sordid Lives”).

The actor, though, hit his zenith recently in the title role of “Bat Boy” as a wild child striving to adapt to civilization.

“Holihan develops his character, ‘Charly’-like, from a savage predator into a warm and caring, intelligent human being stung by the community’s rejection of him,” is the way this column assessed it.

He also choreographed the show.

Local audiences also have glimpsed Holihan in his various guises in “Urinetown” and “The Secret Affairs of Mildred Wild.” He’s also an accomplished director, staging Costa Mesa’s productions of “An Ideal Husband,” “The Secret Garden,” “Play On” and “Bus Stop,” among others.

As if that weren’t enough, Holihan also has a string of movie credits, among them “The Addams Family” and its sequel “Addams Family Values,” “Ed Wood,” “Apollo 13” and “Airheads.” Television appearances have included “Saved by the Bell,” “The Wonder Years,” “The Drew Carey Show” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.”

Along with fellow board member Michael Dale Brown, Holihan has headed the playhouse’s efforts to negotiate a working agreement with the Newport-Mesa school district, which owns the theater’s current performing venue at Rea School.

The tab is $500 a month, not easy to come by for a non-professional company budgeting from show to show.

Laura Lindahl is — to quote this column’s review of “She Loves Me” a few months ago — “a stunning blond who possesses a glorious voice and a captivating manner in both her sparring and sparking sessions. Her performance alone is worth the price of admission.”

Two years ago, in the title role of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” she elicited this comment: “Lindahl slinks through the play’s first act, which she dominates, with a splendid mixture of desperation and determination ... her voice dripping with Southern charm and innuendo.”

Lindahl, the daughter of actors/directors, grew up in the theater, graduating from the University of Mississippi with a bachelor’s of fine arts in musical theater. She met her husband while performing on cruise ships.

She’s been a familiar figure at the Costa Mesa Playhouse with her performances in “The Secret Garden,” “Lend Me a Tenor,” “Earthlings Beware,” “An Ideal Husband,” “Sordid Lives,” “Play On” and “Schoolhouse Rock.”

Audiences elsewhere have applauded her as Squeaky Fromme in “Assassins,” Val in “A Chorus Line,” Carnelle in “The Miss Firecracker Contest” and Cinderella in “Into the Woods.”

If you caught a commercial for Big Lots on television this season, you may have recognized Lindahl as a Christmas caroler.

Ryan Holihan and Laura Lindahl are two major reasons for the artistic success of the Costa Mesa Playhouse (it dropped the “Civic” earlier this year).

Each was honored in this column last week as the playhouse’s best actor and actress, respectively, for “Bat Boy” and “She Loves Me.” They truly are deserving of standing ovations.

TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews appear Thursdays.