Teacher Joe Alanes with a student.
The Neighborhood Conservatory, SCR's Best Kept Secret
04/28/10 • Sometimes the great work done by SCR’s Education Department goes unnoticed, and to remedy that, we’d like to introduce readers to one of the important programs offered by the department that takes place not at SCR but in area elementary schools, thanks to contributions from the Friends of SCR.
That program is the Neighborhood Conservatory, currently operating free afternoon acting classes in five elementary schools in Costa Mesa: Rea (instructor Diana Burbano), College Park (instructor Joe Alanes), Wilson (instructor Amy Louise Sebelius), Paularino (instructor Marianne Savell) and Pomona (instructor Sara Guerrero).
Girls in the Neighborhood Conservatory.
It’s an understatement to say that the instructors are energetic, enthusiastic and encouraging. They are simply the best young teachers for these kids—many of whom live in at-risk areas where after-school programs provide a safe gathering place.
According to Joe Alanas, who has a record of success in the program, the emphasis is on self-esteem, teamwork, discipline and respect. “Even if the kids don’t want to be actors or get involved with theater, what they learn in Neighborhood Conservatory is helpful to them as they grow and develop.”
Joe has a big class—22 kids. “And,” he adds, “they come in from playing outside after school so they’re really hyper. Because the classroom is small, we do a lot outside, and it’s definitely a challenge, getting their attention!”
Boys in the Neighborhood Conservatory
But according to Joe, the challenge is worth it. “It’s very rewarding, because the kids are always happy to see me, and I know they really appreciate the class. The shy kids find out that the class offers a safe place to take chances, and they eventually get up and participate. As for the ones who are really hyper, if that’s toned in the right way it’ll reveal strokes of very good stuff. I see in many of the kids a spark of talent on the inside. It’s just a matter of getting them out of their shells and giving them self confidence. Of course, many of them are hams to begin with!”
Joe brings to Neighborhood Conservatory lots of talent of his own. He’s a founding member and co-artistic director of a new non-profit theatre company, The Modjeska Playhouse, has directed three plays there and is currently staging a theatre for young audiences production of David Mamet’s The Frog Prince. Most recently he was a director and program supervisor for Kaiser Permante Education Theatre Programs. At SCR, he directed three Junior Players shows and acted in many Educational Touring Productions. Also as an actor, he toured the country with Magic School Bus Live and has appeared in productions at theaters from San Diego to New York City.
Segerstrom Honored
04/27/10 • It’s safe to say that the performing arts in Orange County would have a very different look (and in some cases no look at all) were it not for Henry Segerstrom. South Coast Repertory was the first arts organization to benefit from his largesse; the theatre sits on land he donated, and many gifts followed throughout SCR’s history. But it is his abiding interest, his dedication and his love of the arts that has enriched our community and put Orange County on the cultural map of America. We join the applause for Segerstrom as he receives the Carnegie Hall Medal of Excellence for outstanding leadership in arts philanthropy on June 7 in New York City.
Read more...
Doctor Cerberus touches the Heart/Funny Bone
04/27/10 • Doctor Cerberus, the tender, funny, sad, uplifting new play by one of the most diversified young writers in America today (Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa also writes for Marvel Comics and the Big Love television series) captivated the First Night audience on April 16, led by praise from its Honorary Producer Laurie Smits-Staude.
“Roberto has given us a treasure that reflects his wonderful ability to hear how people really talk and makes you laugh outloud, and Bart has masterminded a brilliant production, complete with dazzling videos. The performances are so brilliant and touching that I can't imagine any other actors in the roles. Also, having raised sons myself, I know how they can squabble and fight, but when the chips are down, they come to the support of each other. I hope this play has a long life; it adds a wonderful and new niche in the canon of American drama. ”
In his Monday morning review, Paul Hodgins of the Orange County Register called the play “taut and entertaining,” praised all the actors and added, “Bart DeLorenzo’s sure-footed direction … plumbs the depths of this thoughtful and multi-layered script.”
After the show, First Nighters gathered for a party hosted by Maggiano’s Little Italy in its South Coast Plaza restaurant, which was appropriately decorated to represent the world of Doctor Cerberus—the host of “Nightmare Theatre.”
Read all about the party and see the glittering photos.
Playwright Brings Unique British-American Voice to SCR
04/20/10 • British-born playwright Bathsheba Doran is an admitted “American-o-phile.”
“There are a few of us,” she jokes. “[Alfred] Hitchcock was one.”
Since childhood, she dreamed of moving to the United States.
“I felt like I was born an American, in England, she says. “I never really felt British. I come from a Jewish family, and I think it’s easier to be a Jew in America. I always just felt very conscious of my otherness. Also, I was raised on American things. I loved American cinema as a child.”
Bathsheba—“Bash” to her friends—has been living in New York for nearly 10 years now and writing plays—two of which have SCR connections. The first, Kin, was read at last week’s Pacific Playwrights Festival. The second, a children’s play called Ben and the Magic Paintbrush, will have its world premiere May 21 through June 6.
Kin brings together a tangled web of family and friends in a story that centers around the romantic relationship between Anna, an academic, and Sean, a personal trainer.
“There’s a lot of humor,” she says, “but there’s a lot of pain as well.”
Though not inspired by any one thing, the play was informed by Doran’s marriage last summer.
“The play was written over the period of my engagement,” she says. “I think because I was marrying a woman, and it’s not legal to get married, I was having to ask myself some very serious questions about what the point of getting married was…what is the meaning of the ritual?
“It’s hard not to see it retrospectively as informing the play because it’s really about this process of forming new kinship circles, and certainly it’s very personal in that I was aware of [my own] two extremely different families coming together."
But it was also influenced by her work on the children’s play.
“When I wrote Ben and the Magic Paintbrush, suddenly I was taking these enormous flights of fancy, because with kids you can say ‘Somebody’s poisoned and therefore they fall asleep, but they’ll be OK,’ and ‘Somebody’s in disguise, but nobody will recognize them.’ There’s this set of ancient conventions that you get to use.”
Doran says the process loosened her imagination and made her lighten up a bit, encouraged her to “push the storytelling a little harder.”
Still, Kin deals with themes that turn up consistently in her work: friendship and living in foreign lands.
Which brings us back to England vs. America.
“I think American people—and British people—love the idea that British theatre is inherently better, but that hasn’t really been my experience. I’ve seen really wonderful theatre in both countries; I’ve seen dreadful theatre in both countries.”
What England has, Doran says, is a venerable canon headed by Shakespeare.
“I think America is still caught up—in a good way—in finding new American voices, whereas England can sort of rest on its laurels. There’s not a great patriotic zeal to find a great British voice because they found one 500 years ago.”
That’s good news for us Americans, who are happy to claim her British-American voice as our own.
Grad Student Playwright Blends Comedy, Tragedy
04/16/10 • When David West Read was in elementary school, he wrote and directed a little movie called Jurassic Pork.
“It was a parody of Jurassic Park with pigs,” he explains, laughing. “I had a weird obsession with pigs. I wrote a series of short stories about a pig-man and then made a movie based on one of those. Keep in mind I was pretty young.”
David’s still pretty young—27—and he’s got about a month to go before he completes his MA in dramatic writing at New York University. Recently, he was at SCR’s Pacific Playwrights Festival for the reading of his graduate thesis, a play called Happy Face.
No, it’s not about pigs. It’s about 20-year-old Wendy and her 17-year-old brother, Poots (at least that’s what everybody calls him). Their parents recently died in a canoeing accident, and Wendy is trying to find a job that will not only support them but also pay for plastic surgery for Poots, whose face is badly scarred from another accident—so badly scarred that he wears a Phantom of the Opera mask and has taken to living in a refrigerator box in the back yard.
If that sounds sad, it is—but it’s also very funny. After all, it’s from the guy who wrote Jurassic Pork.
In high school in his native Canada, David says, he was an excellent student, not to mention student council president and a member of the jazz ensemble, the wind symphony and the school newspaper. His friends were the funny guys, though not necessarily the most popular ones.
Then in college, at the University of Toronto, he began writing and acting in a sketch-comedy show. He spent two years after college doing improv and acting in Canadian commercials and TV shows before deciding to study dramatic writing. His plays are much more serious than his sketch work, of course, but his humorous personality always bubbles up.
“[I don’t believe] all comedy has to be an absurd, silly exaggeration of life but that comedy is everywhere in life,” he says, “and especially in the most painful times.”
The idea for Happy Face started with his wish to write a play about a brother and sister.
“I wanted specifically to write about a brother-sister relationship that’s good,” he says. “They fight a lot and have a lot of problems, but they really do love each other."
Not coincidentally, David has an older sister, Robyn: “I pulled a lot from my own relationship with my sister. Even though there’s very little autobiography in the play events-wise, I think it comes from a very personal place.”
“Personal” is important, says David, who wanted to share this piece of advice, given to him by an NYU professor, with other young writers: “The best writing is writing that you feel slightly embarrassed to show to other people because there is something of yourself in there. You wonder: ‘What will people think of me if I put this out there? Am I giving away something secret about myself?’”
It's All in the Family
04/19/10 • Former SCR Theatre Conservatory Director Laurie Woolery will stage the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s production of The Language Archive, which had its world premiere last month at SCR. The play will open the 2011 Season (Feb 27 - June 17) in OSF’s New Theatre.
Some background: This will be the first OSF play directed by Woolery, who is currently associate artistic director at Cornerstone Theatre Company. Cornerstone was founded by Bill Rauch, who is currently OSF’s artistic director. As if that’s not enough closeness, Rauch staged four productions at SCR (Lovers and Executioners in 2003, Habeas Corpus in 2004, The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler in 2006 and My Wandering Boy in 2007).
In addition to being a former SCR Conservatory Director, Woolery is a graduate of SCR's Professional Acting Program and appeared in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and six seasons of A Christmas Carol. She wrote and directed the SCR Players productions of Bliss, The Hundred Dresses and Orphan Train: The Lost Children and taught in the Adult Acting Program.
When Laurie received the call from Bill, asking her to direct the show, it came as a real surprise. “I love Bill, and I love his work,” she said. “I’ve gone up to Ashland to see his shows, and obviously we’re still in contact, but I really wasn’t expecting this offer. When the call came, Bill told me that he was doing The Language Archive next season and wanted me to direct. He said, ‘When I read the play I thought you could really do something great with it.’ And so, when I was able to pick up my jaw from the floor, I accepted!”
Glowing Words for The Language Archive
04/02/10 • April 2, 2010, the world premiere of Julia Cho’s The Language Archive. What a night! It all began at 6pm when members of the Playwrights Circle gathered for a pre-dinner photo before re-gathering for their customary pre-show dinner at Pinot Provence. Over seven seasons, the group, which underwrites a world premiere on the Segerstrom Stage annually, begins the evening with this comradely dinner and its traditional photo.
After that, they are lauded in curtain speeches before the play and assemble again at the Cast Party afterwards—this time co-hosted by Mikimoto at Marché Moderne. Read all about the play and the party and check out the photos...
Fund-Raising Fun: SCR's 2010 Gala Ball
04/02/10 • On February 10, when Sophie Cripe accepted SCR’s invitation to chair the 2010 Gala Ball, “The Play’s the Thing,” that was news! (See the March issue of Dialogue).
On March 24th, the first meeting of the full committee was held at the site of the upcoming event, the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort & Spa, where a light brunch was served. OK, that’s probably not big news—although the Mimosas were unusually delicious—but committee members got lots of work done as they began plans for the big event, which constitutes the first and one of the largest gifts to SCR’s Annual Fund.
Read all about the meeting and see more photos.
Developing Theatre One Commission at a Time
03/19/10 • New York. Boston. Seattle. L.A.: Lately, our commissioned plays are turning up everywhere! Since 1985, SCR has awarded more than 241 commissions to 153 playwrights. We commission between 8 and 12 plays each year, which is, to our knowledge, higher than any other theatre company in the U.S. For those not familiar with the term, a “commission” means that we pay a writer to create a play for us. We then get the right to produce it first, which we sometimes do and sometimes don’t.
Over the years, scores of SCR commissions, including Richard Greenberg’s Three Days of Rain (1997) and David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitizer-Prize wining Rabbit Hole (1997), went on to be produced at other theatres. Now, these four are making headlines:
Read a recent interview with Kristen Greenidge
Read a recent interview with Orange County native Sharr White
In A Garden Mesmerizes Audience
03/19/10 • Howard Korder’s latest world premiere at SCR kept audience members hanging on every word exchanged between the culture minister of a fictitious Middle Eastern country and the America architect with whom he plays a fascinating cat-and-mouse game—until the very end, when they cheered the captivating performances.
Then it was time to congratulate the artists, and thank the Honorary Producers, during the post-production fête, co-hosted by Pinot Provence at its restaurant in The Westin South Coast Plaza.
The History of Esperanto
03/08/10 • Esperanto is an invented language, the brainchild of Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof. Zamenhof, born in 1859, was not the first (or the last) to attempt to construct a language to address the perceived failure of words in our society, but unlike many other languages Esperanto gained a foothold to become a living language—with original literature, native speakers (children taught Esperanto at birth), and a dedicated following.
Zamenhof made several attempts at forming a universal language. He first developed a lexicon of one syllable words but found he would forget the meanings he assigned them. He knew a universal language needed to be as easy as possible to learn in order to gain widespread use. Eventually, he developed the system known as Esperanto, which relies on phonetic spelling and a system of root words familiar to anyone with a working knowledge of Romance or Germanic languages.
In 1887 Zamenhof gathered together the resources to publish a pamphlet he titled Lingvo internacia. Antaŭparolo kaj plena lernolibro (International Language. Foreword And Complete Textbook). It was published under the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto (Doctor Hopeful), from which is where the name of the language is derived. His goal was to unify the world. He believed that if people could overcome language barriers they could live in harmony. When asked how he came to his beliefs, he explained: “I was educated to be an idealist. I was taught that all men are brothers; and yet on the street and in the marketplace everything caused me to feel ‘people’ did not exist, that they were only Russians, Poles, Germans, Jews, etc.” He felt that a language that was neutral and didn’t belong to a particular culture would put people on equal footing and promote understanding among nationalities.
Unlike the inventors of other constructed languages such as Universalglot or Volopük, Zamenhof didn’t seek control of development and wanted his language to adapt through usage. He rejected motions for official overhaul and allowed changes to happen organically as Esperanto spread. The idealistic philosophy behind Esperanto helped his language attract a large following. The World Esperanto Congress first occurred in 1905 and has been happening annually since, with brief hiatuses during WWI and WWII. Estimates of the number of Esperanto speakers today range from 50,000 to two million and are spread worldwide, with chapters of the Universal Esperanto Association (UAE) in over 100 countries. Speakers of Esperanto have developed a culture of openness and tolerance, wherein they celebrate every native background through their shared universal language. The UAE has a list of Esperanto speakers through the world who have offered their homes to house travelling Esperanto speakers. The World Esperanto Congress is a colorful and lively affair, with performances, music, and seminars of all varieties—all in the uniting voice of Esperanto.
Fun Facts Zamenhof has an asteroid named after him.
His birthday, December 15th, is celebrated as Esperanto Day. Last year, Google honored his birthday with a Google doodle. Google also has a portal for internet searching in Esperanto.
Political activist and Hungarian businessman George Soros is one of the rare native speaker of Esperanto, who was taught the language from birth, though he is no longer active in furthering the cause of Esperanto.
SCR board president appointed to Arts Council
03/10/10 • Wylie Aitken, president of SCR’s Board of Trustees, will soon join the California Arts Council. He was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on March 4.
Here’s an article about his appointment from News Blaze: “Wylie Aitken, 68, of Anaheim, has been appointed to the California Arts Council. Aitken has been a founding partner of Aitken, Aitken, Cohn Law Corporation since 1971. He is a trustee and board president of the South Coast Repertory Theater and Orange County Performing Arts. Aitken is chair for the Board of Visitors of Chapman University Law School and a trustee of Chapman University. This position requires Senate confirmation and the compensation is $100 per diem. Aitken is a Democrat.”
The Big Screen Beckons
03/08/10 • Here’s the pitch, in 25 words or less: SCR’s fabulous playwriting instructor Cecilia Fannon is going to teach you to write a screenplay. Which is easier — and harder— than writing a play. Class starts March 31.
OK, that was actually 28 words. Guess we’re not quite ready for Hollywood. But Cecilia assures us that with training and practice, we will be.
“After taking my class, I think anybody can write a screenplay,” she says. “I don’t think just anybody can write plays.”
SCR regulars tend to think of Cecilia first and foremost as a playwright — after all she has taught playwriting classes here for 15 years, and her play, Green Icebergs, had its world premiere here.
But Cecilia, who has an MFA in film from UCLA and has taught screenwriting at Long Beach City College for many years, has written for stage, television and film.
Screenwriting is governed by a much stricter set of guiding principles than is playwriting, she says. “Something has to happen on every other page of a screenplay. In playwriting, you have a lot more freedom. But that’s what makes it harder. You don’t have those ‘rules’ to guide you along.”
During her eight-week class, students will watch movies and perform script breakdowns, counting scenes and documenting what happens in those scenes.
“You have to be able to recognize patterns and recognize them as quickly as possible.”
And, of course, they will write their own scenes, probably two of them, or about four pages.
After that, they’ll be ready for bigger things.
“I always say that screenwriting is like the game of Go,” says Cecilia. “It takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master.”
Read more about SCR's Screenwriting class.
Conservatory Student Returns for World Premiere
03/02/10 • Phillip Vaden doesn’t appear on stage until the very end of In a Garden. But he’s one of the first to arrive at the theatre.
Before each performance, he likes to walk out onto the set, survey the empty seats and recite a few lines. It helps him settle into character and prepare for the moment he comes back out to perform for an audience full of people.
Vaden, who plays a U.S. Army captain, sat down after rehearsal to talk about his days in SCR’s Professional Conservatory – including some tricks he learned from teacher Karen Hensel – and why he has a new biggest fan.
How does it feel to be acting at SCR after graduating from its Professional Conservatory? It’s good to be back. Everything I have done here before has been on the Segerstrom Stage. I am really excited to be performing in a more intimate setting this time around.
How did you originally hear about the adult acting classes at SCR? I was born and raised in a small farm town in Texas. My older brother, Travis Vaden, came out to California first to take lessons at SCR’s adult conservatory. He was always telling me if I wanted to move out here and act, it was the best way to learn a lot and gain experience if I worked hard enough to impress. Sure enough, SCR hired both of us to do Two Gentlemen of Verona in 2003 after graduating from the conservatory.
Any funny stories from your conservatory days you’d like to share? When I was in class with Karen Hensel she made a point to teach you to work with different types of directors. Every day she would come in pretending to be a different director who either had an outrageous personality or no personality. She really prepared me to be able to work with all kinds of people. Auditioning is also easier now thanks to the techniques she shared.
You have a best friend, U.S. Army Captain Scott Thornbury, who has done tours in Iraq. Has he changed the way you view or play your role as a U.S. Army captain in In a Garden? I want to ask the playwright, Howard Korder, if I could change the name of my character to Scott. I don’t want to overstep my boundaries though. I have put several Scott nuances into my character thus far. Scott thinks it is awesome. I am so glad he is in the States so I can use him as a resource. The conservatory really taught me to not to let these invaluable opportunities to gather information pass me by. I really think you perform better by taking a little bit of that person on stage with you.
How does In a Garden differ from anything else you have done? In a Garden is solidly about personal relationships. There is no side-line pageantry. No comedic machinery. It is about two people’s visions and egos clashing. Who knew two people battling it out could be so delightful to watch! Howard is such a brilliant writer…but that’s no secret.
Do you prefer acting on stage, film or TV? I would love to do theater all the time! Unfortunately, the money is not as good as doing television work. Sitcoms are great because you have the best of both worlds. You still get to perform in front of a live audience.
Who is your biggest fan? Well, it used to be my mom, but since I got married I think it is my wife, Erin…Or at least I hope she is. We got married last June, and she always comes with me to all kinds of events. She will hopefully be my opening night date from here on out.
Musical theatre guru Erin McNally welcomes all, especially ‘non-singers’ and ‘non-actors’
02/16/10 • Hey all you actors out there who think you can’t sing: Erin McNally says you can.
“Singing is just talking – only slower and on certain pitches,” she says. “I have found that actors who have worked hard to train their speaking voices will often surprise themselves.”
And you singers who think you can’t act? “A singer who feels the music of a song is indeed acting,” says Erin, who teaches musical theatre classes for kids and teens at SCR. “Actors are storytellers. Songs tell stories.”
McNally feels strongly that emotional vulnerability is essential to becoming a good musical theatre performer.
“I have this metaphor – I believe that every time we make a sound out of our mouth, it opens a little door to our heart. So when we speak, it flutters open and closed, which feels safe. But when we sing we sustain sound, so the door just stays open and our heart is exposed.”
Erin knows that being exposed can make students feel scared, which is why she uses lots of fun exercises in her classes. One of these involves performing songs completely the opposite of the way they are written.
“If a song is a slow love ballad,” she says, “I will have them do it angrily, then laughing like they don’t care. It is fun to do and fun to watch.”
She also has students speak the lyrics without the music, as if reciting a monologue: “It’s amazing how some students connect to a song once you strip the music out of it.”
Not all students can easily access their musical theatre side. There are a few students who have struggled in her classes, but when they finally have their breakthrough moment, she says, “I have tears in my eyes.”
Erin remembers a boy whose previous training had made him “showy.”
“He felt the need to do all these gestures to show how he felt. He couldn’t just connect and be in the moment. One day, I finally got him to open up and talk about what his song was really about. He shared a life experience that mirrored the song’s story. He was finally able to stand and truly connect the song to his heart. There wasn’t a dry eye in the classroom.”
These breakthroughs are a result of Erin’s special approach to her musical theatre class.
“My class is an acting class with music. It is not about how pretty you sound or about ‘performing.’ It’s about connection to the truth of the song, finding the honesty of that moment and living it, while maintaining vocal integrity.”
Erin McNally has a BA in Acting and Musical Theatre from Cal State Fullerton, has starred in numerous musicals and sung backup for such musical stars as Patty LuPone, Kenny Loggins and Sarah Brightman. She has been teaching at South Coast Repertory for seven years and has served as Musical Director for various Players shows.
Introducing the cast of In A Garden
Mark Harelik (Othman) appeared at SCR in the Pacific Playwrights Festival readings of In A Garden and You, Nero. Additional SCR credits include Cyrano de Bergerac, The Beard of Avon, which also enjoyed a sold-out run Off-Broadway, The Hollow Lands, Tartuffe and Search and Destroy. Mr. Harelik is a playwright and his works include The Immigrant, The Legacy and Lost Highway, a play about the music and legend of Hank Williams; and the book for The Immigrant, a musical based upon his play. Mr. Harelik is a Fox Foundation Fellow.
Matt Letscher (Hackett) appeared at SCR previously in What They Have, both the production and the Pacific Playwrights Festival (PPF) reading of Ridiculous Fraud, as well as the NewSCRipts reading of Kate Robin’s Anon and the PPF readings of Julia Cho’s The Language Archive and Craig Lucas’ Singing Forest. Broadway credits include The Rivals and Neil Simon’s Proposals. Film and television credits include Towelhead, Madison, Straight-Jacket, Identity, Gods and Generals, The Mask of Zorro, “Entourage,” “Brothers & Sisters,” “Medium,” “Eli Stone,” “The New Adventures of Old Christine,” “Criminal Minds,” “CSI: Miami,” “Boston Legal,” “Joey.”
Jarion Monroe (Najid) last appeared at SCR in Man of the Moment. He also created the role of Dr. Waxling in Howard Korder’s Search and Destroy and traveled with it to Yale Repertory. Recent film and television projects include principal roles in the features The Game, In Control of All Things, The Zodiac, The Californians, “Trauma,” “Frasier” and “Seinfeld.” Mr. Monroe is also the voice of Lynch in the game Kane and Lynch.
Phillip Vaden (Prudhomme) hails from Lubbock, TX, and has appeared previously at SCR in Habeas Corpus, Two Gentlemen of Verona and A Christmas Carol. Theatre credits include Caught in the Net (for which he won an Ovation Award) at International City Theatre and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He is a graduate of SCR’s Professional Conservatory. He has starred in the movies Pope Dreams, Man Maid and Still Waiting...
Want to learn more about the cast & creative team of this production? Peek into our production program.
SCR's Founders Begin Search for New Artistic Director
COSTA MESA, Calif. (Feb. 4, 2010) — Forty-six years after founding South Coast Repertory, David Emmes and Martin Benson have decided it is time to begin the search for their successor. They have greenlighted a detailed leadership transition plan that is set to culminate later in the year with the naming of a new Artistic Director to join the leadership team.
This does not mean, however, that Emmes, the Producing Artistic Director, and Benson, the Artistic Director, are retiring. They will continue to serve in their current capacities until a new Artistic Director is in place, at which point they will assume the titles of Founding Directors. In their new roles they will serve as counselors and advisers to their successor. They will continue to play an active role in assisting the new Artistic Director in the finding and development of plays, and they will continue to direct productions.
“We’re stepping back, but not away,” said Emmes. “We think it’s incredibly important that SCR not lose artistic momentum. We believe we can help the next leader through the transition period as he or she becomes familiar with the particular needs of such a large and complex organization.”
Though Benson and Emmes will be involved in the hiring process, SCR’s Board of Trustees will choose the new leader: “We know that in order to keep growing, the theatre needs new ideas, new blood, new chemistry,” Benson said. “SCR will need someone who is responsive to changing times and circumstances.”
SCR has always taken a deliberate, evolutionary approach to change, and the succession plan is no exception. It began to take shape at a board retreat in March of 2008 and has been continuously refined until the founders felt that it—and they—were ready to move forward.
“David and Martin are visionaries,” said Wylie Aitken, president of SCR’s Board of Trustees. “They transformed SCR from a company with $17 and a station wagon into a three-theatre complex with a $9 million annual budget and numerous awards, including a Tony. Together with the Orange County community, they’ve created one of the most successful and stable arts institutions in the country. We consider ourselves incredibly fortunate that they have led a process to ensure the continuity of SCR’s future artistic leadership. We are also grateful that they are willing to stay on to share their wisdom and insight as we identify a strong artistic leader to partner with our Managing Director, Paula Tomei, to carry on SCR’s long history of service to Orange County and the national theatre community.”
For more details read a Q&A with David Emmes and Martin Benson.
Fences Packs a Powerful Punch
On Friday night, January 29, as Baron Kelly, portraying Gabriel, blows his horn to "open the pearly gates" and utters the final words of August Wilson’s masterpiece, both actors and audience were caught up in the power of the moment—and the production.
And those feelings stayed with them as they gathered to talk about the play at the Cast Party hosted by Scott’s Restaurant & Bar.
Stepping Ahead Gets Reviewed
02/01/10 • Los Angeles-based theatre critic Don Shirley wrote a glowing review of South Coast Repertory’s book Stepping Ahead. The full review can be found on LA Stage Alliance’s blog. Here are some excerpts:
"Attention, Southland theater lovers — especially those who are also theater builders, either in their actions or in their dreams. It’s time to read Stepping Ahead, A History of South Coast Repertory, by Lawrence Christon.
If you don’t know much about SCR, go to Costa Mesa pronto, take in a play or two, and buy the book while you’re there. May it inspire a few more of L.A.’s theater makers to adopt SCR as a role model."
Read the full review.
Find more information about the book.
