Remembering a Pioneer

More than 300 guests: family members, friends, fellow artists and SCR staffers, gathered at the Segerstrom Stage Saturday to celebrate the life of SCR Founding Artistic Director Martin Benson, who passed Nov. 30 at 87.

Justin Krumb, Benson’s stepson, welcomed the guests to the celebration of life, which featured tributes from Krumb, SCR Founding Artistic Director David Emmes—who created the plans for SCR with Benson during a now-famous late-night dinner at the Copper Skillet in Long Beach—SCR Artistic Director David Ivers, former managing director Paula Tomei, and others including Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Margaret Edson, Chance Theater Executive Artistic Director Oanh Nguyen, SCR Founding Members Richard Doyle, Hal Landon Jr. and Art Koustik, Composer and Sound Designer Michael Roth, Benson's granddaughter McKayla Marie Spence and longtime friends Jim Rizzo, Don Hamilton and Chris Yates.

"What a beautiful day to celebrate Martin," Krumb said. "What a great opportunity to share with everyone what the family knew about Martin, but also for us to learn other things about Martin and hear other passionate things from other people. It was really amazing.

"Martin was so talented and talent kind of flocked to him and worked with him and they got better because they worked with Martin. I'm proud that we had the people we had here today, who could share the experience of theatre activity and creative people working together." 

A pioneering and visionary leader who served as SCR’s co-artistic director with Emmes for 46 years, Benson was also an award-winning director of 124 SCR productions. Together, Emmes and Benson established SCR as a regional theatre powerhouse that helped define the American theatrical canon through its championing of new plays and world-class productions.

Above photos top to bottom: Justin Krumb; John K. Linton, Devon Raymond and Richard Doyle; Margaret Edson, Cristofer Gross, Megan Cole and José Cruz González.