BRINGING AVANT-GARDE THEATER HOME

Kathleen Bryson believes Orange County is ready for more experimental, avant-garde theater.

That’s why Bryson and six colleagues, all veterans of the region’s community theater circuit, have joined to create the new Alternative Repertory Theatre in Santa Ana. Dedicated to “what’s original and unusual,” the small repertory hopes to stage its first production (existential philosopher-writer Jean-Paul Sartre’s dark and demanding “No Exit”) by mid-September in a proposed 50-seat theater in an industrial area at 1636 S. Grand Ave.

“We want to take a cultural risk and offer provocative, thought-provoking productions that, frankly, aren’t seen around here that much,” said Bryson, the group’s producer and unofficial spokeswoman.

“We refuse to be the typical community theater--there are plenty out there already doing their Neil Simons--and are eager to find our own niche. This isn’t a put-down (to community theaters), it’s just that we don’t want to do what they are doing.”

To pay for its first season, the repertory is gathering a $7,000 start-up fund, including contributions of $3,000 from the seven founders and a recent fund-raiser that brought in another $2,500, Bryson said.

The ambitious undertaking began in March when Bryson and the other organizers--artistic director Patricia Terry, Michael Greer, William Larson, Amy Larson, Cynthia Hanks and Steve Linhart, all from Orange County--were either acting or working behind the scenes in the Newport Theatre Art Center’s production of Beth Henley’s “The Miss Firecracker Contest.”

Bryson, stage manager for that show, said shared frustrations over community and dinner theaters’ reliance on popular but usually tame dramas, comedies and musicals inspired the alternative repertory’s founding.

Another factor, she said, was that there are dozens of local community theaters but just two repertories--South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa and the Grove Theatre Company in Garden Grove--that regularly offer more adventurous fare.

“There’s such a wide gap from the community and dinner theater on up to SCR, and all of us felt we could find a spot somewhere in between,” Bryson said.

“We’re hoping that SCR’s fans will be interested and come out. . . . I don’t think we can compete (with SCR), but we may be attractive for some of the same reasons.”

Bryson knows it will be a struggle. If county theatergoers prove to be less sophisticated and curious than she assumes, the repertory may end up playing to an empty house. Her optimism, however, is buoyed by what she perceives as growing cultural interest inspired by the Orange County Performing Arts Center and SCR’s success.

“The county hasn’t always been considered a very artistic place, but I think that’s changing; that should help us,” she said. “We’re also looking to draw a young crowd that will be open to our ideas.”

“No Exit,” an infrequently performed piece that most often turns up on reading lists for college literature and philosophy courses, was picked as the inaugural offering because of its challenge. The play will “make a definite statement” about the repertory and set the tone for its season, she said.

The group is not sure what may follow but is considering several plays, including “Joe Egg” by Peter Nichols and “Old Times” by Harold Pinter.

There is also some uncertainty over whether “No Exit” will actually open in mid-September. Bryson said that the theater--a large room in an eight-office commercial building--has been rented and that the repertory is obtaining the necessary city permits.

A hearing on the theater’s request for on-site parking is scheduled with the Santa Ana Planning Commission in early September, she noted.

Once operating, the non-union, equity-waiver theater plans to have three to five shows a year, each running four to five weeks. Besides producing the work of established playwrights, the repertory will seek undiscovered writers from Orange County and elsewhere.

“That’s definitely one of our goals: to expose new writers to the public,” Bryson said.

When not staging plays, the theater hopes to present poetry readings and to provide a forum for performance artists.