Theater -- Tom Titus

Next season Orange Coast College may not offer the big names and

visiting entertainment programs it has in the past, but for the school’s

ambitious theater department, it’ll be business as usual.

A college spokeswoman assured us this week that any cutbacks in the

fine arts program would be “minor and short term” and won’t affect either

the classes or productions offered by the nation’s most active community

college drama program, as OCC bills itself. But before the new season

starts, we have three summer productions waiting in the wings.

This weekend’s opening of “Side Man” kicks off the summer schedule,

which will include OCC set designer David Scaglione’s adaptation of the

classic children’s folk tale “Stone Soup” and a family double-bill comedy

titled “Supersonic Shakespeare.”

“Stone Soup,” which will be directed by Rick Golson, centers on three

starving soldiers in the Napoleonic wars who use their ingenuity and

spirit to overcome mistrust. Performances are July 11 to July 13 and July

18 to July 20 in the large Robert B. Moore Theatre, with the unusual

curtain times of 10 a.m. Thursdays and Fridays, and 2 and 7 p.m.

Saturdays.

The “Supersonic Shakespeare” production, mounted by OCC’s Repertory

Theatre Company, combines a 45-minute version of Shakespeare’s “The

Comedy of Errors” and Tom Stoppard’s “The 15-minute Hamlet,” abbreviating

two plays that OCC has presented in full-length form in recent years.

Performances dates are July 26 and July 27 and Aug. 2 and Aug. 3 in the

college’s Fine Arts Patio Amphitheater, with curtain time at 5:30 p.m.

Fridays and 2 p.m. Saturdays.

The 2002-03 season bows in Sept. 14 with a full-length play produced

and directed by the Repertory Theatre Company in OCC’s Drama Lab Studio.

The show -- as yet unselected -- will mark the opener of the Rep’s 18th

season.

Next up is yet another local first from director John Ferzacca, “Anton

in Show Business.” Named best new play of 2001 by the American Theater

Critics’ Assn., the comedy by Jane Martin features an all-female cast (as

did her earlier “Talking With”) and presents an insider’s view of an

ill-fated Texas production of Chekhov’s “The Three Sisters.” It will open

Oct. 3 in the main Drama Lab Studio.

Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” will be tackled in the

Drama Lab Studio by the repertory on Oct. 18. The English comedy will be

directed by a student, as yet unselected. The Rep’s annual “Ten or Less

Festival,” a collection of plays 10 minutes in length or shorter, will

arrive Nov. 1 in the studio. The plays will be selected, directed and

acted by students.

Playwright Lee Blessing’s metaphysical farce “Fortinbras” will take

over the Drama Lab Theatre on Nov. 21 -- the second look in a year’s time

at a play based on this minor character from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” local

audiences will see (the first, called “Fortinbras Gets Drunk,” was

offered at UC Irvine last season). The department’s chairman, Alex

Golson, will be in the director’s chair for this one.

OCC’s traditional yuletide presentation, “An Old Fashioned Christmas

and Ice Cream Social,” will be staged Dec. 12 to Dec. 15 only in the

Drama Lab Theatre. Written by Scaglione, the melodrama will be directed

by Rick Golson, and attendees, as usual, will be treated to ice cream and

Christmas cookies.

Two new translations and abridgments of famous ancient Greek dramas --

“Agamemnon” by Aeschylus and “Electra” by Sophocles -- will be combined

into a modern-dress production titled “The House of Atreus.” Running Jan.

29 through Feb. 2 only, the show will be directed by Alex Golson and will

be free to the public.

Absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco will get his turn in the spotlight

beginning Feb. 15, when the repertory presents a pair of short plays

under the title of “An Evening With Ionesco.” The playlets, directed by

OCC students, will be performed in the Drama Lab Studio.

“The Laramie Project,” a dramatization by Moises Kaufman of the

kidnapping and beating death of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew

Shepard, will be presented March 19 to March 23 in the Drama Lab Theatre.

Ferzacca is directing.

A full-length play, to be selected in December and directed by an

advanced OCC directing student, will be presented April 19 to April 27.

The season’s most intriguing title is “Sherlock Holmes and the Giant

Rat of Sumatra,” which will arrive May 8 with Alex Golson directing. This

new musical features a book by Tim Kelly with music and lyrics by the

late Orange County playwright Jack Sharkey. It will open May 8 in the

Drama Lab Theatre.

The OCC Repertory’s annual Spring One-Act Play Festival will wind up

the regular season with performances May 21 to May 25 in the Drama Lab

Studio. It’ll again be a potpourri of classic and modern works, as well

as original pieces by OCC students.

The upcoming season is quite a package, and certainly reason to claim

that OCC’s theater department is the most active of any community college

-- even in the midst of budget cutbacks.

* TOM TITUS writes about and reviews local theater for the Daily

Pilot. His stories appear Thursdays and Saturdays.