My “Ordinary Days” Photo Contest

Deadline: Wednesday, December 30, 11:59pm
Winner Announced: Tuesday, January 5, Noon
Prize: 2 Tickets to Opening Night of “Ordinary Days” at South Coast Repertory (Friday, January 8) and admission to post-show reception at AnQui restaurant

The Contest:
South Coast Repertory would like to see what your “Ordinary Day” looks like. Take 10 pictures throughout one day to make a photo album of your ordinary day and submit it to SCR. “Ordinary Days” composer Adam Gwon will judge the photos and pick what he feels is the most creative example of an ordinary day. Think outside of the box, this is very similar to the 12 of 12 project. Examples can be found on our Facebook fan page.

Contest Rules:

• All photos must be taken in one recent day. Not a collection of 10 photos from previous days.
• All photos must be original and taken by you.
• All photos must have a caption.
• Photo albums must be received by Tuesday, Dec. 29, 11:59pm.
• Only one submission per person.
• The winner of the opening night tickets for Ordinary Days must arrange their own transportation. The performance is Friday, Jan 8, at 7:45 p.m. at 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
• Photos cannot depict illegal activity, nudity or sexually explicit images.

Through Facebook

• First, make sure you’re a fan of South Coast Repertory (www.facebook.com/SouthCoastRepertory )
• Upload your photos into an album on your profile called “SCR Ordinary Days Contest.”
• Number and caption all your photos. (ie. 1 – Waking up to KPCC, 2 – Breakfast…yeah, it’s plain oatmeal because I’m ordinary.)
• Go to the SCR fanpage (www.facebook.com/SouthCoastRepertory <http://www.facebook.com/SouthCoastRepertory> ).
• Click on the “Boxes” Tab.
• Click on the thumbnail for any of the “Fan Photos”
• Click on the submenu link “See all Photos”
• Click the submenu link “Add Photos”
• Click on your “SCR Ordinary Days Contest” photos.
• Click on the “Select All” link and then click the “Add Selected Photos.”
• E-mail Peter J. Kuo at peter@scr.org to let him know you have uploaded your photos. (This step is very important as it lets us know that you submitted your photos before the deadline.)
  

Through E-mail

• Title your photos “SCR ODays Contest” and number them 1 thru 10.
• E-mail all your photos to Peter J. Kuo at peter@scr.org
• Put the photo captions in the body of your e-mail in the following format: 1 – Waking up to KPCC, 2 – Breakfast…yeah, it’s plain oatmeal because I’m ordinary.
• Note: You photos will be uploaded to our Facebook fan page, so make sure they are photos you’re okay with everyone seeing.

Introducing the cast of "Ordinary Days"

Nancy Anderson (Claire) has appeared on Broadway as Mona in "A Class Act" and as Helen and Eileen in "Wonderful Town." She played Lois/Bianca in the National Tour (Helen Hayes nomination) and the London premiere of "Kiss Me Kate" (Olivier nomination) filmed for PBS’ Great Performances. She can also be seen on PBS in "South Pacific" in Concert at Carnegie Hall (Reba McIntyre). Last year, she was featured in "The Women" at The Old Globe, and this past summer, she appeared in the Broadway-bound "White Noise."

David Burnham (Jason) just returned from New York, where he played Fiyero in the Broadway production of "Wicked" after creating the role in the original Los Angeles workshop productions. He was an original Broadway cast member of the musical "The Light In The Piazza," performing both on the 2005 Tony Awards and the PBS telecast “Live From Lincoln Center.” He is the 2007 recipient of the Helen Hayes Award for best actor as well as the 2007 best actor Garland Award for his portrayal of Fabrizio in the national tour of "The Light In The Piazza."

Deborah S. Craig (Deb) is best known for originating the role of Marcy Park on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning musical, "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee." Based on her own childhood, Marcy Park became the first Korean-American character created on Broadway and earned her critical raves as well as a Drama Desk Award. On television, she was a recurring guest star on JJ Abrams’ “Six Degrees.” She can also be seen in the feature film "Ghost Town" with Ricky Gervais, the indie comedy "818" and the upcoming film "Just Wright" with Queen Latifah.

Nick Gabriel (Warren) has played the Emcee in "Cabaret" at CenterREP, Vincent in "Beast on the Moon" and Orpheus in "Metamorphoses" at Capital Repertory Theatre, Austin in "I Love You Because" at North Coast Repertory Theatre, Sebastian in "Twelfth Night" with the Saratoga Shakespeare Company, the Charlatan in "Petrouchka" with the Albany-Berkshire Ballet, Bashmachkin in "The Overcoat" with the Egress Theatre Company at the Brooklyn Lyceum, Benny in "Martha&Me" for FringeNYC, Prince Charming in "The Magic of Frederick Loewe" with the Bandwagon Theatre Company at the Wings Theater and Howard Carter in "The Mystery of King Tut" for TheatreWorks/USA.

Check back next week for video greetings from the cast!

"Doctor Cerberus" Awarded New Play Grant

SCR’s upcoming production of "Doctor Cerberus," by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (pictured above), has been awarded this year’s new-play grant from The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation’s Theatre Visions Fund.

The national Theatre Visions Program grant goes to only one production each year, so it’s a particular honor that SCR has snagged it for the second time (the Foundation also awarded our production of "On The Jump"in 1999).

Half of the $50,000 grant goes to support the production itself, $10,000 goes directly to the playwright and the rest will fund two new commissions. (SCR gets to choose which ones.)

We hear that this year’s process was especially competitive and that it was Roberto’s exemplary playwriting skills that put him over the top.

SCR Presents Chance Theatre's Acclaimed "Jesus Hates Me"

South Coast Repertory will present the Chance Theater’s remounting of its popular production Jesus Hates Me in SCR’s Nicholas Studio Feb. 26-28 and March 5-7, 2010.

Jesus Hates Me is the hilarious and provocative first play from Wayne Lemon, who has written for such television shows as Grace Under Fire and The Torkelsons. It is set somewhere in South Central Texas at the “Blood of the Lamb” Miniature Golf Course. Ethan, an ex-high school football star, is desperate to find identity, sanity, faith and freedom under the gaze of a Wal-Mart mannequin transformed into Jesus on the cross at the 17th hole. The play covers one insightful, unpredictable and hilarious week in Ethan’s life as he tries to escape from his over-zealous, bi-polar mother, a suicidal dishwasher, a pot-smoking cop and a beer-swillin’ good ol’ boy, not to mention the possible love of his life, and, of course, the J-man himself.

“South Coast Repertory is pleased to host this remounting of the Chance Theater’s acclaimed production of Jesus Hates Me,” said Associate Artistic Director John Glore. “This partnership is born of an idea that began to take shape among the members of SCR’s artistic staff almost two years ago, out of a desire to make greater use of the company’s Nicholas Studio (SCR’s former Second Stage), to create stronger ties with other performing arts organizations in Orange County and to offer alternative programming that might attract new theatergoers to both organizations. In presenting this Chance Theater production, SCR has an opportunity to try out an idea which, if successful, may well lead to further collaborations of this kind in the future.”

The Chance Theater’s Artistic Director Oanh Nguyen will again direct Jesus Hates Me, which will feature the same cast that appeared in the 2009 production. Chance Dean plays Ethan, Timothy Covington is Trane, Karen Webster is Annie, Jennifer Ruckman is Lizzy, Dimas Diaz is Boone and Ben Green is Georgie.

"When we presented the West Coast Premiere at the beginning of this year, I was very curious to see what the Orange County audience reaction would be to a comedy called Jesus Hates Me, which has a Wal-Mart Jesus mannequin as one of the central set pieces," said Nguyen. "We definitely heard from people who imagined, just from the title, that it must be sacrilegious. However, the response I heard time and again from those who actually attended was roaring laughter and a feeling that they had watched a personal journey of young people who had lost their way."

The creative team includes Starlet Jacobs (Scenic Designer), KC Wilkerson (Lighting Designer), Erika C. Miller (Costume Designer), Michael Irish (Fight Choreographer) and Tanae Beyer (Stage Manager).

Tickets can be purchased beginning Jan. 15 at SCR, either online at www.scr.org, by phone at (714) 708-5555 or by visiting the box office at 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa. Performances run at 8 p.m. on Feb. 26, 27, March 5 and 6, and at 2:30 p.m. Feb. 28 and March 7. Tickets are $35, with discounts available for students, seniors, educators and groups of 10 or more.

Audience Falls for ‘Falling Leaves’

Author Adeline Yen Mah signs copies of her memoir, Falling Leaves, Tuesday night at South Coast Repertory

Yen Mah has turned her memoir into a play, which had its first staged reading at SCR Tuesday as part of the Ancient Paths, Modern Voices festival presented by the Philharmonic Society of Orange County. Mah, a retired anesthesiologist who lives in Huntington Beach, first published the story of her unhappy childhood in a wealthy, backstabbing Chinese family in 1998. It sold more than a million copies. The staged reading – which was sold out – starred Jeanne Sakata as Adeline and Dom Magwili, Donald Li, Emily Kuroda and Alberto Isaac as her untrustworthy siblings. Oanh Nguyen directed. Also on hand was a film crew from Voice of America, which will broadcast a story about Adeline and her play in countries across Asia.

South Coast Repertory Adds "The Language Archive" to the 2009-10 Season

Julia Cho’s The Language Archive, (pictured above during the 2009 Pacific Playwrights Festival) is the story of a brilliant linguist who finds himself at a loss for words when he learns his wife is leaving him, will fill the final slot in South Coast Repertory’s 2009-10 season.

The world premiere, which runs March 26 through April 25, 2010, on the Segerstrom Stage, was commissioned by New York’s Roundabout Theatre Company and is being produced by special arrangement with the company. Mark Brokaw, a Roundabout Associate Artist, will direct.

“I think Mark is one of the leading directors in American theatre today,” said SCR Producing Artistic Director David Emmes. “And we have a long relationship with Julia Cho. It’s been really exciting to see her deepening her talent.”

Emmes said he knew he wanted to produce The Language Archive at SCR immediately after its reading at the Pacific Playwrights Festival last spring: “The play possesses a wonderful charm and displays a tremendous theatrical imagination.”

The Language Archive tells the story of George, a man consumed with preserving and documenting the dying languages of far-flung cultures. Closer to home, though, language is failing him. He doesn’t know what to say to his wife, Mary, to keep her from leaving him, and he is oblivious to the deep feelings his lab assistant, Emma, has for him.

This is Cho’s second SCR production; her first was the 2007 world premiere of The Piano Teacher, about the lasting effects of childhood trauma and human beings’ great capacity for denial. Brokaw just directed After Miss Julie, currently playing on Broadway with Sienna Miller. He has extensive on- and Off-Broadway credits, but this will mark his SCR directorial debut.

Dialogue

The October issue of DIALOGUE, SCR's online magazine, is now available. http://bit.ly/3reRG3

Freed Working on a New Play

SCR has chosen Amy Freed, the playwright behind last year’s hilarious You, Nero, as the recipient of its 2009 Steinberg Commission.

A commission, in the art world, means paying an artist to create something especially for you. In this particular case, it means Freed is writing a new play just for SCR, with money provided by a grant from the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.

Freed’s plays most often take the form of dark comedy. They are ambitiously epic and smartly mine history for laughs.

Why comedy?

“Life is kind of surreal,” she says, “and the collisions of absurdity and grief and silliness are what laughter comes from and what tears come from.”

SCR’s Steinberg Commissions are specifically designed for mid-career playwrights, because other commissioning groups often overlook these writers in favor of either emerging or well-known playwrights. Many a mid-career playwright has dedicated years to writing for the theatre only to find that he or she can’t make a living that way. Often, the theatre loses those writers to the higher-paying worlds of television or film. SCR and the Steinberg Trust want to keep that from happening.

Past commission recipients include Jose Rivera, who used the grant to develop Boleros for the Disenchanted, and Tracy Letts, who received his commission just before vaulting to the top of the American theatre world with his Pulitzer—and Tony—winning August: Osage County. SCR is first in line for Letts’ next play, thanks to the Steinberg Commission.

Amy Freed has been writing plays since 1991, when she turned to writing after an unfulfilling acting career. She gained a national reputation when her play The Psychic Life of Savages won the Charles MacArthur Award for outstanding new play in 1995.

In 1998, her play Freedomland, an SCR commission and world premiere, became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and went on to play at many regional theatres. She followed Freedomland with her most successful play to date, The Beard of Avon (also commissioned and premiered by SCR), a tongue-in-cheek look at the Shakespeare authorship controversy.

Freed’s other plays include Safe in Hell, Still Warm, Claustrophilia and The Ghoul of Amherst. When she’s not penning plays, Freed teaches playwriting and acting at Stanford University.

BOB is Born: In White Castle and On Stage

Meet Bob. Born in a White Castle bathroom on Valentine’s Day, Bob is immediately abandoned by his mother. Luckily, he is taken in by Jeanine, a White Castle employee who once opened a fortune cookie that told her she would be mother to a great man. Thus begins a most unconventional childhood, followed by an equally unconventional adulthood.

Bob is the star of BOB, a play by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb that will kick off SCR’s 2009-2010 NewSCRipts readings series at 7:30pm on Oct. 26.

This offbeat, epic story follows Bob over 50-plus years as he tries to fulfill his adopted mother’s dream for him. His quest takes him from job to job and town to town, always in search of a place where he belongs. Sometimes sad, sometimes funny, the play raises interesting questions about destiny, family and contentment. Happiness, Bob discovers, is elusive, but not out of reach.

The annual NewSCRipts series of three Monday evening play readings was launched in 1985 as a way to bring the audience into the process of creating new work. After each reading, audience members engage in lively exchanges with the playwright and become active participants in the play’s development, providing invaluable feedback for the writer. Plays selected for the NewSCRipts series have earned six Pulitzer Prize nominations, with Margaret Edson’s Wit winning the prize in 1999.

Nachtrieb is a San Francisco-based playwright whose works include boom, Hunter Gatherers, Colorado, T.I.C. (Trenchcoat In Common) and Multiplex. Hunter Gatherers received the 2007 American Theatre Critics Association/Steinberg New Play Award for best new play to premiere outside of New York and the 2007 Will Glickman Prize for best new play in the Bay Area. He is a resident playwright at the Playwrights Foundation, San Francisco, and holds a degree in theater and biology from Brown and an MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State University.

SCR commissioned Nachtrieb to write BOB.

Tickets to the reading, which will take place Oct. 26 at 7:30pm on the Argyros Stage, are $12, and can be purchased online at www.scr.org, by phone at (714) 708-5555 or in person at the SCR box office.

Learn more about NewSCRipts.

Falling Leaves

South Coast Repertory and the Philharmonic Society of Orange County will present a staged reading of Adeline Yen Mah’s play Falling Leaves, based on her best-selling book Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter, on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at 7:30 p.m.

The reading is part of the Philharmonic Society’s Ancient Paths, Modern Voices: A Festival Celebrating Chinese Culture. The six-week festival, presented in partnership with Carnegie Hall, celebrates China’s diverse culture and influence. It includes musical and theatrical performances, art exhibits and film screenings.

Falling Leaves recounts the story of the author’s life in China, England and America, and how she overcame the hardships of her childhood. A compelling, heartrending, and ultimately triumphant story of a girl's journey into adulthood, Mah’s story is a testament to the most basic of human needs: acceptance, love and understanding.

Mah was born into a wealthy Chinese family in 1937. Her mother died two weeks after giving birth to her, leaving her to be raised by her father’s beautiful but cruel new wife. After winning a playwriting competition at age 14, she went to study in England. Eventually, she became a doctor and established a thriving medical practice in Southern California. The book version of Falling Leaves proved so popular – selling more than one million copies – that she quit medicine to devote more time to writing. She has since published Chinese Cinderella; China: Land of Dragons and Emperors and Watching the Tree.

SCR’s staged reading of the play Falling Leaves takes place at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 17. Tickets are $15 and are available online at www.scr.org or by calling the box office at 714-708-5555.

For more information about the Philharmonic’s Ancient Paths, Modern Voices: A Festival Celebrating Chinese Culture, including a complete schedule of events, visit www.philharmonicsociety.org/chinafestival.

What Did Your Orange County Look Like in '75?

The Happy Ones is set in Garden Grove in 1975. Were you living in Orange County in the 1970s? Help us get into the spirit of the show by digging through your old photos from that era and sending us a digital image of your favorite shot of your family in 1970s OC. We'll compile them in an online slide show you can view on our website.

Please send your photo in JPEG format by Sept. 23. Only one photo per household, please. We will do our best to include every photo we get, if the image quality is high enough. Some photos may end up in a display in our lobby as well.

When you send your photo, please include the names of the people in the shot as well as where and approximately when it was taken.

Looking forward to seeing you in your bellbottoms and leisure suits!

Send Us Your Photo!

Above: Producing Artistic Director David Emmes and Artistic Director Martin Benson are interviewed about the construction of SCR at its current location in 1978.

Check out the new edition of DIALOGUE, South Coast Repertory's new online magazine here!

News of Associate Artists

News of Associate Artists
Besides the staff members who work on-site, and the directors, actors and other artists who join the company for specific shows, SCR is home-away-from-home to six Associate Artists.  Here’s what they’re up to these days...

• Kate Whoriskey (Intimate Apparel, Antigone, The Clean House, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Life is a Dream, The Piano Teacher) was recently named the new artistic director of Seattle’s Intiman Theatre. Last season Kate directed the world premiere of Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Ruined at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre and the Manhattan Theatre Club. In between the two productions of Ruined, she gave birth to her first child, Rory, with her husband, actor Daniel Breaker.


• Bill Rauch nears the end of his second full season as artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. This season Bill directed The Music Man and the world premiere of Bill Cain’s Equivocation, both of which have been big hits for the company. Taking advantage of a brief lull at the end of his season, Bill has just directed a new adaptation of Aristophanes’ Peace, co-authored by Culture Clash and SCR’s John Glore. Culture Clash performs the play with actors John Fleck and Amy Hill at the Getty Villa running through the first weekend in October.
  


• Octavio Solis’ Lydia, after its premiere at the Denver Center Theatre, went on to productions at Yale Rep, the Mark Taper Forum and Marin Theatre Company. All but the last were directed by Juliette Carrillo, longtime director of SCR’s Hispanic Playwrights Project. Solis recently accepted a commission from SCR to write a musical with composer Adam Gwon (whose Ordinary Days will appear this season on the Argyros Stage).


• Craig Lucas is about to workshop an opera for the Met (Two Boys) with composer Nico Muhly and director Bartlett Sher, in conjunction with the English National Opera. Productions are slated for 2011 in England and 2012 in New York. Lucas and Sher are also working on a stage musical version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Disney.  And he’s writing a play for the Greenfield Prize and spending most of the fall at their artists retreat, The Hermitage, near Sarasota, Florida. 


• Mark Rucker is staging shows from coast to coast, most recently at Asolo Repertory Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and Oregon Shakespeare Festival, ACT and California Shakespeare Theater.


• And, we're happy to let his fans know that Richard Greenberg is busy writing a new plays.

The Happy Ones

In the world premiere of Julie Marie Myatt's "The Happy Ones," Gary (Geoffrey Lower, left, seated) and Mary-Ellen (Nike Doukas) attempt to cheer up their friend, Walter (Raphael Sbarge, right, seated), as Bao (Greg Watanabe) watches. http://bit.ly/sshcR

New Date and Time for SCR Prop & Costume Sale

If you’ve ever sat in the audience at South Coast Repertory (SCR) coveting a golden-legged bench, ornate clock or a humorous horse costume, then save Saturday, Aug. 22 for the SCR Prop and Costume Sale.

SCR is cleaning out its storage facility to make room for the upcoming 2009-10 season and is selling selected stage props, furniture, costumes and other items. The sale will be held from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on South Coast Repertory’s loading dock, located at 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa.

All items will be sold on a first-come, first-served, cash-only basis.

Tickets for 2009-10 Productions Now on Sale

Tickets for South Coast Repertory’s (SCR) 2009-10 productions go on sale Monday, Aug. 10. Tickets can be purchased in person at the SCR Box Office, online at http://www.scr.org/, and over the phone by calling 714-708-5555.

Online ticket buyers can now choose their seats from the comfort of their computer, as well as preview the view of the stage from that seat with SCR’s new Select-A-Seat feature. The online box office is available around the clock.

To read SCR’s 2009-10 season lineup, go to http://ping.fm/H3ymr

Tickets for the 30th annual production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol go on sale Sunday Aug. 23 at 10 a.m.

Box Office hours are Mondays and non-performance days from10am to 6pm; Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10am to show time; and Sundays from noon to show time.

Playwright on Playwriting

Cecilia Fannon’s playwriting philosophy tells as much about her personality (fabulous) as about her talent (ditto).

“What I have discovered in my career is that storytelling is the cornerstone of great playwriting. But people aren't born telling stories. They need to learn how, even the phenom 19 or 20-year-olds who are hailed as overnight successes. I might have been pretty good, telling a story a dozen years ago, but I'm better now. It takes practice. That's what I teach in my playwriting workshops. How to tell stories. Eventually, those stories turn into plays, even plays where people ask for your autograph.”

She illustrates that with—what else?—a story; in fact, two stories:

“One of the worst theatrical experiences of my life was nearly a dozen years ago—a play I'd written for "Star Trek" went up live before 1,000 slavishly adoring Trekkies, dressed in flowing cloaks and phrenologically bumpy masks.

Leonard Nimoy played Spock, and I was in the audience, nauseated, because I knew jack about science fiction, and even less about "Star Trek." Trekkies know everything about characters, from Klingon dental work to Vulcan hammer toes. Blood thundered through my cranium for about one and a half hours.

One of the best theatrical experiences happened before a small audience, a play I wrote about the World War I flu, about which I knew jack, despite research. Both performances received standing ovations, and people asked for my autograph. (Clearly the "Star Trek" occurrence was more a bouquet for Spock than for me.)”

Well, maybe and maybe not. But one thing is clear: students in Cecilia’s All-day Playwriting Workshop will bring away a theatrical experience of their own, and we predict it will be one of the best.

SCR's Summer Acting Workshop for Kids

There are still spaces available for the Summer Acting Workshop. The popular two-week introduction to theatre for kids in 3rd through 12th grades offers a choice of two sessions (July 27–August 8 or August 10-22).

"Doctor Cerberus" added to 2009-10 Season

"Doctor Cerberus," a new play by HBO’s “Big Love” and Marvel Comics’ “Spiderman” writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (above, left), will receive its World Premiere during the 2009-10 Season and will be directed by Bart DeLorenzo (above, right). http://bit.ly/rssGN

SCR Season Comes to a Close

Congrats to everyone involved in "Collected Stories" and "The Brand New Kid." Great way to end the season! Now the sets come down, we all take a collective deep breath, and prepare for next season.

"Collected Stories" ends Sunday

"Collected Stories" must close this Sunday! Tickets for June 11, 12 & 14 (7:30) are $25. Use code 3621.

"The Brand New Kid" Closing Soon

Only 6 performances left of "The Brand New Kid." Don't miss it! Order online or call 714-708-5555.

"Ordinary Days" opens in New York

Adam Gwon's new musical, "Ordinary Days," to run at NYC's Roundabout Theater before its West Coast Premiere at SCR - http://bit.ly/kwEhL

Kids Love Theater!

Saw "The Brand New Kid" this week with an audience of school children and remembered why we love theater!

SCR Revives Provocative Collected Stories Drama

The Long Beach Gazette's Shirle Gottlieb weighs in on Collected Stories: "Chappell and Lora turn in sizzling performances" http://bit.ly/Dg8yx

StageSceneLA interviews Justin Michael Duval

An interview with Justin Michael Duval, currently appearing in "The Brand New Kid" at SCR thru 6/14: http://bit.ly/4ApDc

StageSceneLA reviews "The Brand New Kid"

StageSceneLA: "Katie Couric’s 'The Brand New Kid' is terrific family entertainment" - http://bit.ly/EL4Jq

"Collected Stories" Examiner review

"Collected Stories" Examiner review: "Kandis Chappell is giving a master class and it’s not to be missed." http://bit.ly/URq9u

"The Brand New Kid" runs thru June 14

"Collected Stories" Video Clip

"Collected Stories" FotoFilm

Collected Stories

"Collected Stories" opens tonight. Kandis Chappell & Melanie Lora deliver powerhouse performances. Break-a-leg!

New Julia Cho play begins rehearsals

The cast of Julia Cho's "The Language Archive" began rehearsals today for the Pacific Playwrights Festival. Mark Brokaw directs, with Seana Kofoed, Brenda Wehle, Maria Thayer, Matt Letscher and Tony Amendola.

Two more Festival plays begin rehearsals

Rehearsals began today for two more Festival plays: "Extraordinary Chambers" by Irvine-native David Wiener and "9 Circles" by Bill Cain.

The "9 Circles" team: Gabriel Greene, Blake Robbins, Bill Heck, Nancy Bell, Kevin Daniels, director Michael John Garces and playwright Bill Cain.

The "Extraordinary Chambers" team: Darrell Kunitomi, Andrew Borba, Kirsten Potter, director Art Manke, playwright David Wiener, Greg Watanabe and Kimiko Gelman.

LA Times features Jenny O'Hara

The LA Times has a terrific story written by David Ng about Jenny O'Hara in today's paper: http://bit.ly/gdRvI. Only a few chances left to see her in "Our Mother's Brief Affair." The show closes this Sunday, May 3. Here's a quirky photo of Jenny with co-star Matthew Arkin: http://ping.fm/XnL0d

"In a Garden" grows at South Coast Repertory

The cast of Howard Korder's "In a Garden" arrived today to begin rehearsals for the Pacific Playwrights Festival reading. "In a Garden" is directed by David Warren with actors Mark Harelik, Greg Germann and Bernard White.

Teen Player to present "Hard Times"

SCR's Teen Players will be presenting Charles Dickens' "Hard Times" in May - http://bit.ly/czWgM

Scenes from "Emilie"

"Emilie" FotoFilm

"Emilie, Mistress of Voltaire"

Read the story on Playbill: "Emilie, Mistress of Voltaire, Tells Her Tale in CA World Premiere" (now in previews - opens this Friday!) http://bit.ly/DBtvo

Artistic Director Martin Benson tweets!

Artistic Director Martin Benson is tweeting from "Collected Stories" rehearsals, a revival of one of SCR's most successful commissioned plays! Kandis Chapell returns as Ruth Steiner, the character she created in the original SCR production. Look for the MB at the start of his tweets! (follow us at @SouthCoastRep on Twitter)

"Shipwrecked!" nominated for Drama League Award

Drama League Awards announced today! Donald Margulies' "Shipwrecked! An Entertainment" nominated for Distinguished Production of a Play! http://bit.ly/Lr0Ip

SCR's impact on playwrighting noted in LA Times

Artistic Director David Emmes on Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer in today's LA Times - "SCR has a commitment to 'serve and to identify young writers who have unique voices.'" http://bit.ly/q8Xaw

Lynn Nottage wins Pulitzer Prize!

Lynn Nottage wins Pulitzer Prize! Best wishes from your friends at South Coast Repertory! http://bit.ly/ZuFmi Here's a photo from the SCR premiere of Lynn Nottage's "Intimate Apparel" - http://ping.fm/yxz4f

Lynn Nottage news

Nice feature about Lynn Nottage in today's LA Times. She's shortlisted for this year's Pulitzer Prize! Mentions SCR commission "By the Way, Meet Vera Stark."

Here's a photo of Lynn at rehearsals for "Meet Vera Start" at last year's Pacific Playwrights Festival:

"Emilie" begins previews

The first preview performance of "Emilie" is today at 2pm. Break-a-leg, cast and crew!

"Emilie" photos on BroadwayWorld

BroadwayWorld.com posted a selection of "Emilie" photos!

PhotoPlay - David Emmes on the set

Artistic Director David Emmes discusses a scene with Natacha Roi & Don Reilly on the set of "Emilie."

PhotoPlay - Emilie's Tech Table

Mark Johnson, Joseph Wilbur & sound designer Vincent Olivieri at tech rehearsals for "Emilie."

PhotoPlay - Building Emilie's Costumes

The costume shop's Catherine Esera uses some muscle for the world premiere of "Emilie."

Actors and Directors Announced for PPF

South Coast Repertory has announced the lineup of actors and directors who will participate in the 12th annual Pacific Playwrights Festival (PPF). Since its creation in 1998, PPF has grown into one of the most important festivals of new scripts in the United States. This year’s Festival will take place during the May 1 through May 3 weekend and will feature five staged readings and two fully-produced World Premieres on South Coast Repertory’s Segerstrom and Julianne Argryos Stages. Tickets to PPF may be purchased online at http://www.scr.org, by phone at (714) 708-5555 or in person at the SCR box office.

This year’s Pacific Playwrights Festival presents fully-produced stagings of new plays by Richard Greenberg and Lauren Gunderson, and staged readings of plays by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Bill Cain, Julia Cho, Howard Korder and David Wiener.

David Warren will direct In a Garden by Howard Korder (Friday, May 1 at 1:00pm) featuring Greg Germann, Mark Harelik and Bernard White.

Bart DeLorenzo will direct Doctor Cerberus by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Friday, May 1 at 3:30pm) featuring Steven Culp, Nike Doukas and Matt McGrath.

Art Manke will direct Extraordinary Chambers by David Weiner (Friday, May 1 at 7:45pm and Saturday, May 2 at 7:45pm) featuring Andrew Borba, Kimiko Gelman, Darrell Kunitomi, Kirsten Potter and Greg Watanabe.

Michael John Garcés will direct 9 Circles by Bill Cain (Saturday, May 2 at 10:30am). Casting is currently in progress.

Mark Brokaw will direct The Language Archive by Julia Cho (Sunday, May 3 at 10:30am) featuring Tony Amendola, Matt Letscher and Maria Thayer.

Anchoring the 12th annual Pacific Playwrights Festival are the fully-produced World Premieres of Our Mother’s Brief Affair, a new comedy by Richard Greenberg about two adult siblings who reunite to tend to their elderly mother and are astonished to learn about her long-ago love affair, and Lauren Gunderson’s Emilie – La Marquise Du Châtelet Defends Her Life at the Petit Théâtre at Cirey Tonight , the story of an 18th century Parisian noblewoman and her lifelong affair with the Enlightenment superstar Voltaire.

SCR’s 11 previous festivals have introduced 78 new plays to the national stage including Amy Freed’s The Beard of Avon, Donald Margulies’ Shipwrecked! An Entertainment, Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel, Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics, Rolin Jones’ The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow and David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Rabbit Hole.

Visit http://ping.fm/B86Mc/plays/pacificplaywrightsfestival/pacificplaywrightsinfo0809.aspx for more info about PPF!

Exclusive first look at the set for "Emilie"

SCR's production team loads in the set for the World Premiere of "Emilie" by Lauren Gunderson.

TheaterMania weighs in on OMBA

"Whether writing about Charles Van Doren and the quiz show scandals, New York Jews trying to assimilate into Orange County's more laid back lifestyle, children trying to come to grips with the legacy of their parents, or the locker rooms of professional baseball, Tony Award winner Richard Greenberg has consistently struck a chord with audiences. His latest play, Our Mother's Brief Affair, getting its world premiere at South Coast Repertory, is one of his simplest and best efforts yet. ...Director Pam MacKinnon and her cast deftly belt out all of the playwright's many riffs out of the park. The result is a thrill ride of verbiage --intellectual, touching, bitter, loving, and fascinating." http://ow.ly/2LMJ

The Hollywood Reporter raves about OMBA!

Richard Greenberg's brilliant comedy about a "Flatbush on the Thames" family is a triumph of laughter and tears. For an hour and 45 minutes, Richard Greenberg's new play about a "Flatbush on the Thames" family's dotty indifference to reality and self-knowledge holds the audience with a delightfully bittersweet blend of laughter, romance and mystery. The streetwise, battered Jewish characters who populate his latest premiere -- "Our Mother's Brief Affair," presented by South Coast Repertory -- gambol surrealistically through fields of delight, envy, anger and dismay until the story drifts off into a fog of acceptance. ...The production is as near-perfect as a world premiere can be. The chemistry between the script and the production is more like alchemy." http://ow.ly/2LBX

Video Clip of "Our Mother's Brief Affair"

Watch a video clip of "Our Mother's Brief Affair" with Arye Gross, Matthew Arkin, Jenny O'Hara and Marin Hinkle: http://bit.ly/FJbo

Production photos of "Our Mother's Brief Affair"

Richard Greenberg's "Our Mother's Brief Affair" opens tonight! See the production photos on Facebook at South Coast Repertory: http://bit.ly/iyDog

Matthew Arkin guests at "Inside the Season"

Our Mother's Brief Affair's Matthew Arkin will be a guest at 4/18 Saturday morning seminar, "Inside the Season." $12 http://bit.ly/wSQMg

"Our Mother's Brief Affair" FotoFilm

Check out the new FotoFilm of "Our Mother's Brief Affair" on YouTube! http://bit.ly/2astxP or at SCR! www.scr.org.

OC Register's Paul Hodgins interviews Richard Greenberg

Richard Greenberg has a provocative theory: adultery used to be more common when he was growing up.

"Oh, sure it was. Adultery per se was more frequent then than it is now. People cheated – more than we know," said the playwright, 51, whose latest play, "My Mother's Brief Affair," looks at infidelity in an era when the subject was discussed in whispers, behind closed doors, and rarely. Commissioned by South Coast Repertory – the Costa Mesa theater's ninth Greenberg world-premiere production – it opens this weekend on the Segerstrom Stage... http://bit.ly/D5HsP

Berkeley Rep "You, Nero" cast announced

Jeff McCarthy joins cast of SCR's "You, Nero" at Berkeley Rep. Danny Scheie returns as that zany Emperor! http://bit.ly/RLkh

Previews are going well for OMBA

Previews are going well for the world premiere of Richard Greenberg's "Our Mother's Brief Affair." Looking forward to Friday's opening!

Back Stage covers SCR's 2009-10 season

Les Spindle covers SCR's new season at the Back Stage Blog: http://bit.ly/z58PZ

Les Spindle covers SCR's new season at the Back Stage Blog: http://bit.ly/z58PZ

Lauren Gunderson talks about "Emilie"

Playwright Lauren Gunderson discusses world premiere of "Emilie" in new video at SCR- http://bit.ly/21GB0H or YouTube- http://bit.ly/oUH1l

Playwright Lauren Gunderson discusses world premiere of "Emilie" in new video at SCR- http://bit.ly/21GB0H or YouTube- http://bit.ly/oUH1l

Congratuations Lucille Lortell Award Nominees!

Congratulations to this year's Lucille Lortel award nominees celebrating the best of Off Broadway theater!

And extra special kudos to these SCR-affiliated artists:

• Lynn Nottage for Outstanding Play - Ruined
• Kate Whoriskey for Outstanding Director - Ruined

Lynn's work-in-progress, By The Way, Meet Vera Stark, was seen at SCR at the 2008 Pacific Playwrights Festival. SCR presented the world premiere of Intimate Apparel (which was directed by Kate Whoriskey) and also Crumbs from the Table of Joy.
Jenny O'Hara and Arye Gross in SCR's world premiere of Our Mother's Brief Affair.

Kate, an Associate Artist at SCR, also directed the staged reading of Emilie – La Marquise Du Châtelet Defends Her Life at the Petit Théâtre at Cirey Tonight at the 2008 Festival and productions of The Piano Teacher, The Clean House, Life is a Dream, Antigone and The Caucasian Chalk Circle.

• Lorenzo Pisoni for Outstanding Solo Show - Humor Abuse

Lorenzo appeared last season in the world premiere of Richard Greenberg's The Injured Party.

• Lap Chi Chu for Outstanding Lighting Design - The Good Negro

Lap is currently at SCR designing the lighting for the world premiere of Richard Greenberg's Our Mother's Brief Affair. Lap has designed many shows at SCR, including System Wonderland, Dead Man's Cell Phone, What They Have and The Importance of Being Earnest.

http://ping.fm/7YxrB

Congrats to SCR alum's Lucille Lortel nominations: Lorenzo Pisoni, Lap Chi Chu, Kate Whoriskey and Lynn Nottage. http://bit.ly/7bSHX

SCR-commissioned "Rabbit Hole" to be a Film

Aaron Eckhart is in negotiations to star opposite Nicole Kidman in "Rabbit Hole" film of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play commissioned by South Coast Rep. http://bit.ly/No98M

Congratulations Lucille Lortel award nominees

Congratulations to this year's Lucille Lortel award nominees celebrating the best of Off Broadway theater!

And extra special kudos to these SCR-affiliated artists:

** Lynn Nottage for Outstanding Play - "Ruined"
** Kate Whoriskey for Outstanding Director - "Ruined"

Lynn's work-in-progress, "By The Way, Meet Vera Stark," was seen at SCR at the 2008 Pacific Playwrights Festival. SCR presented the world premiere of "Intimate Apparel" (which was directed by Kate Whoriskey) and also "Crumbs from the Table of Joy."

Kate, an Associate Artist at SCR, also directed the staged reading of "Emilie – La Marquise Du Châtelet Defends Her Life at the Petit Théâtre at Cirey Tonight" at the 2008 Festival and productions of "The Piano Teacher," "The Clean House," "Life is a Dream," "Antigone" and "The Caucasian Chalk Circle."

** Lorenzo Pisoni for Outstanding Solo Show - "Humor Abuse"

Lorenzo appeared last season in the world premiere of Richard Greenberg's "The Injured Party."

** Lap Chi Chu for Outstanding Lighting Design - "The Good Negro"

Lap is currently at SCR designing the lighting for the world premiere of Richard Greenberg's "Our Mother's Brief Affair." Lap has designed many shows at SCR, including "System Wonderland," "Dead Man's Cell Phone," "What They Have," and "The Importance of Being Earnest."

For a complete list of nominees: http://bit.ly/13ixd6

Break-a-leg!

"Finian's Rainbow" to Shine on Broadway

Glad to see that Encores! “Finian’s Rainbow” will transfer as a full production to B'way after Labor Day. What a wonderful score, though the book has always been problematic. http://bit.ly/1GQKZp

SCR Announces 2009-10 Season

SCR's 2009-10 season starts with Sondheim! Read about at the OC Register: http://bit.ly/1lXVnd and at our site: http://bit.ly/7bSHX

"Emilie" featurette

See our featurette about the upcoming world premiere of "Emilie" on YouTube: http://bit.ly/2xpSc6.