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