PEOPLE TO WATCH

Martin Benson, artistic director of South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, has won so many awards for his stage productions we’ve stopped counting. Given the critical raves for his direction of “Heartbreak House� earlier this season, he could be up for more.

He recently branched out into film, directing a screen version of Sally Nemeth’s “Holy Days,� which he staged at SCR a couple of seasons back. “It’s really on-the-job training,� says Benson of the film, which is now in post-production. “I saw my third rough cut the other night and was very pleased with it.�

Though no theatrical release date is in the offing, “Holy Days� could hit film-festival screens later this year as part of an effort to interest commercial distributors. Barring that, the film might also find its way onto public television.

Thomas F. Bradac, artistic director of the new Shakespeare Orange County, has a lot to prove next year--although he is the last to couch his goals in those terms.

Unceremoniously ousted last June as founding artistic director of the Grove Shakespeare Festival in Garden Grove after a clash with managing director Barbara Hammerman, Bradac quickly set up the not-for-profit classical troupe with several Grove defectors and promised a two-play season this summer at Chapman University’s 256-seat Waltmar Theatre in Orange.

“People drive to Shakespeare Festivals from all over,� he says when asked whether he’ll be able to compete with the long-established Grove. “They go to Utah, Oregon and San Diego. There’s no reason why they can’t come to Orange, if given the choice.�

David Chambers, named an SCR associate artist a few years back, has staged three plays on the theater’s Mainstage: Louise Page’s “Golden Girls� (subsequently retitled “Going for Gold�) in 1988; Howard Korder’s “Search and Destroy� in 1990; and now Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,� which begins previews Friday.

But Chambers will be carrying the SCR banner to New York in two weeks. On Jan. 14, four days after the premiere of “Twelfth Night� here, he goes into rehearsal with “Search and Destroy� on Broadway with Griffin Dunne in the lead.

“We’ve got one of those blockbuster, rock-solid New York casts,� says Chambers, who admits he was never completely satisfied with the casting of the play in the original SCR production or subsequently at Yale Repertory in New Haven, Conn.

He’s counting on the cast changes and on a gritty new set totally unlike the sleek, glossy backdrop of the SCR production to entice the critics and the public. The only thing that remains unchanged is the script, he says. The New York verdict should be in soon.