SCR heads for the next stage

Young Chang

COSTA MESA -- A $19-million new theater is in the wings for 2002 at

the South Coast Repertory, officials announced Tuesday. The theater

company is more than half way to its five-year goal of raising $40

million to build the 336-seat stage, renovate existing facilities, save

five years of annual operating costs and add to its endowment.

The campaign has already raised $22.6 million, said Paul Folino, the

theater’s board president and campaign chair. Contributions include gifts

of $2.5 million from Folino, chief executive of Costa Mesa technology

company Emulex, and his family, $2.5 million from Broadcom chief

executive Henry T. Nicholas III and wife, Susan, and $1 million from The

Segerstrom Foundation.

Titled “SCR: The Next Stage,” the last phase in founders’ Martin

Benson and David Emmes’ 37-year-old dream will increase the volume of

plays SCR can stage, support the theaters’ upkeep and maintenance, add a

youth theater initiative for family oriented plays, expand the classroom

programs SCR offers, add four classrooms and create additional office and

set construction space to the complex.

Ticket prices are not expected to rise, Benson said.

The theater is scheduled to break ground next door to SCR’s current

Town Center Drive location next fall, with construction lasting about a

year. At the end of SCR’s 2001-2002 season, renovations will begin on

existing buildings. The new repertory, housing a total of 943 theater

seats, will open in October 2002.

The Mainstage Theater, where larger productions are held, will be

renamed for the Segerstrom family, which donated the land underneath the

existing and planned theaters.

“It’s like a reward that we can participate in,” Henry Segerstrom

said. “And education is a bedrock commitment for all the performing arts

in this community.”

The Second Stage, which will be renovated from its

theater-in-the-round style into a more traditional small stage, will be

renamed the Nicholas Studio in honor of the Nicholases’ contribution.

The new theater will likely be named for a donor as well. Folino said

SCR is in negotiations with a contributor who wishes to remain anonymous

for the moment. An announcement will probably be made early next year, he

said.

The three-story facility will be designed by architect Cesar Pelli.

Completed, the new theater will resemble a one-quarter version of

Broadway theaters, Emmes said, with a proscenium stage, a balcony, box

seats, ample wing space and a trap space beneath the stage.

“Virtually there will be no play that a playwright can give us that we

won’t be able to mount,” Emmes said. “This is the antidote.”

Benson said SCR has not been able to stage plays such as “The Maiden’s

Prayer” by Nicky Silver because of space constraints.

Playwright Richard Greenberg once told the repertory he wouldn’t want

to work at the Second Stage ever again, Benson added. His play, “Three

Days of Rain,” called for elaborate waterworks that proved challenging at

SCR’s facilities.

For the 2001-02 and 2002-03 seasons, SCR will produce nine, rather

than 11 plays to accommodate the construction, Benson said.

Interest from the $11 million added to the endowment will, in part,

allow SCR to increase the number of plays it commissions, upping the

playwrights’ pay to $25,000 from the current fee of $10,000 to $15,000.

Salaries of artists and staff members also will increase.

The theater’s current endowment of more than $15 million is one of the

largest in American regional theater.