STAGE : City’s Theater Reputation Rubbing Off on Its Actors

San Diego’s national reputation as a theater boom town is beginning to benefit actors in a big way. Thanks to the efforts of the fledgling Actors Co-op, previously hard-to-reach artistic directors have been flying in from places as far-flung as Kentucky and Arkansas to check out the talent pool.

And they’re signing local actors.

D. B. Novak was selected from among the 800 actors who auditioned for the 16 parts available in the Berkeley Shakespeare Festival’s repertory season. For Novak, it includes the role of Troilus in “Troilus and Cressida.” Ric Oquita was cast in “The Torch” at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre. Tavis Ross, the San Diego Repertory Theatre’s Scrooge in its past two productions of “A Christmas Carol,” was signed for a full season at the Louisville (Ky.) Children’s Theatre Stage One. Kurt Reichert was cast in the Grove Shakespeare Festival in Orange County and, closer to home, the Starlight production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” which opened Friday at the Starlight Bowl.

The irony is that local veterans of New York and Los Angeles stages say the co-op is giving actors here a shot at personal auditions with artistic directors that they weren’t able to get in the crowded theater communities.

“You go to Los Angeles or New York, and the most you can get is a cattle call at which you drop off your resumes and pictures,” said Annie Hinton, a member of the Actors Co-op Steering Committee.

So why should artistic directors give San Diego special treatment?

“San Diego is a new area that’s opening up nationally,” said Andrew Traister, the producing artistic director of the Alaska Repertory Theatre, who cast Andrew Barnicle and Kamella Tate as Cassio and Desdemona in his production of “Othello” opening later this month.

Traister, who worked as an associate director at the Old Globe Theatre in 1984, said the theater scene in San Diego has “exploded” since he left. One of the advantages of auditioning in San Diego, he said, is that the Actors Co-op sets up all the auditions, he knows that everyone he sees is genuinely interested in taking the jobs he offers and he gets to visit San Diego and see shows while he is here.

“The San Diego Rep, La Jolla Playhouse and Old Globe are doing some of the most important theater in the country,” he said from Anchorage.

Such success is much more than the founders of the Actors Co-op expected when they started grumbling about acting opportunities at a post-show drink at Play Bill’s last October. Philip Charles Sneed, Linda Libby and Novak hoped attract 60 to 70 actors to the group. Their roster now includes 500, some of whom fly in from as far away as New Mexico for the local auditions. They hoped to land work for actors, along the lines of comparable organizations in Seattle and Ashland, Ore. In addition, they have provided an assortment of perks, from workshops, a newsletter and a hot line to medical coverage and a credit union.

Hinton said the co-op is now working on finding and funding a space for auditions and meetings.

She hopes the group’s achievements will lead to renewed interest in San Diego actors by San Diego theaters, which have turned increasingly to New York and Los Angeles talent as local houses have increased in stature.

“As soon as you start going out of town, your visibility becomes higher, and casting directors who didn’t give you a passing glance now say, ‘We better get them back in here,’ ” Hinton said.

In the case of Don and Bonnie Ward, co-artistic directors of the San Diego Civic Light Opera Assn. (Starlight), one of the advantages of the Actors Co-op open call for San Diego theaters in January is that the pair got to see actors who don’t usually audition for Starlight because it doesn’t occur to them that musicals include non-singing roles. That’s how Reichert found himself cast as the rabbi in “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Reichert had not prepared a singing piece for his general audition and was surprised when he received a call-back from the Wards.

“I said, ‘What do you mean?’ ” Reichert recalled with a laugh. “It took me by surprise.”

Another Actors Co-op member, James Saba, will appear in “Fiddler,” as Perchik. Saba is no stranger to the Starlight, having appeared there as a child in “Oliver” years ago.

David McClendon, casting director at the Old Globe, also signed some local talent as a result of the January auditions--Darla Cash as a lady-in-waiting in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” and Deena Burke as a bar girl in “White Linen.”

But McClendon sees the benefits of the Actors Co-op as long-term.

“I may audition an actor for four years before the right project comes along,” McClendon said. “The important thing is that the quality of San Diego actors is getting better and better because it is easier for actors to make a living with us (the Globe), with television, the Gaslamp, the Rep and the (La Jolla) Playhouse.

“There are very few places in the country where an actor can make a living. San Diego is becoming one of those places.”

Sometimes it seems the Old Globe Theatre is a feeding ground for “L.A. Law.” On Sunday, Globe veteran Larry Drake picked up a supporting-actor Emmy for his portrayal of retarded mail clerk Benny Stulwicz. Don Sparks, now starring in the one-man show “Jeeves Takes Charge” at the Globe’s Cassius Carter Centre Stage, can also occasionally be seen on the show in an attorney’s chair. Phil Reeves, who played opposite Drake in both the Globe’s “Greater Tuna” and “Of Mice and Men,” also appeared as a district attorney in an episode with Drake.

Drake’s winning came as no surprise to David McClendon, his undergraduate friend from the University of Oklahoma, who was at the Old Globe when Drake was cast in his first part there. His popularity must not have surprised the producers, either. This season, they are upgrading his recurring role to one as a season regular.