Review: On Theater: Costa Mesa Playhouse gears up for 2017-18 season

One of the major challenges facing community theaters, at least those along the Orange Coast, is securing and maintaining a performing location. Several local playhouses have nomadic histories.

The Irvine Community Theater, in which I maintained more than a passing interest, staged productions in no fewer than 10 locations during its 37-year history before finally folding its tent a decade ago.

The Huntington Beach Playhouse had a half-dozen homes, including a quarter century at the Library Theater, before losing that venue earlier this year and relocating in Westminster. And Westminster’s players went through a handful of locations before securing their permanent digs in 1974.

Then there’s the Costa Mesa Playhouse, one of the more fortunate theater groups. It’s had just two homes over its first 53 seasons – a vintage auditorium on the Orange County Fairgrounds for 25 years and its current address at Costa Mesa’s Rea Elementary School, which the thespians were in danger of losing as recently as a year ago.

Having been granted at least a year’s reprieve, the playhouse has announced its production schedule for the 2017-18 season, beginning in two weeks with a concert version of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” based on the animated Disney movie.

Jason Holland is directing the production, planned as a fundraiser, with Stephen Hulsey serving as musical director. The show will feature a cast of 30 performers and will run from May 18 to 27.

A 2000 Pulitzer Prize winner, Donald Margulies’ “Dinner With Friends,” will kick off the regular season, running from July 21 to Aug. 13. Michael Serna will be staging the drama about two couples and their marital misadventures.

Arriving Sept. 8 and running through Oct. 1 will be “Real Women Have Curves,” a comedy with an all-Latina cast. Sara Guerrero, who teaches at South Coast Repertory and operates her own Latina theater company in Santa Ana, will be directing the show.

“Yankee Tavern” by Steven Dietz, a play centering on conspiracy theories concerning the 9/11 attacks, is ticketed for an Oct. 27-to-Nov. 19 engagement. Kathy Paladino will be in the director’s chair for this one.

A songwriter with writer’s block undergoes an emergency brain operation and hallucinates a surrealistic musical about the people in his life. That’s the premise of “A New Brain” by William Finn and James Lapine, scheduled to run from Feb. 2 to March 4 under the direction of Jack Millis with Hulsey as musical director.

Finally, there’s “Sister Act,” based on the Whoopi Goldberg comedic movie from 1992 about a lady on the lam taking refuge in a convent. David A. Blair is scheduled to direct this musical comedy, which will be on the Costa Mesa stage from April 6 to May 6.

Costa Mesa Playhouse is located at 661 Hamilton St., Costa Mesa, and reservations for all shows are being taken at (949) 650-5269.

‘Tesla’ is coming to Laguna Playhouse

Laguna Playhouse will present a special engagement of “Tesla: a Radio Play for the Stage” for four performances, from May 26 to 28.

The radio play about the life of inventor Nikola Tesla will feature a cast of six – Bruce Davison, Gregory Harrison, Dan Lauria, Charles Shaughnessy, French Stewart and Vanessa Stewart. They portray more than 50 different characters in the biographical drama.

Performances will be given at 7:30 p.m. May 26 2 and 7:30 p.m. May 27 and 2 p.m. May 28 at the playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Call (949) 497-2787 for ticket information.

TOM TITUS reviews local theater.