SOUTH COAST REP BREAKS INTO WORLD OF CABLE TV

This month, South Coast Repertory breaks into the world of cable television in a big way with “Finding Home,” SCR’s 1984 Educational Touring Production on the immigrant experience.

Starting Monday , a videotaped performance of the children’s musical--which was a hit on the grade-school circuit last year--will be aired on 10 cable television systems in Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties.

By the end of the month, according to SCR and cable officials, the show will have been seen over another 11 systems--making it, they say, the biggest cable collaboration of its kind in Southern California.

Dimension Cable Services of Orange County, a firm based in Laguna Niguel, taped the SCR production for the 21-system showing, which officials say will reach more than 600,000 households. The other Orange County-based companies airing the play are Cablevision of Orange, Century Cable, Group W Cable, Irvine Community Cablevision, Rogers Cablesystems and Storer Cable.

“It’s really a first for all of us--SCR and the region’s cable systems. It’s the first time we’ve had so many systems getting together this way on a theatrical project,” said Evelyn Pine, a project director with the California Foundation for Community Service Cable Television, which gave $3,450 for the project.

David Emmes, producing artistic director at SCR, added, “We’re tremendously excited to be a part of such a milestone collaboration and the exceptionally larger outreach that it is giving to our play and its message.”

A parable about the confusion, anger and joy connected with the immigrant experience, “Finding Home” traces the misadventures of a California surfer in a tiny pseudo Pacific Rim country called “Aboland.” The play was written by Michael Dixon and Jerry Patch, the music composed by Diane King. John-David Keller staged the play, which was performed before 70,000 schoolchildren at 240 community auditoriums throughout Southern California early last year.

“Finding Home” grew out of SCR’s 1983-84 sociohistorical project on immigrants, which centered on a compilation of interviews and critiques on Orange County experiences. Some of the personal accounts included those by recent immigrants from Mexico, Chile, India, Southeast Asia, South Korea, Taiwan and Russia.

(The published compilation was the basis for “Second Lives,” an SCR production of stage readings that was performed at Southern California campuses and other locales last year. Videovision Corp. in Mission Viejo is finishing a full video version of the readings. Videovision’s executive producer, Deris Jeannette, said this version is being interspersed with news photos and other documentary material. Special music is being written by Diane King.)

The “Finding Home” version being aired this month is from two actual performances given last February at SCR’s Mainstage playhouse. The taping session was supervised by Mark Sucher of Dimension Cable Services of Orange County, a Times Mirror Cable Television affiliate. The SCR cast members were Steve Beazley as Burger the surfer, and Steve Avalos, Dexter Hamlett, Terey Summers and Patti Yasutake as the “Abolanders.”

“It’s a project (regional airing of a SCR production) we’ve wanted to do for some time. And we can’t think of a better production for trying out this kind of all-out distribution,” said Maureen File, a Dimension community-service director.

The grant from the California Foundation for Community Services Cable Television is paying most costs of taping and airing “Finding Home.” (The community-service grants given by the San Francisco-based foundation are financed by fees imposed on cable systems by the Legislature. The foundation has also given grants to the Newport Harbor Art Museum and Irvine Unified School District.)

Later this month, SCR will premiere its 1985 Educational Touring Production, a musical called “The Right Self,” which deals with the questions of individuality and self-esteem.