CURTAIN-RAISER IN VENTURA COUNTY

Ventura County will get its first-ever professional Equity group when the Gold Coast Repertory Company kicks off its inaugural season Friday at the Port Hueneme Cultural Center.

“The building is absolutely beautiful,” bubbled artistic director Joseph Bertucci. “It’s 1 1/2 years old, sits right on the Pacific Ocean--and houses a 500-seat theater, an art gallery and conference rooms.”

Built on orders from the California Coastal Commission (which instructed city planners to “build something that services the community”), the center has since been used primarily as a rental facility. This is their first effort to produce an in-house artistic season.

Naturally, any new venture possesses any number of problems.

“It hasn’t been easy,” agreed Bertucci, who is banking on his former Los Angeles advertising and theater production experience (with the former Los Angeles Actors Theatre) in the post. “So we’ve taken out ads. There’ve been stories in the local paper, large mailings. Now we’re getting ready to canvas the neighborhoods. And the word is starting to get out.”

Bertucci is basing part of his optimism on local demographics:

“Before I accepted this job, I looked at the statistics. And the kind of recent growth (in the area) really encouraged me. People here are dying for culture.”

The “cultural” fare begins with Ron Clark and Sam Bobrick’s comedy “Wally’s Cafe” (which premiered on Broadway in 1981).

“It’s cute, but not ground-breaking,” Bertucci acknowledged cheerfully of the work--”a delightful play to open a season: about three people who work in and run a cafe. It’s about friendship, getting old, realizing that friendship means more than anything else.”

Next up this season are the Plexus Dance Theatre on Jan. 23 and a production of “Divine Sarah” (opening March 20), written and performed by Kathleen Archer.

“Movers,” a quartet of pieces billed as “an evening of movement, performance, improvisation and song,” opens Friday at the Boyd Street Theatre.

“Dreamtalk-Watertalk,” written and performed by Brad Stoller and Riccardo Morrison, “uses contact dance in a theatrical environment,” explained Pipeline artistic director Scott Kelman. “In contact dance, body leans on body, finds its gravity moment to moment.”

Kelman described the theme of “Rapprochement” (staged by him, written and performed by Daria Okugawa and Richard Haxon) as “the estrangement and reconciliation between a man and a woman. It’s a structured improvisation with sound, movement and text--and the audience contributing personal items.”

“Snapshots” (written and performed by Janice Purnell, Sigute Mikutaitis and Nijole Sparkis), he said, “is an a cappella trio of women, in a musical/photo setting, exploring a variety of styles.”

And “Whose Space Is It Anyway?” (written and performed by Betty Nash and Bill Roper), “is about the interplay between a dancer (Nash) and musician (tuba player Roper), crossing into each other’s territory.”

(More for dance fans: dance duo Jackie Planeit and Tom Crocker offer their “direct, enticing physical poetry” in “Blue Palm,” bowing Friday at the Wallenboyd.)

Also opening this week: on Saturday, El Camino College will host the North American debut of the Paris-based theater/mime ensemble, Theatre Fantastique. According to its press release, the trio “will float across the stage disguised as imaginary animals, cartoon-like characters, abstract geometrical forms and monsters from outer space. Anything is likely from the group except realistic human depictions.”