Theater

It helps to be pregnant when soliciting funds, said Dori Salois, the new associate producing director of the North Coast Repertory Theatre, who expects to deliver around the time when the North Coast’s new theater starts operating in February.

Salois did admit, however, that a few other factors may have been at least as important in winning North Coast’s first major grant--$25,000 from an Australian company, Hednesford Limited--to underwrite the theater’s upcoming production of “Joe Egg.” It didn’t hurt, said Salois, that a representative from the company came out to see North Coast’s current production of “First Night” and was impressed with the quality of the work.

But, more importantly, Hednesford Limited had worked with Salois before, contributing to her co-production of “Andrea’s Got 2 Boyfriends,” the true story about mentally handicapped adults that played at the Sixth Avenue Playhouse this year.

“Joe Egg,” the story of a couple whose wheelchair-bound daughter is unable to move, see or talk, was particularly appealing to the company’s subsidiary, NATCO-CORP, which has just developed a stair-climbing wheelchair. In addition to the grant, NATCO-CORP will contribute an “old-fashioned” wheelchair to the production and pictures of the company’s new prototype which will be displayed in the lobby of the theater.