Rotating Repertory Triples the Fun for College’s Actors Conservatory

Picture the logistics of staging different plays on alternate nights, using the same actors in the same space, but separate sets and costumes. Imagine memorizing lines from two or more scripts, training crews to strike one set and assemble another in the space of an hour--and keeping your sense of humor through it all.

No mean feat, but the directors of the 1 1/2-year-old Professional Actors Conservatory at Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana invited the challenge, electing to make their inaugural season one of rotating repertory.

Why rotating repertory, when so many theaters today have adopted sequential repertory?

“Not many theaters do true rep,” acknowledged Jerry McGonigle, who designed and directs the conservatory program along with Phillip Beck. “But we’re idealists. We’re looking at an ideal situation in the way we feel that theater is the most exciting.”

Three plays will alternate over a three-week period at Phillips Hall on the campus, starting Friday:

“The Admirable Crichton” by J. M. Barrie, a thoughtful comedy from 1902 which explores the British class system.

A new adaptation, by Beck, of Maxim Gorky’s “The Lower Depths,” in which the action is moved from turn-of-the-century Moscow to present-day Southern California.

The drama “Ladies at the Alamo,” by Paul Zindel. Written in 1975, it examines a struggle over power, money and principles as a theater makes the transition from nonprofessional to professional status.

McGonigle is directing “The Admirable Crichton” and Beck is directing “The Lower Depths” (and incorporating contributions from his cast to the script). Valerie O’Riorden, artistic director of the Haight Ashbury Repertory Theatre in San Francisco and a conservatory instructor, will direct “Ladies at the Alamo.”

However demanding, rotating repertory provides valuable training for actors, McGonigle said. Indeed, during these rehearsals, the student actors are forced to switch back and forth between roles as aristocrats in Edwardian England, homeless drifters living under a freeway overpass in Wilmington, and contemporary professionals in urban Texas.

Other benefits of the repertory training are learning to work as an ensemble and adjusting to the approaches of three different directors at the same time. And repertory has another, less esoteric appeal: It is, Beck noted, simply a lot of fun.

Still, those logistics can be a nightmare, starting with trying to schedule rehearsal time and space. For weeks now, the actors and directors have been scurrying from rehearsal site to rehearsal site at the college’s satellite campus in Garden Grove, where the conservatory opened in the fall of 1986 with 17 students.

Today, there are 47 students. Admission is by audition and interview, and students commit to a 2-year, 40-hour-a-week course of study.

McGonigle and Beck, who are professional actors and members of Actors’ Equity, trained at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco and share a philosophical approach to their work: They view acting as a craft that requires specific skills, and they designed the conservatory program to immerse students in a training program to acquire those skills. Their goal is to prepare students to go out and earn their living as working professional actors. A course in business is included.

The striking of sets and coordinating of costumes have not been a part of the students’ training, but for the next three weeks they will be handling those chores as well. Rancho Santiago College technicians created the set and lighting designs for the conservatory productions. “The one criteria (for set design) was that the change from one play to another could not take longer than an hour, and we’re trying to do it in 45 minutes,” Beck said. “To go from underneath a freeway overpass to a drawing room in Edwardian England, it’s actually pretty amazing.”

Once these productions hit the boards, McGonigle and Beck will complete plans for a repertory program to include a musical and a selection of one-acts, scheduled to open May 21.

The Professional Actors Conservatory production of “The Admirable Crichton” will be presented Jan. 22 and 29 and Feb. 4, 7 and 13. “The Lower Depths” will play Jan. 23 and 24 and Feb. 3, 6, 11 and 12. “Ladies at the Alamo” will play Jan. 28 and 30 and Feb. 5, 10 and 14. All performances are at 8 p.m. except Sunday matinees, which are at 2:30 p.m., in Phillips Hall, West 17th and North Bristol streets, Santa Ana. Tickets are $5 general admission, $4 for seniors. Information: (714) 667-3163.