New Lead Actor in ‘The Scoundrel’ May Delay Show

With only a week to go until the first preview of “The Scoundrel” at the Gem Theatre in Garden Grove, director Thomas F. Bradac has made a major cast change that could delay the official opening of the show.

Bradac said Wednesday that playwright-actor Gregory Mortensen, who adapted the contemporary farce from Ben Jonson’s Elizabethan comedy “The Alchemist,” will take over the starring role from Marcus Smythe, an East Coast actor with New York and regional theater credits.

“We’ve had a very short rehearsal schedule, and the chemistry just wasn’t working,” Bradac said. “It was difficult for Marcus to adjust to us.”

Mortensen began rehearsal Wednesday. He is a veteran of the Grove Shakespeare Festival, last seen in 1988 as Edgar in “King Lear,” as Bolingbroke in “Richard II” and as Antipholus of Syracuse in “The Comedy of Errors.” He had been cast this summer to star in the Grove’s “Cyrano de Bergerac,” which Bradac also directed, but had withdrawn because of a television role on the ABC soap “General Hospital” and a movie role in “Hollywood Chaos,” which is scheduled for release at Christmas.

Bradac said Mortensen’s familiarity both with the play and with the Grove ensemble meant that he could step into the starring role with relative ease.

Nevertheless, Bradac added, the official opening of “The Scoundrel,” scheduled for Oct. 6, might be delayed until Oct. 11. Previews would still begin Oct. 5, he said.