STAGE NOTES : South Coast Repertory Awards Commissions to 6 Playwrights

South Coast Repertory has commissioned new plays from six playwrights--two of them, Marlane Meyer and Anthony Clarvoe, for the first time--theater officials announced Saturday.

The 1990 commissions, each worth from $5,000 to $10,000, also have gone to SCR associate artist Craig Lucas, Neal Bell, Howard Korder and Keith Reddin.

The new awards bring the number of writers now scripting plays for the theater to 14. Others on commission are David Henry Hwang, Richard Greenberg, Philip Kan Gotanda, Eric Overmyer, Amlin Gray, Rafael Lima, Thomas Strelich and Ana Maria Simo.

SCR finances the commissions through its 5-year-old Collaboration Laboratory, a play-development program underwritten by a $1.2-million endowment. Interest earned from the Colab endowment and other sources of income provide more than $200,000 a year to the theater’s various writing programs.

Although Meyer had not previously been commissioned, she won the top prize of $5,000 last year in SCR’s California Playwrights Competition for “The Geography of Luck,” which then received its world premiere in May on the SCR Second Stage. She is best known for “Kingfish” and “Etta Jenks,” both produced at the Los Angeles Theatre Center and in New York.

Clarvoe, who was a semi-finalist in last year’s competition with “The Reappearing Act,” is not a complete newcomer to SCR either. Another of his plays, “Pick Up Ax,” had a NewSCRipt reading earlier this season. His work has also been in development at LATC and San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre.

Korder’s previous commission, awarded in 1987, has resulted in “Search and Destroy,” which opened over the weekend on the SCR Mainstage in a world premiere. His first association with SCR dates back to 1985, when his “Boys’ Life” launched the NewSCRipt series. It has been produced at LATC and in New York. Several of his other plays have been seen in Boston and on public television.

Reddin’s new commission, actually awarded in 1989, is for an English-language adaptation of Soviet playwright Alexander Buravsky’s comedy, “The Russian Teacher,” which will receive a New-SCRipt reading Monday.

Three of Reddin’s own plays have had world premieres at SCR: “Life and Limb” in 1984; “Rum and Coke” in 1985; and “Highest Standard of Living” in 1986. Two others, “Big Time” and “Peacekeeper” (since retitled “Nebraska”), received NewSCRipt readings.

Lucas obtained his first SCR commission for “Prelude to a Kiss,” which led to a world premiere at the theater in 1988 and to a subsequent production at Berkeley Repertory. The play is being staged in New York at Circle Repertory. Also between 1985 and 1988, SCR launched his “Three Postcards” for the first time and produced his “Reckless” and “Blue Window” in West Coast premieres.

Bell’s first SCR commission resulted in the theater’s 1987 world premiere of “Cold Sweat.” Another of his plays, “Ragged Dick,” was seen in a 1988 NewSCRipt reading.

The Tony-winning theater company has granted 30 commissions during its 25-year history, according to SCR officials.

In addition to the currently commissioned writers, two others are developing plays at the theater in Colab’s Hispanic Playwrights Project. They are Edit Villarreal, who is working on “My Visits With MGM (My Grandmother Marta)” and Octavio Solis, who is working on “Man of Flesh.”

Telling Stories: John O’Neil, who tells stories drawn from African-American oral literature, will make his Orange County debut in February in a salute to Black History Month sponsored by the Orange County Black Actors’ Theatre.

O’Neil performs as Junebug Jabbo Jones, a folk character he has created from stories generated by the Civil Rights Movement of the ‘60s, according to OCBAT artistic director Adleane Hunter.

The theater company will present O’Neil in a pair of one-man shows: “Don’t Start Talking or I’ll Tell Everything I Know” at the Ebell Club (625 French St.) in Santa Ana on Feb. 11 at 6 p.m.; and “Ain’t No Use in Going Home, Jodie’s Got Your Gal and Gone” at the Anaheim Cultural Arts Center (931 N. Harbor Blvd.) in Anaheim on Feb. 14 at 7:30 p.m. Information: (714) 667-7090.