Resident Troupe Sought for Brea’s Curtis Theater : Arts: Among the groups expressing interest in calling the facility their home are the Orange County Black Actors Theatre, Ballet Pacifica and Stop-Gap.

Have theater, will rent.

This city’s Community Services Department has embarked on a lengthy audition process for arts troupes interested in becoming resident companies at the 199-seat Curtis Theatre.

“We’re looking for groups who want to make Brea a home,” said Ret Wixted, director of Community Services. “I hope after a year we’ll have a working knowledge of the talent and the groups that are out there.”

The Orange County Black Actors Theatre, one of several prospective candidates, will be the first to showcase itself at the Curtis. The company will stage the Fats Waller musical revue “Ain’t Misbehavin’ ” from March 17 to 24.

Wixted said Thursday that Ballet Pacifica, currently based in Laguna Beach, and Stop-Gap, a Santa Ana-based theater troupe, also have expressed interest in presenting their works at the theater, along with others ranging from light opera companies to comedy groups to poetry associations.

Resident companies would be required to coordinate their schedule with the Brea Theatre League, a community troupe that already books the Curtis 16 weeks a year for a three-play season, Wixted said.

Black Actors Theatre, which has administrative headquarters in Santa Ana but no performing space of its own, has been seeking a permanent home for years. The troupe hopes eventually to produce three plays a year at the Curtis, said Brea cultural arts manager Emily Sabin, who is negotiating with various groups.

The city of Brea will not provide financial support to resident companies, Sabin said, but it will offer the regular use of the Curtis at a substantial discount off the usual rental fee of $300 a day.

Sabin said the theater, which was built as part of the Brea Civic Center complex about decade ago, started out with four resident troupes: the Brea Theatre League, the Young Americans, Cabaret Repertory Theatre and the Lilliput Players.

All except the League abandoned the Curtis for varying reasons during the mid-’80s. The Young Americans wanted to tour. (They have since declared bankruptcy.) Cabaret Rep dissolved. The Lilliput Players, a children’s theater troupe, relocated to Tustin as part of L.P. Repertory.

“After they all left,” Sabin said, “the city presented plays for a while. But we aren’t experts at that. So we decided to get out of the producing business.”

The Curtis has been a rental facility for the last four years.