Cheer a Hero, Boo a Villain : Melodrama: A Moorpark theater shows Westerns, mysteries and musicals harking back to the 1880s genre.

Linda Bredemann managed a smile as a hailstorm of hisses and boos reached the stage.

She grinned as the decibels rose, and she fairly beamed as the din crescendoed.

Only at the Magnificent Moorpark Melodrama and Vaudeville Company could a theater owner shed tears of joy rather than sorrow over such an overwhelming response from paying customers.

Heroes and heroines are vociferously cheered and villains good-naturedly jeered at the Melodrama, which successfully operates on the premise that dialogue exchanged by actors and suburban theatergoers can be as entertaining as lines traded on stage.

The Melodrama, a year-round professional theater on High Street in Old Moorpark, draws a loyal--and growing--audience that regularly fills the 306-seat house for the seven productions presented each season.

“They’ve tapped into what Middle America wants, and they give it to them--that’s the secret to their success,” said Tim Kelly, who has written several shows for the Melodrama. “There’s no message or intellectual curiosity in what they do, just good old-fashioned entertainment.

“It’s the sort of thing that a great many theaters, especially in Los Angeles, just don’t do because they’re much more cerebral about what they’re after.”

Westerns, murder mysteries, and full-blown musicals at the Melodrama feature many of the stereotypical characters and exaggerated conflicts and emotions that typified the genre in the 1800s, when melodrama was a staple of the American stage.

Bredemann, 42, has breathed life into the form by soliciting original scripts and by adapting and updating others.

Tonight , the company opens its second production of the season with Randy J. Clifton’s “Sagebrush,” a musical set in the Old West.

“We’re a spoof of melodrama--a spoof of everything,” Bredemann said. “We like to say that we’re sophisticated enough for adults but entertaining enough for children.”

To that end, Melodrama productions always are performed in two acts and run no longer than 90 minutes. A master of ceremonies delivers a humorous introduction at each performance, explaining the history of melodrama and the ground rules for cheering and booing. Each show includes a sing-along at intermission and a 30-minute olio routine after the play.

Actors, paid $15 per performance, greet patrons at the door, usher them to their seats and work the full-service snack bar at intermission in addition to appearing on stage.

“If you can’t pick up trash with a smile on your face,” said Bredemann, “then this isn’t for you.”

The theater is decorated in a Victorian motif. Mirrors of various shapes and sizes adorn walls painted burgundy and pink. The overhead lights and wall sconces are originals from 1928, when the theater was built as a movie house.

Before it became home to the Melodrama, the building had also served as a community center, junk shop and home to an evangelical ministry and the Horizon Players theatrical group.

Kirk Aiken, a ceramics professor at Moorpark College, opened the Melodrama in 1983, patterning it after the Great American Melodrama and Vaudeville Company in Oceano--a small agricultural community between Pismo Beach and Santa Maria--that has been operating successfully out of its Victorian-style theater since 1975.

Bredemann and her husband, Harvey, bought the Moorpark theater from Aiken in 1986. The couple have since installed new seats, a new marquee, a new sound system, air-conditioning and carpeting.

Sitting in the theater’s box office, which through the years had been a dentist’s office, temporary library, newspaper office and beauty shop, Bredemann explained how her experience as a stage mother prepared her for her entry into theater. Bredemann’s children, Connie, 23, and Steven, 21, appeared in commercials when they were growing up.

“I was on sets all the time and I talked to producers, directors--everybody,” she said. “I learned things by osmosis. You have to be awful dumb if after 50 commercials, you can’t pick up something.”

Bredemann’s biggest responsibility as owner of the Melodrama is the selection of the plays.

Deciding on plays is a lengthy procedure. She reads scripts during her morning bath. “If it sounds good, I’ll put it in another pile and read it about six more times.

“If it’s a flop, it’s because I made a wrong decision.”

Bredemann said each show costs about $30,000 to produce. The theater has avoided financial duress by offering audiences an unpretentious and convenient alternative to television, videos and movies. By theater standards, the $10 ticket prices at the Melodrama are a deal.

“You get to know the actors and actresses; it’s almost like family,” said Marilyn Tiller, 42, a Moorpark resident who has had season tickets for two years. “You don’t have to get dressed, dressed up. You can be yourself.

“It’s also nice because you can take kids. They don’t have to just sit there and be quiet. It’s a good way for kids to broaden their horizons.”

Adults, too.

David Tapia of Fillmore had seen a few high school plays, “but nothing with professionals,” before he attended a recent Melodrama performance of “The Amazing Adventures of Dan Dare Devil.”

“I thought I had to travel to L.A. or one of the bigger cities to see something like that,” said Tapia, 37. “It was refreshing, especially since it was so near where we live and really kind of inexpensive.”

Bredemann expects the prices and proximity of the theater to attract new patrons from sprawling Ventura County and continue drawing her core audience--and performers--back for more.

Randall Harold has appeared in 32 Melodrama productions. Like the audiences that have cheered and jeered him over the years, Harold just can’t seem to get enough.

“You can feel the energy coming from the audience,” he said. “If you didn’t have that energy, you couldn’t do a damn thing.”

Magnificent Moorpark Melodrama and Vaudeville Company is at 45 E. High St., Moorpark. Performances begin at 7 p.m. Thursday and Sunday, at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; matinee is at 4 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $10 general; $7.50 (on Thursday and Sunday nights and Saturday matinee) for seniors and children under 12. Information: (805) 529-1212.