South Coast Repertory Comes Full Circle : * Honors From L.A. Drama Critics Reinforce Costa Mesa Theater’s Tony Caliber

There have been even more exciting times for Orange County’s much-honored South Coast Repertory theater, but last week’s honors from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle were especially gratifying. They offered strong evidence--as if any was needed--that SCR’s 1988 Tony Award for the nation’s best regional theater was no fluke.

SCR’s excellence is also a sign of how far Orange County’s cultural life has advanced in recent years. Collectively, SCR, the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the Grove Shakespeare Festival, UCI’s Irvine Barclay Theater, the Pacific Symphony and the Orange County Philharmonic Society form the heart of the county’s growing maturity in the performing arts.

SCR was recognized this year with six Critics Circle awards--more than any other theater in the Los Angeles area. Among the citations were three for SCR’s production of George Bernard Shaw’s “Heartbreak House” (overall production, director Martin Benson and designer John Iacovelli), outstanding lead performance (Richard Frank) and costume design (Ann Bruice and Shigeru Yaji). Benson received his fifth directorial honor, making him the most honored director in Critics Circle history.

Not bad for a theater that started 28 years ago when co-founders Benson and David Emmes met at a coffee shop to sketch out a plan for an acting troupe that eventually became known as SCR. The pair oversaw enormous growth and eventually the construction of its $5-million theater complex. All told, SCR has staged more than 250 productions with the backing of 21,000 subscribers, an operating budget of $5.8 million and an endowment fund of $5 million, including about $2 million for a nationally recognized writers’ laboratory. Developing new writers, in fact, is a primary goal of SCR.

The Critics Circle awards provide an occasion to appreciate the presence of fine theater in Orange County.