O.C. THEATER / MARK CHALON SMITH : Bradac Offers a Sugarplum for Holidays

Thomas Bradac was first seduced by the tradition of Christmas shows when he was a kid and his parents carted him off to see the Radio City Music Hall extravaganza in New York.

“I remember I went there and really thought it was a hoot, but the people in front of me took it very seriously,” Bradac said. “It finally struck me as an important yearly event.

“Some people won’t go to the theater or ballet (regularly) but they will go see a Christmas show or the ‘Nutcracker.’ ”

After he founded the Grove Shakespeare Festival 12 years ago in Garden Grove (now GroveShakespeare), Bradac was instrumental in creating and maintaining its annual offering, the popular adaptation of Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.”

Now, Bradac hopes to have similar success with “A Midwinter Night’s Dream,” a holiday fund-raiser for his new company, Shakespeare Orange County. It opens Thursday and continues through Saturday in Chapman University’s Waltmar Theatre in Orange. Bradac said it could become a yearly show, depending on how the audience reacts.

The production will feature holiday-oriented poetry, prose and song from the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, Robert Frost, E. E. Cummings, J.M. Barrie, Hans Christian Andersen, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others. Bradac said it won’t be a mere anthology reading, but “cuttings” from the material arranged in a stage-worthy package.

The cast includes SOC regulars Carl Reggiardo, Kamella Tate, Elizabeth Norment and Michael Nehring.

“There will be narration and action, the actors will be in costume some of the time,” he explained. “We’re trying to create something that’s literary, but also seamless. Something that’s melded into a real production.”

Since the fledgling SOC is committed to Shakespeare, “A Midwinter Night’s Dream” will emphasize his writing, including passages from “The Taming of the Shrew” and “Twelfth Night.” The challenge, Bradac noted, was in finding snippets that reflect something of Christmas, or at least the feelings associated with the season.

“About 40% to 50% is Shakespeare, but it’s not going to be ‘King Lear’ or ‘Richard III,’ ” Bradac said. “We don’t want to paint this as that serious; it’s really more of a lighthearted attempt at using poetry in a Christmas context.”

The show often veers far from Shakespeare, however. Kamella Tate noted that one of her favorite readings is a letter Winston Churchill sent to President Roosevelt on Christmas Eve, 1941--just 17 days after Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

“It really is wonderful, because Churchill was such a wonderful writer,” Tate said. “Churchill says how he feels, he talks about the fraternal feelings, the comradeship he has toward the U.S. It’s a very moving statement because he talks about how the world is in tumult (because of World War II) and how the real losers are the children.

“It’s topical, especially with what’s happening in Somalia. (The passage) underlines a lot of what’s going on this time of year, that we have to re-evaluate how we approach our lives and what our responsibilities are to others.”

Tate added that this type of program is especially satisfying to an actor because it asks for intimacy at every turn. But with that challenge comes a fuller appreciation of the material. “In truth, I’m more festive this year than I have been. Working on the material has contributed to that,” she said.

Bradac, who was ousted as the head of GroveShakespeare last year, hopes that “A Midwinter Night’s Dream” will be seen as an alternative, or at least a companion piece, to the often-praised “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” and South Coast Repertory’s “A Christmas Carol”

“Sure, I think it offers something different,” Bradac said. “This probably places (additional demands) on an audience (because of its literary nature), but can be rewarding as well. . . . “

With a laugh, he added: “I mean, how many ‘Christmas Carols’ can you go see?”

* Shakespeare Orange County’s “A Midwinter Night’s Dream” plays Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. at Chapman University’s Waltmar Theatre, 333 N. Glassell St., Orange. $15 to $20. (714) 744-7016.