THEATER / JAN HERMAN : Building on a Reputation : Despite the Recession, South Coast Repertory Expands Its Warehouse and Rehearsal Space

The Laguna Playhouse, which disclosed earlier this week it is buying a building in South Laguna to open a new professional stage, is not the only major Orange County theater expanding despite Southern California’s economic troubles.

Taking advantage of the slump in commercial real-estate prices, South Coast Repertory nearly doubled its warehouse space with the recent purchase of a building at 2615 S. Oak St. in Santa Ana to serve as a rehearsal hall, secondary scene shop and office facility.

“We were going to buy land and build,” SCR artistic director Martin Benson said in an interview at the Costa Mesa theater. “But one benefit of the recession for us--the only benefit--is that we’ve been able to buy this building and make plans to modify it for less than we could have constructed it on our own even with pro bono deals.”

The warehouse and renovations will cost $1.2 million, SCR producing artistic director David Emmes said. Dubbed the Production Center, it encompasses 17,000 square feet, nearly double a nearby 9,000 square-foot warehouse that SCR had been renting.

The purchase is being financed from a $7-million fund-raising campaign, which the theater company embarked on in September as part of its season-long 30th anniversary celebration--a birthday that won’t arrive, in fact, until November, 1994.

In institutional terms and in potential impact on theatergoers, SCR’s expansion is not nearly as ambitious as Laguna Playhouse’s. It would take a truly radical change at SCR to equate them, such as construction of a drama house by the Orange County Performing Arts Center on the lot behind SCR and a willingness to let SCR share in the programming.

Don’t hold your breath for that to happen, though. Center officials have given no public indication, except for fuzzy assurances of a grander future, that they will be building anything (drama house or concert hall) anytime soon.

As the county’s largest professional theater company, SCR has a $5.8-million annual budget (five times larger than the Laguna Playhouse’s) and offers a subscription season of 11 plays: six on its 507-seat Mainstage and five on its 161-seat Second Stage (plus an annual Christmas production and various educational shows for youngsters).

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“I don’t know of another regional theater in the country that produces more shows than we do,” SCR dramaturge Jerry Patch said, when asked recently to assess SCR’s past accomplishments.

(A random check shows the New York Shakespeare Festival with 14 productions this season; San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre 12; Chicago’s Goodman Theatre 12; the Oregon Shakespeare Festival 11; San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre seven; Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum seven, and the La Jolla Playhouse six.)

“I take great pride,” Patch added, “that we do a lot of new plays, that we provide resources for their creation and development; in other words, that we put them on.

“It has become much more fashionable to do new plays in the last 15 years. David started sending me to play conferences in the late ‘70s. He told me, ‘Go find writers, tell them what we’re doing, and let’s get some new plays in here.’ We were always interested in original work, but we really committed to a systematic approach in 1977.”

Among the 51 world premieres SCR has brought to fruition since 1964, a handful have given Patch, Emmes and Benson the most satisfaction to produce: Beth Henley’s “Abundance” (1989); Craig Lucas’ “Prelude to a Kiss” (1988); Howard Korder’s “Search and Destroy” (1990); Donald Margulies’ “Sight Unseen” (1991); Octavio Solis’ “Man of the Flesh” (1990). Additionally, they cited Sally Nemeth’s “Holy Days” (1990), although it premiered first in London.

Not coincidentally, a new anthology titled “Plays from South Coast Repertory” collects all of these stage works. Although it’s a bit of a vanity publication (SCR helped finance it), the volume serves a good cause: SCR gets 1,000 copies to sell in its Theatre Shop at $15 each, with proceeds going to the fund-raising campaign.

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NEW SEASON: The Vanguard Theatre Ensemble in Fullerton has announced a six-play 1994 season: Michael Cristofer’s “The Shadow Box” (Jan. 5 to Feb. 5); John Olive’s “Voice of the Prairie” (March 2 to April 2); Timberlake Wertenbaker’s “The Love of the Nightingale” (April 27 to May 28); Lanford Wilson’s “Talley’s Folly” (June 29 to July 30); Ruth and Augustus Goetz’s “The Heiress” (Sept. 7 to Oct. 5); and Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” (Oct. 26 to Dec. 1). (714) 526-8007.