‘Lear’ Puts Shakespeare O.C. in Black

“King Lear,” the tragedy that many consider the Mount Everest of Western theater, lifted Shakespeare Orange County to several new peaks of its own as the company concluded its 1994 season on Saturday.

“It was our all-time highest-grossing, best-attended production,” Thomas F. Bradac, the troupe’s artistic director, said Monday, estimating attendance during the four-week engagement at 3,000, “significantly above” SOC’s average of about 2,000 per show.

“Lear,” which starred Alan Mandell, grossed $45,000, topping the company’s previous high of $40,000 set in 1993 with “Much Ado About Nothing.”

And, the production’s success put the troupe into the black for the first time in its three-year history. The gross was sufficient for the company to pay off an accumulated debt from its first two seasons. “We’ve paid our bills, and we’re in good shape,” Bradac said.

“We look forward to modest growth within our budget,” he added, noting that the company --Orange County’s only professional classical theater troupe--will increase its season from two plays to three in 1995. The next season will include “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Richard III”; the third play has not been selected.

Bradac founded Shakespeare Orange County shortly after he was ousted by the board of the GroveShakespeare Festival, a classical troupe he founded in 1979. GroveShakespeare disbanded amid financial troubles and administrative disarray last year--ironically, just days before its own production of “Lear,” with Mandell in the lead, had been scheduled to open.