Stage Theaters Try Film to Draw Fans

If you like art films, maybe you’ll like the arts onstage as well.

So goes the thinking, and the advertising pitch, behind “Experience the Extraordinary,” a promotional reel that will run starting Wednesday alongside the usual coming attractions at six Edwards cinemas catering to the art-film crowd in Orange County.

The 90-second trailer aims to lure new patrons to the Orange County Performing Arts Center and South Coast Repertory, the county’s leading outlets for classical music, ballet, musical theater and drama.

The Performing Arts Center and SCR, across-the-street neighbors in Costa Mesa, are part of the Orange County Theatre District: a coalition formed last year to promote the South Coast Plaza area of Costa Mesa as a hub for the arts and entertainment. Edwards Theaters is also a partner.

Susan Mason Hill, director of marketing for Edwards, said “Experience the Extraordinary” brings an air of mystery to a depiction of a couple going out for an evening, with images from performances to be enjoyed in the Orange County Theatre District bursting colorfully into view.

“It’s very power-packed,” she said. “There’s so much to see in it.”

From Edwards’ point of view, she said, playing up the performing arts does not conflict with drawing people to the movies.

“Just being part of the theater district is very prestigious,” she said, noting that OCPAC, SCR and Edwards’ art houses, a corporate subdivision known as Edwards Cinematique, all are trying to reach the same audience. A trailer tying Edwards’ art-film showings to the performing arts “adds an air of class and sophistication,” she said.

Hill said the Theatre District trailer won’t lengthen the skein of previews moviegoers must sit through; it will play in place of something else.

It will be screened before all features at Edwards South Coast Village in Santa Ana, Edwards Town Center in Costa Mesa and Edwards University in Irvine, and with art films at Edwards Rancho Niguel in Laguna Niguel, Edwards South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa and the Lido in Newport Beach.

Lyon Studios of Newport Beach donated its facilities and services to produce “Experience the Extraordinary,” using actors and props supplied gratis by SCR. Studio president Curt Lyon estimated that a comparable ad would have cost a paying customer about $500,000; the Theatre District was charged only for film stock and 50 copies of the original.

“They’re not allowing me to mention” how much was paid, Lyon said. “Let’s just say [it was] a substantial discount.”

OCPAC, SCR and the Costa Mesa Tourism Council split the discounted fee evenly, according to Timothy B. Dunn, a spokesman for the Performing Arts Center.