A lift in the early stages

Two decades ago, having defied the odds by creating a vibrant regional company in Orange County, South Coast Repertory decided to pursue what co-founder David Emmes called “our next great passion” -- developing works for the American theater. Things went so well that he and his colleagues soon had more offerings than they had slots in a season.

Hence the Pacific Playwrights Festival was born. Packed into one weekend each spring, the annual lab and showcase give producers and the public an early look at scripts drawn from South Coast’s prolific commissions and talent search. PPF, famous for being both relentless and wide-ranging, includes more than half a dozen premieres and previews from such acclaimed veterans as Beth Henley and Richard Greenberg, and newcomers whose works have never been professionally produced.

“We started PPF because we want to get the playwrights we love hooked up with other theaters,” says Associate Artistic Director John Glore, who runs the festival with literary manager Megan Monaghan. “We want to send plays that were born here out to other lives.”

The festival also addresses a growing problem. “The American theater is losing too many talented writers,” Glore says. Aspiring playwrights are getting discouraged, especially as other development programs die off. Emerging playwrights, unable to make a living, are moonlighting in Hollywood and never coming back. Established playwrights are having trouble finding homes for scripts that lack commercial appeal.

“We knew PPF couldn’t be the answer,” says Emmes, South Coast’s producing artistic director. “But it could give deserving plays second and third productions, which would allow the artists to get something more from their work.”

The 2003 lineup is often mentioned as a model for the 9-year-old festival. It featured Donald Margulies’ “Brooklyn Boy,” Rolin Jones’ “The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow” (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in drama this year), Lynn Nottage’s “Intimate Apparel” and Nilo Cruz’s “Anna in the Tropics”(which was picked before it won that year’s Pulitzer Prize), as well as pieces by Amy Freed, Howard Korder and Jeff Whitty.

Of course, not all entries have been snapped up, and some have revealed rough edges once onstage. That’s OK with Glore. “We’re not buying a project; we’re investing in a writer,” he says. “For us there are different successful outcomes. A production here, a production elsewhere or maybe just the first step in a relationship. We are paying someone to write the play he or she needs to write next.”

Julia Cho’s first festival experience, a 2002 reading of “99 Histories,” was, she says, “very much about establishing a relationship, almost like we were on a blind date.” She says she was so new to theater that she valued South Coast’s artistic guidance, help in establishing connections and “all the things they did that made me feel like I really could be a playwright.”

This year’s festival will include Cho’s “The Piano Teacher,” the story of a woman who may not be what she seems. This time, the 30-year-old Los Angeles native is on many hot lists -- including Glore’s. “It behooves us to find them when they’re young so that when they mature and become the next Greenberg or Freed we can count them in our family,” he says.

Younger voices dominate the 2006 festival, which will offer productions of Christopher d’Amboise’s ballet play, “The Studio,” and Tanya Barfield’s African American family history, “Blue Door,” a workshop of Victoria Stewart’s “Leitmotif,” and readings of pieces by Cho, Keith Reddin, Sarah Treem and David Wiener.

At least three works are under consideration for mainstage appearances at South Coast. Nearly 40 other producers will be looking for matches. Everyone hopes to see the flurry of excitement sparked by the 2001 production of Freed’s “Beard of Avon,” which went on to San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Chicago and Seattle before hitting New York.

“With Amy, the festival definitely was our connection,” says Sharon Ott, who visited PPF as the artistic director of the Seattle Repertory Theatre. Ott, who left Seattle Rep last year, says she just returned from Atlanta, where she directed the professional debut of a precocious drama school graduate. “Wouldn’t you know,” she says, “South Coast was already talking with him.”

Regulars on the nation’s play-watching circuit say there are edgier workshops, more venerable writers’ conferences and larger celebrations -- notably the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, Ky. PPF stands out because of its eclectic mix and the amount of care put into each staging.

“This kind of producing theater is as scarce as hen’s teeth,” says Freed, who credits Emmes with helping to launch her career. “A new play is totally vulnerable to its premiere production. All of my plays were done terrifically. I could see my intentions totally supported and underwritten.”

Economic pressures have forced many companies to limit commissions or shape them to fit subscribers’ tastes. At South Coast, Freed says, “these guys have created a community of theater-goers that get the new-play process. People are willing to fasten their seat belts and take on a new writer.”

A willing audience is one reason South Coast can afford to make the choices it does. Another is the financial stability ensured in 1984, when the theater marked its 20th anniversary by dedicating part of its endowment to play development. South Coast also added rehearsal space and expanded its literary staff to four full-timers. South Coast awards more, and more lucrative, commissions than most of its counterparts, with values ranging from what Glore describes as “upper four figures to quite a bit more than that.” As many as 10 offers are presented annually, including revolving deals in which new assignments are given as soon as earlier ones are turned in. “We scheduled the reading for ‘Brooklyn Boy’ even though Donald hadn’t quite written the final scene,” Emmes says. “Committing to a play that wasn’t done paid off wonderfully.”

Each year about 600 scripts stream in from known authors and agents, and up to 500 queries from other sources. Monaghan and Glore do most of the reading and give recommendations to Emmes and fellow South Coast founder Martin Benson, the artistic director, about what might be right for the 507-seat Segerstrom Stage and the 336-seat Julianne Argyros Stage, what merits inclusion in PPF, and what could benefit from NewSCRripts, a Monday night reading series. (South Coast has incorporated its 20-year-old Hispanic Playwrights Project into its other development efforts.)

Glore and Monaghan also scout for new voices through the informal network of theater professionals, universities and workshops that nurture playwriting in America. That’s how Monaghan came across 26-year-old Sarah Treem, whose festival reading of “Empty Sky” will be her first production outside of Yale’s School of Drama. The tale of a tormented rabbi and his family was inspired by the biblical account of Abraham and Isaac. “I wondered what kind of God would ask a man to kill his son,” Treem says. “Then I began to wonder what kind of man would believe a God who asked him to do this.”

Treem recently completed a fellowship and is unsure what she’ll do next. “Maybe a commission will come,” she says. “I may have some meetings about television and, well, there’s temping.” More important, she says, “I also have another idea for a play.”

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Pacific Playwrights Festival

Where: South Coast Repertory , 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

When: 1 to 8 p.m. Friday, 10:30 a.m. to 7:45 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

Ends: Sunday

Price: $10 to $15

Contact: (714) 708-5555