On Theater: Local theaters make tentative plans to return when the coronavirus crisis is over

Theatergoers probably feel like they’re living in the Twilight Zone these days, so you can imagine how the people in charge of populating the local stages are feeling.

Nevertheless, the operators of Orange County’s professional, community and collegiate playhouses are busy making tentative plans to return to the stage once the stains of COVID-19 have been wiped clean.

South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa has canceled three productions — “Outside Mullingar,” “The Scarlet Letter” and “I Get Restless” — as well as the Pacific Playwrights Festival.

Performances of “Chicago” and “Les Miserables” have been postponed at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. The Costa Mesa venue is working to schedule new performance dates, and ticket holders have been advised to hold onto their tickets.

At the Laguna Playhouse, “Hershey Felder’s Monsieur Chopin” has been rescheduled from this month to October, and “Ann,” a one-woman play about former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, may be reset for next season. The world premiere of the musical “To Sir, With Love” has been canceled.

The Newport Theatre Arts Center has pushed Neil Simon’s “Chapter Two” forward to May 29 and is considering moving it to Sept. 11. “Absurd Person Singular” is set for a Nov. 11 opening, and “The Diary of Anne Frank” is planned for January. “Working” has been canceled, and its fate is up in the air.

The next two shows at the Costa Mesa Playhouse, “Silent Sky” and “A Streetcar Named Desire,” will go on, possibly as the openers of the next season. Dates have yet to be confirmed. Two large donations have kept the theater afloat.

At the GEM Theater in Garden Grove, directors Damien Lorton and Nicole Cassesso are keeping patrons entertained and informed by hosting a weekly cocktail hour chat, streaming every Friday.

UC Irvine’s New Swan Shakespeare Festival has canceled both its 2020 productions, but it will offer an encore of its 2018 shows — “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “The Winter’s Tale” — online for play-goers yearning for an olde English fix.

Golden West College also has Shakespeare on its mind. The Huntington Beach school hopes to bounce back in November with an ambitious production of “Hamlet.”

Finally, Costa Mesa’s Vanguard University has announced its 2020-21 season, which will consist of “Broadway Bound” (a new musical, not the Neil Simon play), “Much Ado About Nothing,” “A 1940s Radio Christmas,” “42nd Street” and “Harvey.” Its summer professional show, “The Marvelous Wonderettes,” currently is scheduled to open May 22 but likely will be pushed back.

All this, of course, is tentative, depending on the whims of the coronavirus. With any luck, Orange County’s local playhouses will be bringing their lights back up by the end of summer.

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