TOM TITUS -- Theater

Thirty-six years and counting. That’s how long David Emmes and Martin

Benson have presided over the tremendous theater success story that is

South Coast Repertory.

Thursday’s column put the SCR story in retrospective, highlighting the

milestones along the road for the past three and a half decades -- how

the company evolved from a touring troupe headquartered in a station

wagon in 1964 to the Tony Award-winning regional theater we know today.

In today’s edition, Emmes and Benson reply to a few questions put to

them by this column for a more personal perspective in the light of the

campaign now underway to construct a third theater for the SCR complex.

Question: Did you envision the success you’ve had when you first

started?

Benson: “I think we envisioned that all good things would come to us.

We just didn’t think it would take this long. But with the naivete that

we had, and the chutzpah, we sort of assumed that we would, yes, become a

major force in the American theater within a very short period of time.”

Q: Did the dream maintain itself, or evaporate and return over the

years?

Benson: “Well, there were a number of nadirs where we were really at

the point of closing the door, and David was ready to walk or I was ready

to walk, and we would just keep hanging on for one more show. And then

one more show. And generally, those shows that we pushed on with turned

out to be very successful. And that dynamic partnership kept it going. If

it had been just one of us, SCR would have died.”

Q: What do you see in the future for SCR?

Emmes: “For the next three to five years, we see extremely exciting

times for SCR. We think in some ways we’re writing the most exciting

chapter in SCR’s history now. The new 336-seat theater we plan to build

in time to open in the fall of 2002 and the exciting challenges that

theater will present in terms of our programming will keep both of us

very active and engaged.”

Q: What about eventually handing the baton to someone else? Or do you

plan to stay at the helm for the foreseeable future?

Emmes: “We have thought about succession issues, and having a

succession plan in case something happens to either of us. But at this

point, we’re very much excited about what the next three to five years

will bring and feel a renewed vitality and willingness to take on those

new artistic challenges.”

Q: When you first started in Long Beach in 1964, was it known as South

Coast Repertory?

Benson: “No, it wasn’t. We called ourselves the Theater Workshop. We

had been involved with the San Francisco Actors Workshop, and they had

two artistic directors and they had the word workshop’ in their title, so

we just assumed we should.

“In the summer of 1964, we were rounding up the most talented friends

we had from San Francisco, luring them to Southern California with

promises of fame and fortune and ensconcing them in a little two-bedroom

apartment in Long Beach. We were able to rent a little community theater

on Lime Street, near Broadway. So it was called the Off-Broadway

Theater.”

Emmes: “But it was that summer of 1964 that it became the kind of

exciting opportunity for us to really discuss theater, and I would say

that it was then that the fires that were lit -- during that summer in

terms of the passion to create a theater that has lasting importance that

would allow us as artists to live a life in the theater -- was lit, and

it still burns very brightly.

“We came to Orange County, rather than Los Angeles, because I had

grown up here, and we knew about the university (UCI) coming, the

baseball team, the economic growth that was due and it would be a great

place to plant roots and grow. It was when we came to Orange County that

we determined the name would be South Coast Repertory.”

Emmes and Benson clearly have “miles to go before they sleep.” The

past, as they say, is prologue, and the current “next stage” project

should be the crowning glory for the 36-year-old phenomenon we know as

South Coast Repertory.

* TOM TITUS writes about and reviews local theater for the Daily

Pilot. His stories appear Thursdays and Saturdays.