TOM TITUS -- Theater

With the preponderance of theater groups stuffed into our little

corner of the world, it’s inevitable that occasionally several of them

will take to the boards simultaneously. It happened in September, and

it’s happening again next weekend with the latest attractions at the

Newport Theater Arts Center, Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse, Vanguard

University and the Orange County Performing Arts Center all opening

within a few days of one another.

At Newport, which bows in next Friday night, the fare is Neil Simon’s

“Rumors,” one of the funniest comedies from the playwright who reinvented

the genre some 40 years ago. Four couples attempting to put a smiley face

on a potentially bothersome situation discover the truth of Sir Walter

Scott’s adage, “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to

deceive.”

Costa Mesa, which has devoted its entire season to musicals, counters

Saturday with one of Broadway’s most beloved, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s

final collaboration, “The Sound of Music.” This truth-based account of

Austria’s Von Trapp family and their musically talented governess has

delighted audiences for the past four decades, including several thousand

earlier this year at the Performing Arts Center.

Speaking of classics, Vanguard has one of the biggest on the boards --

Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” The ambitious undertaking, opening Friday, is

being staged by a Vanguard student, Sunny Peabody, who is employing a

multimedia approach (theater and film) to the timeless tale of a young

prince’s murderous revenge when things get really rotten in Denmark.

Finally, the Center will become a three-ring circus with Annie Oakley

in the center ring for the revival of Irving Berlin’s “Annie Get Your

Gun” arriving Tuesday. Unlike the other three acts on the weekend’s bill,

this is one we haven’t seen much of lately, but it’s bound to remind us,

tunefully, that there’s no business like show business.

Simon, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Shakespeare and Berlin. Now there’s the

theatrical equivalent of a pat hand. You can contact Newport at (949)

631-0288, Costa Mesa at (949) 650-5269, Vanguard University at (714)

668-6145 and the Center at (714) 740-7878.

Meanwhile, other local theater venues are far from dark, with the

delectable comedy “Art” on the main stage at South Coast Repertory, the

West Coast premiere of “The Countess” on the Second Stage and the

frenetic farce “Bullshot Crummond,” which opened last night, at Orange

Coast College.

You might say the greasepaint has really hit the fan locally.

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

Pilot. His stories appear Thursdays and Saturdays.