The theater’s challenges mirror many of American theater’s current dilemmas.
It’s been a tough few months for South Coast Repertory.
Last summer saw its final production at the Mission San Juan Capistrano. “Outside SCR,” a collaboration between the Costa Mesa theater company and the historic Mission, brought plays to an attractive outdoor stage in the Mission’s courtyard for four summers. In many ways the arrangement seemed to work well for both partners, and audiences loved the setting. But the Mission decided to pull the plug on the relationship without warning in an announcement last June. The move took SCR by surprise. “It broke my heart,” said SCR artistic director David Ivers at the time.
On Nov. 30, SCR cofounder Martin Benson passed away, leaving a legacy that’s among the longest and most impressive in American regional theater. In addition to his work as an actor, director and administrator, Benson was handy with a hammer and literally helped build the theater in its early days.
Then on Jan. 26, SCR’s 18,000-square-foot production facility in Santa Ana suffered major damage in a winter storm. Most of the 4,000-square-foot section of the roof that collapsed was directly above the set painting area. SCR has scrambled to find a temporary production space and a safe spot to house 100,000 costumes stored at the damaged facility, an invaluable asset and income generator for the theater.
“The estimate for repairs is currently $1.3 million,” said Suzanne Appel, SCR’s managing director. “We just received confirmation from our insurance company that they will support full restoration.” But there will be additional expenses because SCR wants to make improvements in HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) and needs to provide a more protective permanent home for its costume inventory, Appel added. Costume rentals won’t resume until after this summer.
SCR’s many supporters have stepped up, but more help is needed, Ivers said. “Donations have come in online but we are in need of more support. It’s a hefty price tag and will require continued support until its completion.” A funding page has been set up on the theater company’s website.
Fortunately, the two upcoming staged productions scheduled for SCR’s 2025 Pacific Playwrights Festival in May, Keiko Green’s “You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World!” and Noa Gardner’s “The Staircase,” will be produced as scheduled, Ivers said. “While we expect some setbacks due to an adjustment of space impacting some deadlines for scenery etc., our teams are working hard and quickly to close the gap and get our shows ready for audiences.”
Ivers said a suitable temporary production facility has been found. “Our production manager Maisie Chan did herculean work securing a space that we’ve rented. We are also utilizing our stage space. The costumes are safe and in storage (elsewhere).”
The Santa Ana Production Center, which was a storage and build facility for SCR, suffered a collapsed roof on Jan. 26. PHOTO 1: David Ivers and Suzanne Appel survey the damage. PHOTO 2: The open roof leaves the shop open to the elements.
Photos courtesy of SCR, Robert Huskey
Growth, Then Sudden Retrenchment
In many ways, SCR’s recent challenges mirror the shifts taking place in America’s regional theaters.
The nonprofit regional theater movement, which started in earnest in the 1960s, has largely lost its founders, whose vision and ambition brought groundbreaking plays to cities far from America’s theater capital, New York. SCR is one of the few that still enjoys the contributions of one of its founders – David Emmes, who created the theater company with Benson more than six decades ago.
Many regional theaters expanded their facilities and capabilities during the growth years, but found themselves overwhelmed when challenges such as the COVID pandemic and changing audience tastes and behaviors undermined ticket sales and philanthropic patterns.
In Los Angeles, the Mark Taper Forum canceled its 2023-24 season. So did Artists Repertory Theatre in Portland, Oregon. Regional theater stages throughout the country were far less active than usual.
In early 2023, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, one of the nation’s largest regional theaters with assets of $96 million, announced it needed to quickly raise $2.5 million to avoid canceling the 2023 season, which was set to begin only a week later. In June 2023, the festival announced it needed to raise another $7.3 million to complete the season.
An article by Kelvin Dinkins Jr. in the February 2025 edition of American Theatre magazine titled “Crisis or Evolution?” summed up the current dilemma. “The industry has been forced to confront multiple challenges in its business model and culture, including increased reliance on individual philanthropy, reclaiming audiences, talent retention via remote work incentives, and the ongoing tension between mission-driven values and the financial realities of operation.”
“Even after coming out of the pandemic, there’s still some pain being felt in the area of theater,” said Richard Stein, president and CEO of Arts Orange County. “Musical theater continues to do well, but non-musical theater is struggling, and I think it’s a trend that we saw starting to happen a long time ago, even before the pandemic: changes in how arts consumers access their entertainment. Cable and streaming became widely available, and then the pandemic accustomed us to stay home all the time watching the small screen.”
“People are much more selective now. In general, they see fewer productions each year and are more picky about what they’re seeing. And that’s true across the country. It’s been a wake-up call for us (about) what people really want to see.”
Stein sees additional challenges in the shifting patterns of philanthropy. “There is a generational change where so many of the founding donors of the major institutions have passed on or they’re getting up there in years. The way that younger generations approach their giving is different, and arts organizations need to learn to adapt to that.”
Appel said she has learned to be more nimble in her approach in the face of such fundamental changes. At the Vineyard Theatre, where she worked before coming to South Coast Repertory last fall, she explored innovative projects such as partnering with a commercial business, Audible Theater, to create audio versions of one-person shows that could be made available online. “The thing that I’ve learned is that you have to take what the world brings to you and figure out, ‘What can I do with this?’”
Finding a New Comfort Level
Appel pointed out that one of the biggest changes in the theatrical landscape that doesn’t often get discussed is the rising cost of labor.
“Labor costs have changed for every manufacturing sector, and fundamentally theater is (part of the) manufacturing sector. We’re always making something new.
“At SCR, part of why we’re not producing 13 plays in a season (anymore) is there’s (a new limit) to what you can ask people to do and what is sustainable. We’d need a larger staff and a different level of resources to go back to producing that number of plays again.” Appel thinks that the current lineup of nine plays per season is quite sustainable. “And PPF (the Pacific Playwrights Festival, which has presented new scripts in staged readings and productions since 1998) will always be a part of our season.”
Dinkins’ article ends on a positive note as he assesses American regional theater’s response to its current set of daunting hurdles. He and others believe that some theaters, at least, are turning a corner.
“In times of crisis, the worst mistake one can make is failing to recognize that a crisis is occurring,” he wrote. “The nonprofit theatre industry has faced significant challenges in recent years, but it has also demonstrated remarkable resilience and adaptability to navigate a path to recovery. Whether in crisis or evolution, the nonprofit theatre sector will continue to thrive as long as it remains committed to the values of artistic expression, community engagement, and lasting social impact.”
Appel thinks that while adaptation and change are important, now is also the time to double down on what theater does uniquely well.
“(Nothing) can replace the deeply human experience of live theater. Part of what we learned during the pandemic (had to do) with what people did with their time. They baked bread. They sewed. I actually believe that handcrafted, real-time experiences that speak to us are what we crave. And theater can do that like no other art form.”
Richard Stein, quoted in this story, is a member of the advisory board for Culture OC.
