‘BOB’ gets audience involved in process

Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s play “BOB” kicks off South Coast Repertory’s latest NewSCRipts series at 7:30 p.m Oct. 26 at their theater, 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa.

Commissioned by the repertory, “BOB” is the 109th play to receive a staged reading as part of the repertory’s long-running play-reading program. Shelley Butler will direct.

“BOB” tells the life story of Bob, whose mother gave birth to him in a White Castle bathroom on Valentine’s Day then abandoned him to his fate. A restaurant employee, convinced by a fortune cookie that she will one day be a mother to a great man, takes him in as her own.

Bob’s quest to fulfill his adopted mother’s dream sends him down a difficult and lonely path as he moves from town to town and job to job in search of the place where he belongs.

Happiness, he eventually discovers, is elusive, but not out of reach.

The annual NewSCRipts series of three Monday evening play readings by emerging and established playwrights was launched in 1985 as a way to bring the audience into the process of creating new work.

Tickets are $12 and can be purchased at the box office, by phone at (714) 708-5555 or scr.org.

— Candice Baker