Martin Benson

Their theater production company started out with $17, a station wagon, and a collective vision to change American theater. Forty-six years later, South Coast Repertory boasts a three-theater complex, plays that have garnered awards — including a Tony — and an annual budget of $9 million. On Thursday, South Coast Rep co-founders David Emmes and Martin Benson announced they are stepping aside to make room for a new artistic director to lead the acclaimed Costa Mesa theater production company, which began in Newport Beach in 1964.

South Coast Repertory has announced its 2008 Pacific Playwrights Festival the weekend of May 2 through 4 will feature seven new commissioned plays. The festival will highlight “The Injured Party” by Richard Greenberg and “What They Have” by Kate Robin, as well as staged readings of plays written by Amy Freed, Lauren Gunderson, John Kolvenbach and Lynn Nottage, and a workshop production by Sharr White. Artistic directors David Emmes and Martin Benson will be awarded May 1 the 2007-08 Margo Jones Medal for their achievements in pioneering the living theater.

In a May 1 ceremony that will begin this year?s Pacific Playwright?s Festival at South Coast Repertory, artistic directors David Emmes and Martin Benson will be awarded the 2007-08 Margo Jones Medal for their achievements in pioneering the living theater. South Coast Repertory was founded by Emmes and Benson in 1964, and over the years the theater has premiered 103 plays and presented works that included Margaret Edson?s ?Wit,? winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize, as well as ?Rabbit Hole,?

COSTA MESA — In a special meeting Wednesday, the South Coast Repertory's board of trustees appointed Marc Masterson to take over its artistic direction starting in April. SCR founders and current artistic directors, David Emmes and Martin Benson, will stay on and advise in the new role of founding directors. Masterson has led artists at the Actors Theatre in Louisville, Ky., for the past 11 years, working on more than 100 production premieres that eventually toured the country.

The summer sunset haze obliterated the Pacific Ocean view, turning sea and sky into one massive silver horizon. One hundred guests of Pam and Jim Muzzy mingled on the limestone terrace of the sprawling California contemporary ocean residence infused with touches of old-world European elegance and inspired by artistic vision, oblivious to the gray pale surrounding them. They had come together, once again, as they have done year after year, on behalf of their much-loved South Coast Repertory Theatre.

COSTA MESA — South Coast Repertory is running behind schedule in choosing a new artistic director, but that's understandable. Succession at the top is a drill the Costa Mesa theater never has run before. In February, founders Martin Benson and David Emmes, who launched the company in 1964, announced they would be stepping down after 46 seasons, outlining a gradualist transition that would include naming their successor by the start of the current season. But the season is into its third month and there's still no heir apparent to the two artistic directors, who intend to remain active even after the choice is made by continuing to direct plays and have a say in what gets staged in the seasons ahead.

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of four columns reviewing the year 2007 in local theater.   That South Coast Repertory reached its 42nd anniversary without staging a production of “Hamlet” was eyebrow-raising in itself. But once all the proper elements were in place for a memorable presentation of Shakespeare’s masterpiece, critical trumpets blared. The ones in this corner sounded thus: “Director Daniel Sullivan has assembled what amounts to an all-star cast for his rendition of the classic tragedy of regicide and revenge.

After a 45-year run, the curtain has come down on one of the greatest acts in Orange County. Martin Benson and David Emmes, the co-founders of South Coast Repertory, earlier this month announced that they were giving up their main roles at the acclaimed Costa Mesa theater company. They are stepping aside to make room for a new leader who will take on South Coast Repertory’s artistic directorial duties, which Benson and Emmes shared, with great success, all these years. The duo will linger in the wings, more or less in an emeriti role.

Young Chang COSTA MESA -- Judie Argyros pointed Friday to the scaled-down model of a future South Coast Repertory theater that was recently named after her and said, "Don't you love its little balconies? It's romantic!" The co-donor of $5 million to SCR's "The Next Stage" campaign is, with reason, excited. As a young girl in Adrian, Mich., she put on puppet shows and performed monologues with her mother at local Rotary and Kiwanis clubs. Today, she and husband George Argyros were announced as the donors of the largest gift ever made to SCR in its 37-year history.

COSTA MESA — In a special meeting Wednesday, the South Coast Repertory's board of trustees appointed Marc Masterson to take over its artistic direction starting in April. SCR founders and current artistic directors, David Emmes and Martin Benson, will stay on and advise in the new role of founding directors. Masterson has led artists at the Actors Theatre in Louisville, Ky., for the past 11 years, working on more than 100 production premieres that eventually toured the country.

COSTA MESA — South Coast Repertory is running behind schedule in choosing a new artistic director, but that's understandable. Succession at the top is a drill the Costa Mesa theater never has run before. In February, founders Martin Benson and David Emmes, who launched the company in 1964, announced they would be stepping down after 46 seasons, outlining a gradualist transition that would include naming their successor by the start of the current season. But the season is into its third month and there's still no heir apparent to the two artistic directors, who intend to remain active even after the choice is made by continuing to direct plays and have a say in what gets staged in the seasons ahead.

After a 45-year run, the curtain has come down on one of the greatest acts in Orange County. Martin Benson and David Emmes, the co-founders of South Coast Repertory, earlier this month announced that they were giving up their main roles at the acclaimed Costa Mesa theater company. They are stepping aside to make room for a new leader who will take on South Coast Repertory’s artistic directorial duties, which Benson and Emmes shared, with great success, all these years. The duo will linger in the wings, more or less in an emeriti role.

This corrects an earlier version. Their theater production company started out with $17, a station wagon, and a collective vision to change American theater. Forty-six years later, South Coast Repertory boasts a three-theater complex, plays that have garnered awards — including a Tony — and an annual budget of $9 million. On Thursday, South Coast Rep co-founders David Emmes and Martin Benson announced they are stepping aside to make room for a new artistic director to lead the acclaimed Costa Mesa theater production company, which began in Newport Beach in 1964.

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of three columns reviewing local theater in 2008. The second and third installments are planned for Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.   Sometimes the oldies really are the goodies, especially in the craftsmanlike hands of director Martin Benson and his colleagues at South Coast Repertory. As we look back over the repertory’s productions in 2008, several of them world premieres, the one that stands out most impressively has more than a century’s worth of miles on its odometer.

“One day you will be walking through the theater district in New York or London and on a marquee you will see a play by Sarah Ruhl ,” offered Martin Benson , artistic director and co-founder of South Coast Repertory Theatre. Ruhl wrote a new work titled “Dead Man’s Cell Phone,” which will debut on the Julianne Argyros Stage at South Coast Repertory on Sept. 21, running through Oct. 24 this season. Benson joined his artistic partner David Emmes and South Coast Repertory board chairman Wylie Aitken on the stage of the grand ballroom Saturday at The St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach to celebrate the dawning of the 45th season of repertory theater in Orange County.

South Coast Repertory has announced its 2008 Pacific Playwrights Festival the weekend of May 2 through 4 will feature seven new commissioned plays. The festival will highlight “The Injured Party” by Richard Greenberg and “What They Have” by Kate Robin, as well as staged readings of plays written by Amy Freed, Lauren Gunderson, John Kolvenbach and Lynn Nottage, and a workshop production by Sharr White. Artistic directors David Emmes and Martin Benson will be awarded May 1 the 2007-08 Margo Jones Medal for their achievements in pioneering the living theater.