Martin Benson

For her role in South Coast Repertory's newest production, Blake Lindsley had to brush up on her backhand, but her character Tina isn't a tennis champ — or any sort of athlete for that matter. She's learning the move so she can properly wallop her husband Tom across the forehead with a rolling pin in one of several heated scenes from "Pig Farm," a new comedy from "Urinetown" author Greg Kotis, coming to the theater this weekend. As of Wednesday, none of the play's four actors had received any serious injuries during rehearsal, perhaps owing to the training of fight coordinator Martin Noyes.

Tom Titus This is the final column in a series reviewing the year 2003 in local theater. The true measure of a stage performer is one's ability to create an infinite number of strong, contrasting characters and sustain them to the point where the actor appears to be assimilated by the persona presented to the audience. Local theater is blessed with a number of these talents, but two in particular have entertained and entranced playgoers over many, many years, both on the professional and community theater level.

The 2008 social season on the California Riviera debuted last Saturday night with an Orange County tradition celebrating a 44-year milestone. South Coast Repertory Theater threw its September bash, Affair in Shanghai, at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Laguna Niguel, raising more than $600,000 for the theater’s annual fund. The evening trumpeted the beginning of SCR’s 44th season in Orange County and demonstrated community support for the performance arts in Orange County.

“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.

Three to receive arts leadership awards South Coast Repertory founders David Emmes and Martin Benson and Orange County Performing Artscenter Executive Vice President Judith O?Dea Morr are scheduled to be honored next month for their longtime support of the arts in Orange County. The Orange County Business Committee for the Arts plans to present all three with Lifetime Leadership in the Arts awards at its annual ceremony Nov. 18 at the Marriott Newport Beach. ?Under the stewardship of these three arts leaders, Orange County has been established as a major cultural destination,?

South Coast Repertory's Next Stage broke ground Wednesday next to the theater's Town Center Drive location, kicking off construction for the company's new 336-seat proscenium theater and a number of renovations. The new theater, to be named the Judie Argyros Stage, is set to open October 2002. The Judie Argyros Stage will also house classrooms, office space for SCR's education department and other facilities. This is "the culmination of one incredible journey and the beginning of another," said Paul Folino, president of SCR's board.

Every dollar counts. Two Southern California theaters are among the recipients of new grant money handed out by Theatre Communications Group that are intended to foster leadership development and new audiences. South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa is expected to receive an award of $80,000 to support an 18-month mentorship between the company's outgoing co-artistic director Martin Benson and Oanh Nguyen, the head of the Chance Theater, who will be taking on the newly created position of SCR's producing associate.

Alex Coolman SANTA ANA -- A column of black-clad mourners walked slowly from the chapel of Waverly Church to its cemetery Wednesday as Renee Segerstrom, an arts leader and the wife of developer Henry T. Segerstrom, was laid to rest. She died Wednesday at the age of 72 from complications from an extended illness. Her memorial was heavily attended, with crowds spilling out of the Santa Ana church's small stone chapel and into rows of chairs that had been set up on an adjacent lawn.

Young Chang David Emmes and Martin Benson famously used a napkin to doodle on in 1963. They were in a coffee shop, having just finished a production at the Off-Broadway Theater in Long Beach. The doodles and drawings were of their shared dream -- a professional theater -- and today the result of these scribbles stand as South Coast Repertory. Last week, the theater held a groundbreaking for a $40-million addition, which includes a 336-seat theater, offices and classrooms.