A collapsed roof at SCR’s Santa Ana production facility soaks sets, costumes and more, posing a logistical nightmare, but the theater is confident it can weather the storm.
South Coast Repertory ended last week, Saturday, Feb. 1, with a celebration of the life and legacy of its co-founder, Martin Benson, who passed away on Nov. 30. It began the week with a logistical disaster that, had it happened in SCR's early days, Benson would likely have been on point to fix.
However, the scope of damage that SCR’s Production Center suffered on the evening of Sunday, Jan. 26, was far too extensive for even Benson – the most blue-collar of theater impresarios – who directed 160 shows at SCR but whose hand “reached as easily for a pair of pliers as a script,” according to SCR biographer Lawrence Christon.
The damage, which SCR Media and Public Relations Director Brian Robin describes as “thermonuclear,” began with a cave-in of a large section of the roof atop the Production Center, an 18,000-square-foot building located in Santa Ana about three miles northwest of SCR’s Costa Mesa theater complex. The center, part of SCR since 1994, is where all its sets are painted, and where approximately 100,000 costumes, alongside a staggering number of props, set pieces and building materials, are housed.
The cause of the cave-in, which happened around 7:30 p.m. at the end of a rainy weekend and windy week, is still under investigation, according to SCR Managing Director Suzanne Appel, who added the collapse felt even more shocking considering the roof had significant work done on it in 2020. But its effects on SCR’s business are obvious.
PHOTO 1: South Coast Repertory builds its sets at its Costa Mesa theater complex but paints them in in its Santa Ana Production Center, which suffered a collapsed roof Jan 26. PHOTO 2: Employees of Knight Commercial, based in Dallas, will work with members of SCR's scene shop to clean up, and dry out, the areas of the Production Center that were flooded. PHOTO 3: Employees help sweep up debris. Photos courtesy of SCR, Robert Huskey
Set Painting Area Destroyed
The most direct impact is on the theater’s ability to paint large set pieces, as most of the 4,000-square-foot section of the roof that collapsed was directly above the set painting area. SCR builds its sets at its Costa Mesa theater complex and then transports them to its Santa Ana facility, which has a painting area large enough to accommodate the largest sets.
The good news, other than the fact that neither of the two artisans who painted most of those sets were on the premises at the time of the collapse, is that the next two plays requiring large-scale painted sets don’t open until late April.
But the collapse indirectly affected most of the facility due to water damage. When the roof collapsed, it ruptured a water pipe connected to the sprinkler system, which triggered a fire alarm that activated the sprinklers and flooded much of the building, in some places as deep as four feet, Appel said.
“The damage from that water is pretty extensive, and we believe it reached most parts of the space as a whole,” she said. “So there’s a lot of water remediation that needs to be done.”
Knight Commercial, a Dallas-based company experienced in large-scale projects such as this, will lead the remediation. It will include opening up walls to treat the sheetrock inside, ensuring no mold takes root, using industrial wet vacs and large fans to dry the building, and ripping out any carpeting to treat the flooring beneath.
The risk of mold also means the building’s most eye-popping asset – the approximately 100,000 costumes it houses – will have to find a new home for a while.
“It’s an incredible collection, used not just by our designers but also by costume designers across the Southern California theater and television industry,” Appel said. “One unfortunate consequence of this collapse is that, due to the water damage, we’re going to have to pack up every one of those items and store them elsewhere until the facility is rebuilt and the damage remediated.”
Rest of Season on Schedule
While most grateful that no employees were on the premises during the collapse, Appel is also relieved that, for now, SCR’s production schedule should stay on track.
“Right now, we're not anticipating any interruption to any of our productions,” she said.
The next mainstage production, “Rachmaninoff and the Tsar,” which opens Feb. 19, is a special engagement of a show currently playing in Silicon Valley, Appel said, and everything for that show will be brought to SCR.
The next in-house show to open is a Theatre for Young Audiences and Families production of a musical based on the book “The Incredible Book Eating Boy” by Oliver Jeffers. Appel believes that the set for that show, which opens for previews Feb. 28, will, like all SCR’s sets, be built at its Costa Mesa location but will be small enough to also be painted there.
The two shows that present the biggest challenges don’t go up until late April and are part of SCR’s annual Pacific Playwrights Festival. Both are world premieres: Noa Gardner’s “The Staircase,” set in Hawaii, and Keiko Green’s “You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World!” “We’re expecting both to have extensive sets that are going to require a lot of care and space, so we want to make sure we have (ample) space for painting,” Appel said.
For that, Appel said, SCR will be looking for a space somewhere in the greater Orange County area that can accommodate those sets. But don’t think of offering your backyard shed – SCR’s biggest stage, the Segerstrom Stage, is 60 feet wide and about 30 feet deep.
“So when you think about creating a set or painting set pieces, they often need to stretch across the whole stage, and that’s a very large space,” Appel said. “Plus, another thing to remember is that even an empty warehouse doesn’t have the same air filtration or drainage, which are both requirements for a paint shop.”
To find a suitable painting area, SCR will be reaching out to its partners and other community organizations that have paint shops – specifically, universities in the area or other arts organizations, Appel said.
Welcome to the Job
Appel was hired as SCR’s managing director in September, taking the reins from Paula Tomei, who served in the role for 30 years. One thing she already knew about SCR has been solidified in this first logistical challenge she has faced: There is no other Southern California theater like it, which is a point of pride but can also be a challenge.
For instance, it has a Production Center, a piece of real estate few theaters can match, an asset, Appel said, that is far more than a big building where big set pieces are painted and lots of stuff is stored.
“It’s a crucial part of what we do,” she said. “We need the right assets to produce world-class theater. The Production Center is really key to what allows us to store everything in one place. Every time we do a new production, we’re able to go through our stock, see what we already have, and reduce costs. It also supports a greener theatrical experience by reusing materials, which wouldn’t be possible without that space.
“Frankly, we’re one of the only theaters in Southern California with a space like this. Most of our peers build and paint their sets at commercial shops. We’re among the few theaters that can do everything in-house. The materials we store there are crucial, especially with the rising costs of set building post-pandemic and inflation impacting prices, like lumber. Having those assets has been incredibly valuable for SCR.”
But having a Production Center offsite also means the risk of things like collapsed roofs.
While there’s no estimate yet about how much it will cost to fully repair the Production Center, Appel said even with insurance it’s likely to be “in the six figures, possibly the high six figures. It will take time and resources to rebuild, and we know that we'll be able to do so. But it's likely that we're going to need support from our community to help bring this back as a resource.”
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