Trilogy disappears from Lab Anti-Mall

Deepa Bharath

Unless they’re rehearsing for a mystery, Trilogy Playhouse is

gone.

The theater that set up shop in the Lab Anti-Mall in February 2000

has dropped its curtains and disappeared without a trace, except for

the sign that still hangs in front of the building.

The phone line to the playhouse has been disconnected. The same

with the home phone of the playhouse’s founder, Alicia Butler.

Gordon Marhoefer, who had been cast in the theater’s pre-Christmas

play “Inspecting Carol,” a spoof of the Dickensian classic, got word

barely two weeks before the premiere.

“We had actually started rehearsing for the play,” he said. “One

day, I got this phone call saying, ‘Don’t bother coming for

rehearsal. We’re closed. The show’s canceled.’ That was it.”

The owner of the Lab Anti-Mall, Shaheen Sadeghi, who convinced the

company to come to Costa Mesa three years ago, declined to comment.

The playhouse had its roots in Laguna Niguel, where it began in

1993.

Then called the Laguna Niguel Playhouse, it offered theater

classes and evolved into a family-oriented group that produced

classic comedies such as “Harvey,” “Arsenic and Old Lace” and “The

Odd Couple,” blended with children’s theater and popular musicals

such as “The Sound of Music” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Butler, a middle-aged woman who had been involved in theater since

age 14, spent 11 years as a casting director in Los Angeles before

her husband’s work transfer brought her to Orange County.

Starting from scratch, she developed a series of youth workshops

that evolved into a touring group that eventually became the Laguna

Niguel Playhouse.

The playhouse had been looking for a new location in its hometown

without success when Sadeghi, a Laguna Niguel resident, suggested his

property, the 66-seat space then occupied by a group called the

Theater District.

The timing was perfect because the Theater District founders had

decided to vacate, unable to make rent. Butler said she was confident

that between ticket sales and fees from acting workshops, Trilogy

would be able to rake in rent money.

Marhoefer said nobody told him why the playhouse was calling it a

wrap.

“I knew they had financial difficulties in the past, and the rent

for the place is pretty steep,” he said. “But we all believed they

were doing OK after that.”

* DEEPA BHARATH covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at [email protected].