Ralston goes way back with SCR

Tom Titus

You won’t find Teri Ralston’s name among South Coast Repertory’s

honor roll of founding artists -- even though she performed with SCR

before it was SCR, and instructs a class in musical theater for the

company.

Ralston, unlike the handful of “regulars,” hasn’t focused her

talents on the Costa Mesa company exclusively. Little things like

Broadway shows and concerts have intervened over the past four

decades.

Yet the Laguna Beach singer-actress has found time to share her

talent with SCR from time to time -- in shows like “Jacques Brel is

Alive and Well and Living in Paris,” “Side by Side by Sondheim,”

“Sunday in the Park With George” and “Prelude to a Kiss.”

The thing is, Ralston’s specialty is musical theater, and SCR

doesn’t do a whole lot of that.

But back in 1964, that embryonic period during which David Emmes

and Martin Benson were weighing the prospects of starting their own

theater, Ralston played a major role in the process.

“I went to San Francisco State University right after David and

Martin graduated,” she said. “I got to know them, and when they were

doing their first summer of theater in Long Beach, they asked me to

join them.

“This was the beginning of South Coast Rep. They had a dream and

they were beginning it,” she said. “We were at the Off Broadway

Theater in Long Beach and several of us, including the founding

members, all lived together in a house up an alley from the theater.

I think it was two bedrooms, maybe three, and one bathroom. It was

cozy.”

The troupe of young and ambitious thespians shared meals and work.

Ralston, admittedly not a seamstress, was in charge of costumes for

one of the shows.

“That summer we did ‘The Alchemist,’ ‘Major Barbara’ and ‘The

Hostage,’” she said. “I was in ‘The Hostage’ and ‘Major Barbara.’

They were wonderful productions.

“I was still in school, so at the end of the summer I went back to

SF State, and they continued with the theater.”

When Ralston graduated, she got, as she puts it, “sidetracked to

New York,” but she found time to perform in SCR shows over the years.

She was in the original productions of Stephen Sondheim’s

“Company” and “A Little Night Music” and has directed and performed

in the tribute to the composer, “Side by Side by Sondheim,” with

Peggy Lee.

She’s also played Sally in two productions of “Follies” and Mama

Rose in “Gypsy,” all Sondheim creations. As a director, Ralston has

helmed Sondheim’s “Into the Woods” at USC, “A Funny Thing Happened on

the Way to the Forum” in Alaska and “A Little Night Music” in

Thousand Oaks.

She joined the reunion of the original “Company” cast at both the

Long Beach Civic Light Opera and New York’s Lincoln Center.

Ralston is teaching not only at SCR, but at UC Irvine and the

Orange County High School of the Arts, where she directed the musical

“Side Show.” She also has a number of private voice students and has

joined the company of a musical tribute to composers John Kander and

Fred Ebb for the No Square Theater in her home town of Laguna Beach.

“I’m having a wonderful time,” she declares, “but it’s been way

too long since I’ve done something [at SCR], and I’m anxious to do

something again.”

If seniority -- not to mention vocal and performing excellence --

carries any weight, South Coast Repertory audiences may be applauding

Teri Ralston once more in the not too distant future.

*

Speaking of Oscar winners, we’ll have one right in our own back

yard on Monday night when Julie Andrews gives a one-night concert at

the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Andrews earned her gold statuette in her first movie role, as the

airborne nanny Mary Poppins, back in 1964. Of course, she should have

played Eliza Doolittle in the screen version of “My Fair Lady,” the

role she originated on Broadway, but the best actress Oscar gave her

the last laugh, even if “Lady” did win best picture honors the same

year.

Andrews etched an impressive movie career with “The

Americanization of Emily,” “Hawaii,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie,”

“Victor/Victoria” and the Oscar-winning “The Sound of Music.” She

erased her G-rated image by baring more than her soul in “S.O.B.”

She returned to Broadway in 1995 after a 30-year absence to

headline the stage version of “Victor/Victoria.”

And, she’s the answer to a Trivial Pursuit question: “What actress

drives a car with the bumper sticker ‘Mary Poppins is a Junkie’?”

* TOM TITUS reviews theater Saturday and Thursdays.