THEATER:Festival boasts two world firsts

South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa has announced an upcoming world premiere. “My Wandering Boy” by Los Angeles playwright Julie Marie Myatt will be unveiled at the 10th annual Pacific Playwrights Festival.

Bill Rauch will direct the production, which will run from March 30 to May 6 on the Segerstrom Stage.

“My Wandering Boy” focuses on a young man who has gone missing — and no one knows why. Emmett is a great athlete and an exceptional student. He’s charming and charismatic, but he dropped out of sight after college and his parents have hired a retired cop to find him.

The play is one of two world premieres scheduled during the festival. The already announced “System Wonderland” by Irvine native David Weiner will be presented on the Julianne Argyros Stage from April 22 through May 13.

When theatergoers check out South Coast Repertory’s Theatre for Young Audiences production of “The Prince and the Pauper” next weekend, they’ll literally be seeing double.

Mark Twain’s story calls for two young boys who resemble one another to switch places in the title roles. He couldn’t have cast it any more accurately than director Nicholas C. Avila did when he chose twin actors Alex and Graham Miller.

Alex Miller previously appeared in the title roles of South Coast Repertory’s youth theater productions of “The Adventure of Por Quinley” and “James and the Giant Peach,” while “The Prince and the Pauper” marks Graham’s stage debut.

“What’s nice about performing together,” Alex observed, “is that we’re a team and can anticipate what each other is going to do.”

Graham adds, “I think being twin brothers also will help to deepen the story of the two boys who become friends despite having grown up in different circumstances.”

This won’t be the Miller brothers’ first time on stage together. They played twins in the musical “Blood Brothers” and in commercials for Dr. Scholl’s and Pizza Hut. Both agree that Alex is the “good twin” and Graham is the “bad one.”

“The Prince and the Pauper” recounts Twain’s semi-historical story of the young Prince Edward Tudor, heir to the throne of England, being forced to switch places with Tom Canty, a poor but wise beggar boy who not only is exactly the same age as the prince, but bears a physical resemblance.

“The difference between each of us, common and royal, rich or poor, is only the clothes we wear and the company we keep,” the prince observes in the play.

The play, adapted by Jonathan Bolt, opens Feb. 17 after a week of previews on South Coast Repertory’s Julianne Argyros Stage. Performances will be given weekends through Feb. 25, and tickets may be ordered by calling (714) 708-5555.

Meanwhile, South Coast Repertory will lift the curtain on yet another world premiere this weekend. It’s Pulitzer Prize-winner Nilo Cruz’s adaptation of Spanish novelist Pedro Calderon de la Barca’s “Life is a Dream.”

South Coast Repertory associate artist Kate Whoriskey is directing the new translation, which will feature John de Lancie, Daniel Breaker, Jason Manuel Olazabal, Richard Doyle, Jennifer Chu, Luis Vega, Lucia Brawley and Matt D’Amico.

The show runs through March 11 on the Segerstrom Stage, with tickets available at the number above.