THEATER REVIEW:

Audiences in Costa Mesa were treated to liberal doses of entertainment from two particularly talented individuals during 2007.

One is (or was) a 23-year-old OCC student with triple-threat talent — an actor, director and playwright — whose full-length play was produced at the college in early 2007. The other is a veteran actress from Laguna Beach who excelled on three different occasions on the South Coast Repertory stage — only the most recent of 16 such appearances.

They are, quite simply, among the finest in their chosen fields: Sean Engard and Linda Gehringer, the Daily Pilot’s man and woman of the year for 2007 in local theater.

Over the past five years, the Costa Mesa-born Engard has written, directed and acted in dozens of productions on the OCC stage, a career that culminated last spring with the college’s production of “Air Born,” the play he wrote about the Wright Brothers’ historic mission at Kitty Hawk, N.C., in 1903.

Last year, Engard displayed his acting talent in “The Cage,” a demanding drama about a man who willingly imprisons himself, also at OCC. His performance was called “brilliant” in this column. Between playwriting and acting engagements, Engard has kept busy compiling a book of his plays and monologues. It’s called “Timeless Theater” and is an ideal choice for young actors and actresses in search of audition pieces.

A graduate of Costa Mesa High School — whose parents and older sister all are teachers — Engard also is a co-founder of a small creative club at OCC called SWAG (Script Writing Artisans Group). His ultimate goal is starting his own theater company, much like another OCC graduate, David Emmes, who co-founded South Coast Repertory.

That particular theater has displayed tumultuous talents over the past 40-plus years, but none has burned more brightly than that of Gehringer, particularly in 2007.

Gehringer electrified SCR audiences a few months ago as the determined nun and school principal in John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Doubt.” It was one of the individual highlights of the year at the Costa Mesa theater.

Earlier in the year, she played the title role in “The Piano Teacher,” another disturbing exercise. In between, Gehringer took on the role of Queen Gertrude in SCR’s powerful production of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”

While most performers at South Coast Rep come from various parts of the country, Linda Gehringer is a 10-year resident of Laguna Beach who has performed in 16 SCR productions, as well as playwrights’ festivals.

She also has an impressive television resume, including four seasons as Fontana on “Evening Shade” and appearances on “The West Wing,” “Frasier,” “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” “Ally McBeal,” Without a Trace,” “The Gilmore Girls” and several others.

Engard and Gehringer have displayed enormous talent in, respectively, Costa Mesa’s collegiate and professional theater. They are welcome additions to the Daily Pilot’s honor roll.

TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews appear Thursdays.