On Theater:

It’s still technically summer, but Golden West College will be ushering in the new school theater year shortly, with auditions scheduled for the first two shows of the Huntington Beach college’s 2009-10 season.

Tryouts for the season opener, Paula Vogel’s “How I Learned to Drive,” will be at 7 p.m. Sept. 8 and 9 in the college’s Stage West Theater.

A week later, Sept. 15 and 16, GWC will be casting an updated version of the classic drama “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

Martie Ramm is directing “How I Learned to Drive,” which won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for drama and calls for three women and two men.

Its themes, the director stresses, are quite adult in nature.

“It is a funny yet devastating tale of survival as seen through the lens of a troubling sexual relationship between a young girl and an older man,” Ramm explains. “It tackles the complex issues of growing up, romance, insecurity, sex and fun in a most forgiving way.”

“How I Learned to Drive” will be presented on the newly refurbished stage of the Mainstage Theater from Oct. 16 to 25.

More information is available at (714) 895-8223 or online from the director at [email protected].

Close on the heels of those auditions will be the tryouts for “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” created back in 1886.

The GWC production will be of Jeffrey Hatcher’s new version of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic.

“This is not your grandmother’s ‘Jekyll and Hyde,’ director Tom Amen declares, noting that “Hatcher’s brilliant take on Stevenson’s original story is everything a psychological thriller should be — slick, provocative, sexy and intense.”

Set in the fog-shrouded streets of Victorian-era London, the drama centers on a mild-mannered scientist whose medical experiments have unleashed a monster.

“Jekyll’s alto-ego, Edward Hyde, is a hedonistic sensualist, free to commit the types of sins that Jekyll can only dream about,” Amen says.

Auditions are scheduled at 7 p.m. in the Mainstage Theater, where “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” will play Nov. 6 to 15.

For more information, call (714) 892-7711, ext. 55237 or contact Amen online at [email protected].

TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Independent.