Repertory

On a recent weekend in Los Angeles, avid and adventuresome moviegoers had a menu of screening choices that included a 1950s Mexican sci-fi film, a tripped-out 1970s insect documentary, glittery camp and fantasy action-adventure from the 1980s, plus a double bill of lesbian vampire pictures. Also among those choices was Jean-Pierre Melville's black-and-white 1961 film "Léon Morin, Priest" starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Emmanuelle Riva in a heartbreaking, disarmingly steamy yet chaste tale of unrequited romance between a widow and a local priest set against the backdrop of the German occupation of France during WWII.

The actress Jenny O'Hara may not be familiar to most readers, but anyone remotely connected to the Los Angeles theater world in the last 35 years will have crossed her path or seen her perform. Her career longevity -- mostly on stage and television -- offers proof of a reputation built on talent, patience and years of unglamorous ensemble work.

The protagonist of "Goldfish," the play by John Kolvenbach having its premiere tonight at South Coast Repertory, is an admirable, talented but beleaguered young man whose name, Albert Ledger, would sound a loud ding in any ear attuned to Hollywood. But Kolvenbach's cultural antennae evidently don't pick up the frequencies that buzz with celebrity news and gossip. "Heath Ledger? That did not occur to me," the earnest yet easygoing New Yorker says when his choice of a name comes up.

Robert Schenkkan's "The Kentucky Cycle" ranks among the great behemoths of 20th century American drama, consisting of nine chapters with a collective running time of nearly seven hours. For audiences, the 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning epic demands a level of commitment that will either feel deeply rewarding or punishing to the extreme -- or perhaps both at the same time.

Wren T. Brown recalls growing up in the 1960s in a modest South Los Angeles neighborhood off a lively Washington Boulevard corridor, invigorated by popular night spots, such as the Ebony Showcase Theatre, the It Club and the Parisian Room. "It was a predominantly black neighborhood, but there was a diverse palette of people, including whites from all over the city, who would come in at night to frequent these hot destinations," said Brown, 44.

Sam tells his imaginary friend T-Rex to get lost, but it's Sam who vanishes -- into a box of crayons. This realm between fantasy and reality is the setting for "Imagine," a funny, fanciful musical by playwright and children's book author Doug Cooney and Los Angeles composer David O at South Coast Repertory through Sunday.

The Roman Emperor Nero and Voltaire's lover, the author-mathematician Emilie du Chatelet, will provide historical blasts from the past during the annual Pacific Playwrights Festival, which offers early looks at five plays-in-development, May 2-4 at in Costa Mesa. Amy Freed, who comically examined the idea of Shakespeare as something less than the sole creator of Shakespearean plays in "The Beard of Avon," fiddles with the notion of Nero commissioning a play about himself in "You, Nero" on May 4.

For any theatergoer who has never seen Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music," reason enough would be to discover the context for the composer's most famous song, "Send in the Clowns."