12-04-2024 5:52am

South Coast Repertory Legend, Martin Benson, Passes at the age of 87

Eric Bergstrom Editor

COSTA MESA, Calif.— It is with profound sadness that South Coast Repertory (Artistic Director David Ivers and Managing Director Suzanne Appel) announces the passing of Founding Artistic Director Martin Benson on Saturday, Nov. 30 at the age of 87.

“It is a deeply difficult time as we process the loss of our beloved co-founder, Martin Benson,” Ivers said. “Martin was a shining light for South Coast Repertory, a pioneer here and in our field. Kind, thoughtful and deeply curious, Martin was always ready with a poignant word, a handshake of support and an appetite for the work. He will be sorely missed, but his fine example of craft and leadership endures. We owe him much and vow to honor his great legacy.”

A pioneering and visionary leader who served as SCR’s co-artistic director with Founding Artistic Director David Emmes for 46 years, Benson was also an award-winning director of 119 SCR productions. Together, Emmes and Benson established SCR as a regional theatre powerhouse that helped define the American theatrical canon through its championing of new plays and world-class productions.

“Martin and I enjoyed a friendship and partnership for more than 60 years,” Emmes said. “Our artistic vision, a lofty dream, was realized through the extraordinary leadership and support of our SCR Boards. Their guidance, along with the relentless commitment of our artists and staff, has made our dream a reality.”

Benson’s theatrical journey began when he and Emmes met as students at San Francisco State. Together, they had the foresight to create an ensemble of California artists, steadily building the company into the Tony Award-winning regional theatre it is today. Their first collaboration came in the summer of 1963—Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde at the “Off-Broadway Theatre” in Long Beach. After a successful run, the theatre’s board invited the troupe back to produce a series of plays the following summer, whereupon Benson became the first paid employee in SCR’s history.

In turn, this success convinced the pair to create a theatre company, the plans for which they formulated on a napkin at a diner. In November, 1964, that company—now named South Coast Repertory—staged its first production: Moliere’s Tartuffe, at the Newport Beach Ebell Club. Tartuffe marked Benson’s SCR directorial debut. He directed nearly a fifth of the theatre’s productions over the next six decades.

During SCR’s early years, when the theatre was producing plays in an old Newport Beach marine shop or a converted dime store, Benson put his considerable mechanical skills to work wherever needed: building and painting sets, constructing and fixing props, designing costumes and doing whatever it took to put a production on stage. Benson acted in 11 SCR productions, served as the scenic designer in eight, the costume designer in five and the co-director for one. He also became a strong administrator and astute voice during Board of Trustees meetings.

It was as a director, however, where Benson truly shone. Whether the play was a classic, a new work, a comedy or a drama, Benson had a deep, positive commitment to every project. Known for his brilliant direction of George Bernard Shaw’s works, he won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Distinguished Achievement in Directing an unprecedented seven times, with three of those coming for Shaw’s Major Barbara, Misalliance and Heartbreak House. Benson also captured the LADCC award for John Millington Synge’s Playboy of the Western World, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Sally Nemeth’s Holy Days, and the world premiere of Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Wit, which Benson also directed at Seattle Repertory Theatre and Houston’s Alley Theatre.

Benson’s directing philosophy went a long way in defining his success.

“The way I see it, the point of directing is to realize the play you’re working on as fully as you possibly can,” he told Lawrence Christon in the book Stepping Ahead, a history of SCR. “It isn’t about the director—I want to believe every moment of a production I’m working on. Everything is supportive to that. Sets, costumes, or some sort of bold re-imagining of the play, none of that is as important to me as making it real and believable. You never achieve it, but sometimes you come close.”