The founder of San Diego Actors Theatre reflects on her nearly half-century in San Diego as a producer, director, actor, writer and instructor
How does one sum up a 50-year career in the theater? For Patricia Elmore Costa, the answer is easy. She’s putting on a play.will produce and direct a staged reading of David Mamet’s “The Duck Variations” at the Riford Library in La Jolla. Two more readings are planned in June and in either August or September. The three-reading series marks the first live events San Diego Actors Theatre has presented since the pandemic hit. Costa she’s excited to get back to work.
Fred Harlow, left, and Byron LaDue in San Diego Actors Theatre’s 2017 production of “The Zoo Story.” The actors will re-team April 1 for SDAT’s “The Duck Variations.”Costa grew up in Chicago, where she was a member of the Second City comedy troupe with family friend Bill Murray, studied acting under playwright Mamet, worked at night as an actor on stage, radio and television and supported herself with a day job as a K-12 schoolteacher. She moved to San Diego in 1977 to marry San Diego Police Lt.
Costa started out in San Diego in an improvisational theater troupe, Spontaneous Combustion, with the as-yet undiscovered Whoopi Goldberg. She went on to perform at virtually every theater in San Diego County.In 1985, Costa and some friends launched San Diego Actors Theatre, which over the years has produced dozens of staged readings and full-length plays, often in site-specific productions at spots like a swimming pool, art gallery, convent, restaurant and park.
Costa talked last week about her long career, some of her favorite past productions and what’s still on her bucket list.I was fresh out of college with a degree in theater. He was tough and I remember thinking I knew nothing. He was young then, too, and experimenting with the Stanislavski Method. I didn’t find doing his plays difficult. Maybe it’s because he was from Chicago and I was from Chicago. The man I was dating at the time, J.J.
“The Duck Variations” will be presented at 2 p.m. April 1 at the Riford Library, 7555 Draper Ave., La Jolla. It’s the story of two older men sitting by a pond watching ducks as they talk about life, friendship, happiness and death. It will star actors Fred Harlow and Byron LaDue, who co-starred in SDAT’s 2017 production of Edward Albee’s “Zoo Story,” which was presented on a park bench in Mission Hills’ Pioneer Park.
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