Theatre Out, a Santa Ana storefront theater that for the past 12 years has staged plays that represent and reflect the gay and lesbian community, will shut its doors when its 100th and final production closes on Saturday, April 1.

The company was founded in 2006 by Joey Baital, David C. Carnevale and Jack Millis (who left in 2011) with the stated mission “to bring the lives and stories of the LGBT community to Orange County theater in a way that celebrates our cultural identity and allows others to become allies and friends.”

In an interview with the Register, Carnavale emphasized that he and Baital are “not tired of doing theater – we’re just tired and in need of a break after producing 100 shows over a 12-year period.”

Over its history, the company has held to that mission and also became known for producing critically acclaimed theater at affordable ticket prices, Its 100-show roster has included classics (“The Glass Menagerie,” “Suddenly Last Summer”), modern masterpieces (“Angels In America,” “Torch Song Trilogy”), musicals (“The Wild Party,” “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”), new interpretations of plays like “Sweeney Todd” and “Cabaret,” and new works like “Small Domestic Acts,” “Strange Bedfellows” and “The Medea Project.”

Baital and Carnevale say that “the county, the state, the country and even the world took notice” of their shows, “with reviews and articles about Theatre Out in the Orange County Register, OC Weekly, The Blade, Broadway World, Playbill, the New York Times and in publications from as far away as South Africa.”

Its first production, the West Coast premiere of “Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Musical,” was staged at Hunger Artists Theatre Company in Fullerton. Theatre Out then produced 12 more shows – all in Fullerton, at Hunger Artists, Stages and Maverick theaters – from 2006-’09.

When Rude Guerrilla Theatre Company vacated the Empire Theatre in downtown Santa Ana’s Artists Village district in 2009, Theatre Out took over the lease, putting up 58 productions through early 2013.

The company then contracted to move into a new space, built especially for it at 402 W. 4th Street, just blocks from the Empire. It reopened there in October 2013 and produced 29 more shows, many of which are considered among the troupe’s best work.

Baital and Carnevale say the only period of rest that they’ve had between shows was the eight months that elapsed in 2013 while they were waiting for the 4th Street space to be ready to occupy.

Baital said he and Carnevale didn’t take a longer break during that time because “we became comfortable in the new space quickly. The positive surge of energy jump-started us, and it didn’t take long for the acting community to see how serious we took theater.”

A Facebook statement, also sent out by email, said Baital and Carnevale had planned “an exciting 12th season, but, ultimately, we have realized that the best thing for the theater, and for us, is for us to take a hiatus to rejuvenate and rekindle our creative spark.”

“After our hiatus, we will be looking at the possibility of site-specific productions and perhaps going back to our roots as an at-large company. But we are not making plans just yet. This has been a truly difficult month for us as we came to this decision – but, ultimately, we come back to how awesome the past 12 years have been.”

The duo cite a handful of those actors who wound up becoming integral to the company’s success and smooth operation – notably, Lori Kelley, Darius Rose, Paul Anderson, Tito Ortiz, Andrea Dennison-Laufer, Jeffrey Fargo, Ben Green and Andrew Villarreal.

Of the company’s total of 100 productions, the staging of “Hedwig” is viewed as a milestone: It was TO’s first show in its new home at the Empire Theatre, and, Carnevale said, “it gave us a chance to redefine that space, which had been associated with Rude Guerrilla for so long” while announcing that TO had come into its own.

The catwalks he and Baital built for that show and the forging of what they call “a concert setting” created a singular production Baital calls “a turning point” – one that “rang loud and clear within the theater community and also the community at large.”

Carnevale sees three more Theatre Out shows as worthy of note: its recent (early 2016) “Sweeney Todd,” a 2014 production of “The Drowsy Chaperone” and a 2014 staging of Craig Lucas’ “The Dying Gaul.”

Like Carnevale, Baital ranks “Drowsy Chaperone” as a notable show – first off, because of “the fun environment” he created for it and because “the whole thing was just so crazy and fun.” Both agree that the high level of skepticism that “Drowsy” – the belief that the show was impossible to stage in such a small, intimate space – made the accomplishment that much more satisfying.

Also noteworthy on Baital’s list are “The History of Gay Theater in Something More than 60 Minutes” and the late-night shows he and Carnevale produced that came on the heels of various Hunger Artists shows – the latter due to the unusual M.O. of trying to produce everything out of a borrowed RV that served as the dressing room, makeup area and green room. Each night the vehicle was backed up to the corrugated metal back door of Hunger Artists’ industrial park space.

Baital views his and Carnevale’s opening of their own space in fall 2013 as a key achievement.

“We had been a company for a few years, we were ready to have our own space, and once we opened it, we got into a comfortable and productive rhythm,” he said.

Carnevale said he and Baital brought with them “a laundry list of things we didn’t like about working with other theater companies” that translated into specific ways of creating and staging new productions. They duo say they’ve always held their casts to rigorous standards but have expected more of themselves than of anyone around them.

As producers, Baital and Carnevale have carved out specific functions for themselves: Baital says that Carnevale “studies and lives with a script for a long time,” all the while envisioning how it will work within the physical space; Baital then takes it upon himself to translate Carnevale’s ideas and concepts into physical reality. These roles, they say, are complementary, two necessary and vital halves of a producing whole.

Carnevale and Baital also say they’ve lived by a “hands-on” credo of “No one cares about a show as much as we do.” That mantra has turned both partners into virtual experts in all areas of production and stagecraft and made for countless hours sweating over and getting every last detail as correct as possible while still keeping a pragmatic approach.

It has also triggered more than their share of worry and stress – but despite that fact, Carnevale and Baital emphasize that the results have more than justified every bit of labor and enduring the kind of problems that frequently plague most small theater companies.

The hiatus, Baital stresses, “is temporary – long enough for us to recharge our creative batteries” as well as the duo’s stamina. He said once that occurs, they’ll be back for more of the same type of work for which Theatre Out has come to be known.

Contact the writer: emarchesewriter@gmail.com