THEATER : Making a Dramatic Noise : Theater company has found itself a niche in the classical realm and met with critical acclaim.

GLENDALE — There’s a whole lot of shaking going on at the Valley’s prestigious 3-year-old classical theater company, A Noise Within.

To begin with, its fall repertory season opened this week with Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” directed by the company’s resident director / artistic adviser Sabin Epstein. It will be joined Oct. 19 by Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s “The School for Scandal,” directed by Art Manke, and on Nov. 2 by John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” under the guidance of Julia Rodriguez Elliott and Geoff Elliott. Manke and the Elliotts are A Noise Within’s artistic directors.

Classical repertory is a hard nut to crack. But the success and critical approval of the company’s first two seasons would indicate that it’s doing something right, and this winter will be its busiest yet. In January the company will revive its acclaimed production of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” followed in repertory by “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Anton Chekhov’s “The Three Sisters” and W.S. Gilbert’s rarely produced “Engaged.”

Don’t stop there. At the moment the group is operating under Equity’s 99-Seat Theater Plan, but is working on a scheduled upgrading from this small theater system to a mid-sized house, possibly on the first floor of the same former church building where it began three years ago with a trial production of “Hamlet.” That production made the company’s name and set it on the road to the frenetic repertory existence that consumes its time today.

And beginning in early 1995, A Noise Within will become a touring company under an Equity touring contract, which will allow it to pay its actors what the artistic directors call “almost a living wage.” Productions of “Earnest” and “Dream” will play either singly or in repertory in full-sized theaters from San Diego to Santa Barbara, from Palm Springs to Hawaii’s Maui Arts and Cultural Center.

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Pausing to take a breath, the company’s four heads try to explain the state of their art.

As for their move to larger quarters, Geoff Elliott says: “Our hope--and we’re confident--is that we will move down to the first floor of this building, which will be refurbished into a 350- to 500-seat theater. We’re about to embark on a feasibility study, along with a marketing and operating study. The study will also give us milestones, where we should be at various times between now and then.”

Julia Rodriguez Elliott further explains: “The phrase ‘feasibility study’ is an odd one. It’s really more of a business plan that’s going to tell us how we get there. From the beginning of this company, the plan has been to really become a LORT (League of Resident Theatres) theater. The 99-Seat Plan has been great, because it has facilitated what we’re doing right now, but people who are involved know that this is not where we want to be. It’s simply part of the process.”

Part of the process also seems to be the tours. This is not something the company sought, because in addition to difficult and time-consuming scheduling and budgeting, the tours will occur simultaneously with the continuing repertory operation at home.

“We didn’t go looking for it, beating down doors,” Manke says. “It came to us. We were doing a production of ‘Tartuffe.’ The Norris Theatre (in Palos Verdes) had an opening in its season because their scheduled production had canceled on them. They came to look at ‘Tartuffe,’ along with a booking agent. It didn’t work out, but they asked us to come the following year with ‘The School for Wives.’ The booking agent has since lined up a whole slew of stuff for this year. There are several reasons for doing it. One of the most important is that it allows us to pay the actors. It also allows us a greater visibility. It doubles our audience in a very quick time period, and increases the recognition of the company.”

With three shows running at home while the company is touring, it would seem that there might not be enough actors. With an explosive laugh, Geoff Elliott says, “Enough can’t be said for a strong understudy program.”

It’s a sizable company, Epstein explains, adding: “One of the things about the way we view ourselves, is that it’s a company of actors who are capable of playing any of the roles at any point in time. And sometimes do, at a moment’s notice. There’s never a sense of compromise. An actor who comes in playing a servant in one production, will play a lead in another. The work is always equally balanced and distributed in the course of the season, among all the actors. So even when we’re on tour, there’s no shortchanging an audience or diminishing the quality or integrity of the work on stage.”

Manke tells about actor Neil Vipond, who is playing Lear, who earlier played Prospero in “The Tempest” one night and the next played the butler Lane in the first act of “The Importance of Being Earnest,” a role with about 15 lines. “That quality of actor, even in the smallest of roles,” Manke exclaims, “ and he stayed for the rest of the production to take the curtain call, which is a testament to the dedication on the part of the actors to completing the integrity of the work. That’s one of the great joys of repertory.”

Epstein believes another joy of repertory casting is that audiences enjoy it. “They have come to know the actors through a variety of roles, and quite often they’re very surprised to see somebody play something completely different from what they have come to expect them to do. They never quite know how to peg an actor. An audience takes great delight in that.”

It also creates a great deal of loyalty from the audience, Manke says, “a sort of sense of ownership about the company.”

Julia Elliott agrees, adding, “It becomes a sort of extended family.”

Family is an operative word when any of the four are talking about A Noise Within. It is also a word that helped guide the group in the choices for this fall season. Whereas its first season was called “Insatiable Obsessions,” and the second “Breeding,” this trio of classics comes under the umbrella title “Relative Encounters.”

When choosing plays they like to find a common thread, a theme. With “A School for Scandal,” the issues involved with a culture based on appearances, and finding one’s way within a culture, are as true today as when the play was written in 1770. “Of Mice and Men” is about two people choosing to be together, creating their own family. “Lear,” of course, is about the ultimate in dysfunctional families.

Geoff Elliott takes the family idea even further, to include A Noise Within’s actors and its audience’s familiarity with the performers.

“The audience and the ensemble really get to know each other,” he says. “That’s something I hope we never lose. In the great scheme of things, it was no mistake that this was a church before it became our first space as a theater. There’s that whole sense of community, and commun -al . Think of that and think of the actors being members of a community outreach program. It’s what it’s all about. Theater was originally religion. It was a place you went to see how your life was, and how your life could be changed. That’s still possible. That’s what live theater should be. I hope that’s where we continue to go with it.”

Where and When

What: “King Lear,” “The School for Scandal,” “Of Mice and Men,” in repertory.

Location: A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale.

Hours: “King Lear” is currently playing; “The School for Scandal” begins Oct. 19; “Of Mice and Men” begins Nov. 2. Curtain times are 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays, with 2 p.m. matinees Saturdays and Sundays. Season ends Dec. 18. Call for schedule for individual plays.

Price: $17 to $19.

Call: (818) 546-1924.