SCR is cleaning out its storage facility to make room for the upcoming 2009-10 season and is selling selected stage props, furniture, costumes and other items. The sale will be held from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on South Coast Repertory’s loading dock, located at 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa.

All items will be sold on a first-come, first-served, cash-only basis.

Online ticket buyers can now choose their seats from the comfort of their computer, as well as preview the view of the stage from that seat with SCR’s new Select-A-Seat feature. The online box office is available around the clock.

To read SCR’s 2009-10 season lineup, go to http://ping.fm/H3ymr

Tickets for the 30th annual production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol go on sale Sunday Aug. 23 at 10 a.m.

Box Office hours are Mondays and non-performance days from10am to 6pm; Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10am to show time; and Sundays from noon to show time.

“What I have discovered in my career is that storytelling is the cornerstone of great playwriting. But people aren’t born telling stories. They need to learn how, even the phenom 19 or 20-year-olds who are hailed as overnight successes. I might have been pretty good, telling a story a dozen years ago, but I’m better now. It takes practice. That’s what I teach in my playwriting workshops. How to tell stories. Eventually, those stories turn into plays, even plays where people ask for your autograph.”

She illustrates that with—what else?—a story; in fact, two stories:

“One of the worst theatrical experiences of my life was nearly a dozen years ago—a play I’d written for “Star Trek” went up live before 1,000 slavishly adoring Trekkies, dressed in flowing cloaks and phrenologically bumpy masks.

Leonard Nimoy played Spock, and I was in the audience, nauseated, because I knew jack about science fiction, and even less about “Star Trek.” Trekkies know everything about characters, from Klingon dental work to Vulcan hammer toes. Blood thundered through my cranium for about one and a half hours.

One of the best theatrical experiences happened before a small audience, a play I wrote about the World War I flu, about which I knew jack, despite research. Both performances received standing ovations, and people asked for my autograph. (Clearly the “Star Trek” occurrence was more a bouquet for Spock than for me.)”

Well, maybe and maybe not. But one thing is clear: students in Cecilia’s All-day Playwriting Workshop will bring away a theatrical experience of their own, and we predict it will be one of the best.