Vista’s Amphitheatre, Basking in Its Success, Considers ‘Community’ Label a Badge of Honor

People get this funny catch in their voices when they talk about working at the Moonlight Amphitheatre here. They may work behind the scenes or under the spotlights at this outdoor community theater, but the stories are invariably the same.

“I’ve been paid $5,000 for one lighting design (in Las Vegas) and been upset and angry,” said Nels Martin, the technical director and lighting designer for the season.

“My first three weeks here, I put in 242 hours in 16-hour days, seven days a week. I was making about $1.29 an hour and happy to do it--because you know what you see opening night is worth everything you put into it. And that’s because of the people who work here--Kathy Brombacher (artistic director and producer) and James Cook, the musical director. We all have the same vision and want to end up in the same place opening night.”

The Moonlight has come a long way in the nine years since Brombacher, a high school teacher, first noticed a concrete slab while on a walk in Brengle Terrace Park with Jack Price, then superintendent of the school district.

“I had just moved to this area from San Bernardino,” Brombacher recalled, standing in the dirt area behind the slab that is Moonlight’s backstage. “I just thought there was a need for a theater here, that there were people here who had talent and that Starlight and other San Diego theaters were too far away.”

Brombacher said that, during the walk, she gestured to the unused slab. To her surprise, Price responded by asking, “How much do you need?”

By the following summer, the school district had granted her $10,000 to produce “Oliver” and “The Boyfriend.” She rented cables, microphones and poles on which to hang the lights. She went $3,000 over budget, but the season was declared a success and the Moonlight allowance was increased to $18,000 for the next year.

Jim Porter, director of community services for the city of Vista, drew local government onto the Moonlight bandwagon. The budget has grown to a peak of $133,000 for this year’s four shows. Southwest Bank, co-producer with the city, kicked in nearly half that.

Some of that money has gone to produce such shows as “Gypsy,” “Bye, Bye Birdie,” “The Wizard of Oz” and “The King and I,” which have been the most expensive and technically challenging productions in Moonlight’s history, requiring casts of close to 50 and up to 17 set changes each.

The rest of the money has gone toward technical improvements.

The slab was extended and a permanent stage built on it. The frame of the stage was extended from 12 to 24 feet--the same height as Starlight’s. Artificial hills were constructed to muffle the sound from nearby. Lights and a sound system were bought--and so were trees, to enhance what had previously been a dry, flat area.

The city has poured more than $250,000 into this year’s additional projects: a concession and patio area and restrooms. In the new patio area is an architectural rendering of a 150- to 200-seat indoor theater that the city would like to erect as part of the Moonlight complex.

But, at Moonlight, people no sooner tell you what they have done than they move on to what they are going to do: enclose the entire backstage area in a shell so actors will have dressing rooms; build more permanent seats to meet the rising demand for tickets at a theater whose rapid growth parallels that of the bedroom community supporting it.

At closing night for “The Wizard of Oz,” the amphitheater accommodated a record 1,300 people on the grass and cement tiers, exceeding what was assumed to be capacity seating by about 100.

There are heady advantages to all this acceptance. Brombacher has increasing access to more experienced and talented people. Patti Goodwin, the female lead in the current show, “The King and I”--which Brombacher is directing and which runs through Saturday--has played at most of the musical theaters in town, including the Starlight, the Lawrence Welk Dinner Theatre and the now-defunct Fiesta and Lyric dinner theaters.

Her choreographer, Javier Velasco, is a longtime performer and choreographer, best known for his choreography of the Off-Broadway-bound “Suds.”

But how far will the growth go? With big money go big dreams. Does the Moonlight, like so many theaters before it, plan to work toward professional status someday? And, if it moves away from being a community theater, won’t something inevitably be lost?

Such questions are enough to make Brombacher wrinkle up her nose and sigh.

She acknowledges having an interest in the Moonlight someday becoming a regional theater--even having Equity-waiver leads, just like the Starlight. But she’s ambivalent about it.

Despite the inevitable jokes about Moonlight being “a Starlight without planes” (because of the jets that fly over the Balboa Park facility), competition with San Diego’s oldest musical theater is not her goal, Brombacher said.

A former Starlight actress herself, Brombacher wants the Moonlight to hold on to its identification as a community theater. Her most remarkable accomplishment in that regard may be having sold community theater as something to be proud of rather than a stigma signifying second-best.

That is the sense that Goodwin, who plays Anna in “The King and I,” picked up on when she auditioned for her first Moonlight show.

“I’ve done professional as well as community theater,” Goodwin said. “There’s a feeling of togetherness in community theater, but this group transcends even that. They’re stepping into the professional world, but they’re doing it in such a way that everyone still feels a sense of worth.

“Everyone walks around with a smile on his face here. And it’s wonderful. I don’t know how Kathy’s done it--maybe it’s because she’s a teacher--but she treats everyone equally and has instilled this feeling of working together toward the best that anyone can do.”

Still, Brombacher acknowledges the aspirations that naturally accompany growth.

“We are in the process of transition,” she said. “We are interested in regional theater status, but I don’t know if we’ll ever go for professional leads. We want to put on a high-caliber, professional show that still leaves room for community people to get involved. We want people to do theater because they love it and are committed to a certain type of excellence.”

Slowly, Brombacher looked out at the audience lying on the grass, leaning on elbows, picnic baskets and babies in blankets nestled between them, waiting for the sky to darken, the moon to brighten and the show to start.

“I like to feel there’s still a certain joy in what we’re doing,” she said with a soft smile.