Dance, Music Wait in Wings

Robert Cohen, UC Irvine’s drama department chairman, has set forth the most detailed proposal so far from the university for use of the Irvine Theatre, a planned 750-seat multipurpose auditorium that the university would share with the city.

But Cohen’s is not the only UCI proposal being contemplated. The dance and music departments want to present programs in the theater as well.

UCI dance chairman James Penrod says he hopes to launch a Christmas ballet for children--”not the typical ‘Nutcracker Suite’ “--which would be done annually.

He would also like to establish an on-campus conservatory for promising high school-age dancers that might involve performances at the theater. The dancers would either matriculate at UCI or go directly into professional companies.

Penrod, who says he has called a department meeting for Tuesday to discuss those ideas, further hopes to expand the existing UCI Dance Ensemble into a professional, privately sponsored resident ballet company that would present a season of “historical reconstructions” and new works.

Presentations at the new theater would be developed along the lines of the ensemble’s shows at UCI Village Theatre last month, when Bolshoi Ballet’s Andris Liepa and New York City Ballet’s Valentina Kozlova made guest appearances.

“I don’t see any conflict with Bob’s proposal,” Penrod says.

Moreover, while the professional ballet troupe would not eschew university sponsorship, he says, “we would prefer to go in as a private company because that would give us more flexibility to bring in dancers and to raise the money for them.”

UCI music chairman Joseph Huszti notes that whatever his department colleagues propose, it is not likely to clash with the dance or drama plans. “We don’t need blocks of time as they do,” he says. “We can move in for choral and chamber concerts with a day or just an evening of rehearsal.”

Huszti anticipates “a series of choral concerts” by the department’s resident California Chamber Singers and by other campus choral groups. “We’d like to use the facility as often as we can for whatever concerts we can get,” he says. “Maybe one or two, maybe 10 or 12. We might have choral festivals there. We don’t know yet.”

One university group that will have an especially strong case for use of the Irvine Theatre is the department of Arts and Lectures, Penrod says. It brings guest artists and scholars to the campus on a regular basis. “But they sometimes can’t get into facilities here because they’re booked so solid,” he notes.

Ironically, the greatest potential conflict could come not at the Irvine Theatre itself but at the School of Fine Arts production shop, already workingon scenic designs and costumes for university drama and dance productions, Penrod says. Launching new programs or expanding existing ones could exceed its capacity, he cautions.

But Carey Lawless, who heads the production shop, takes an optimistic view. “I think it can work,” she says, “as long as everybody coordinates their seasons. And I think they do want to do that.”