New Ship Is Set to Cruise Poway’s Cultural Waters

With its combination of stacked boxes and blunted curves, the Poway Center for the Performing Arts looks a little like a tug piloting Poway High School alongside it, just off Espola Road in the rolling hills of Poway.

The center, which will be dedicated at 5:30 p.m. Friday and open Saturday with a black-tie benefit featuring singer-songwriter Melissa Manchester, is poised to help guide the school and the surrounding communities of Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Penasquitos and Scripps Ranch through cultural waters.

“The center is testimony that two agencies can work together to turn a dream into reality,” Poway High School Principal Fred Van Leuven said, lauding the symbiotic relationship that developed between the city of Poway and the school district as the joint-use project evolved. “Both the school and the community benefit.”

The city of Poway, the Poway Unified School District and the nonprofit Poway Foundation for the Performing Arts joined forces to fund the $8.4-million, 800-seat facility.

“Our first concern in terms of audience is bringing in programming that is sophisticated enough to appeal to adults but can be targeted primarily as affordable family entertainment,” Van Leuven said. The French-Canadian puppetry troupe Theatre Sans Fils is the type of fare, he said, that the center plans to book.

“We’re also looking for acts that appeal on a broader basis as popular entertainment. The third programming series will focus on the best the high arts--theater, music and dance--have to offer. We are currently talking with the Los Angeles Chamber Ballet and Waves, a modern dance troupe based in Philadelphia.”

The programming mix also will include Poway High School productions and programs by community arts groups from throughout San Diego County.

Michael Putnam, whose responsibilities as manager of the performing arts division of Poway’s Community Services Department include running the center, said the greatest challenge may be devising a programming formula that will work in a community where horses seem nearly as prevalent as station wagons.

“I was surprised by how many differing lifestyles exist in this relatively small geographic area,” said Putnam, 40, who managed the 450-seat Norris Theatre in Palos Verdes before signing on in Poway last July.

“I always thought of San Diego as a weekend getaway destination, a resort town. I didn’t have any image of it as being a tremendous depository of emigrants from all over the country, particularly the East Coast. That mix can make scheduling entertainment a tricky business.

“You have lots of New Yorkers out here who have very sophisticated tastes in the performing arts. There’s also what might be described as your typical Californians, who are no less serious about the arts but may be somewhat less arcane in terms of their levels of appreciation. Then there’s everyone in between.”

For the time being, Putnam is not intent on etching a programming formula in stucco. Citing American theater director Harold Clurman, the most important thing a theater can have is “an idea of itself,” he said.

“We’ll be developing that idea, responding to the community as we go, our first year,” Putnam said. “San Diego and its neighboring communities have the potential for being a model city in showing how growth can be accommodated without sacrificing beauty. That’s no longer possible in Los Angeles. L.A. is in the mode of trying to redeem itself. Here, we have an opportunity not to repeat those same mistakes.”

The idea for a Poway arts center dates nearly to the city’s incorporation in 1981, Putnam said.

“A community survey conducted soon after incorporation provided surprisingly strong interest in a performing arts facility,” Putnam said.

But plans for a facility were sidetracked until the mid-1980s while the young city concentrated on developing an infrastructure. Talk of a community arts center was revived when Poway High School began to explore the idea of building an auditorium, principally as a practice space and showcase for the school’s music and drama departments. Citing the success of the multipurpose room constructed as a joint-use project at Twin Peaks Middle School in 1988, the city and the school district agreed to build an arts complex that would foster arts education at Poway High School while serving the community.

The resulting municipally operated 45,838-square-foot Poway Center for the Performing Arts has been constructed on school district land.

The four-level, mauve-hued stucco-and-steel-frame structure was designed by Blurock Partnership, with John von Szeliski consulting on the plan; both architectural firms have headquarters in Newport Beach. Poway-based Douglas E. Barnhart Inc. was selected as general contractor with a bid of $7.1 million.

(The nonprofit Poway Foundation for the Performing Arts was organized by Poway residents to raise $1.3 million in private donations to offset the difference between the $6.6 million budgeted by the city for the project, augmented by $500,000 in funding from the school district, and building’s actual cost.)

Von Szeliski, who worked for 15 years as an actor, director and theater manager before becoming an architect, specializes in theater design. He collaborated with Blurock on the $70.7-million, 3,000-seat Orange County Performing Arts Center, which opened in 1986 in Costa Mesa. Acclaim for the Orange County facility prompted the Poway City Council to hire the two firms.

Von Szeliski concedes that no effort was made to forge an aesthetic link between the contemporary arts center and the low-slung, ‘60s-era brick-and-concrete design of the high school.

“The most important functional relationship between the two structures is convenient access for the music department to the rehearsal space and offices,” Von Szeliski said. The school’s drama and music departments, including the Emerald Brigade marching band, will be in the new building.

If establishing a circulation path between the school and the arts center was the first priority, the configuration of the site was no less significant in shaping the overall design.

“It’s a long, narrow space,” Von Szeliski said. “We were most interested in relating the building to Espola Road and Titan Way. We wanted to present a strong sense of invitation and visibility along the two streets, which is why we used the long curve of glass at the front.”

The wide expanse of blue-green glass opens into a spacious lobby anchored by a dramatic glass-lined staircase that leads to the 300-seat balcony. (There also is space for 12 wheelchairs.) For all its other amenities --including a courtyard off the lobby, a wardrobe-dressing room, two large “star” dressing rooms, a chorus dressing room, a private reception area, the high school’s band space and private practice rooms--there’s no question that the theater itself is the heart of the facility.

The 40-by-40-foot proscenium stage is trimmed in oak and features a full fly loft. The loading dock can accommodate two 18-wheelers or a bus and truck side by side.

POWAY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS

Location: Espola Road and Titan Way, Poway

Cost: $8.4 million, funded by the city of Poway, Poway Unified School District and private donations through the Poway Foundation for the Performing Arts

Specifications: Steel-frame and stucco construction, 45,838 square feet, 800 seats (500 lower level, 300 balcony) 40-foot x 40-foot proscenium stage

Amenities: Full fly loft orchestra pit for 30 musicians, seating space for 12 wheelchairs, multipurpose meeting room for 300 people, private “star” and chorus dressing rooms, performers’ lounge area, costume shop, high school band room with private practice space, and offices courtyard

Design: The Blurock Partnership with consultant John von Szeliski, both of Newport Beach

Acoustic design: Smith-Fause & Associates, Los Angeles

General contractor: Douglas E. Barnhart Inc., Poway

Owner/operator: City of Poway Community Services Department/Performing Arts Division

Manager: Michael Putnam