‘Tis the Season for Summer Theater in Solvang

This town may be best known for its windmills and gift shops crammed with Scandinavian imports. It’s also a place for live theater without the high prices.

A recent performance of the musical comedy spoof, “Little Shop of Horrors,” kicked off the 16th summer season at the Solvang Festival Theater. Five more plays are scheduled through Sept. 23.

They are the musicals “Guys and Dolls” and “A Chorus Line,” Ibsen’s classic drama, “Ghosts” and a pair of comedies--Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” and Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Ernest.”

The shows are staged by professional Equity actors and students of the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts at Allan Hancock College in nearby Santa Maria.

The conservatory has a history of 26 years of public performances in repertory theater. More than 700 actors from all over the country recently auditioned for 45 openings in the theater department at the two-year community college.

As a result, it’s an opportunity for theater buffs to enjoy a variety of plays.

“During the height of the season in August and September, you can view five different shows in three days,” says Tom Gaffney, business manager for the Theaterfest.

The town’s open-air Festival Theater has 700 comfortable fold-down plastic theater seats that ring three sides of the stage. An enormous 300-year-old oak tree shades the outdoor lobby, where a refreshment booth offers sandwiches, espresso and other coffees, wine and champagne.

Picnic baskets can be ordered in advance for a pre-performance supper on the lawn, or patrons may bring food and drink to the theater grounds.

“Theater-goers dress casually here,” says Gaffney. “It’s not the place for neckties or high heels. You’ll see ladies in pearls, but they’re often wearing jeans.”

Despite very warm daytime temperatures in the Santa Ynez Valley, it can be quite cool by the time the plays get under way at 8:30 p.m. Blankets can be rented for $2 from a concession stand, which also sells sweat shirts and jackets.

This rural town of 5,000 residents began its professional theater story when the 1973 oil embargo reduced the number of cars and tour buses visiting Solvang.

Earl Petersen and other local businessmen knew the town needed more than Danish country kitsch and gift shops to attract visitors.

They approached the director of drama at Allan Hancock College with the promise to build a theater if the conservatory would perform part of its repertory in Solvang.

With the community donating $300,000 in cash, materials and labor, the Solvang Festival Theater was built in a few months and opened for the summer season of 1974.

Since then, the conservatory’s Theaterfest has evolved into a rotating repertory of plays presented in Solvang and in the college’s theater in Santa Maria.

The same plays alternate on stages that are 36 miles apart, so the sets and props are packed into trailers and moved back and forth between the two theaters.

To make such quick transitions possible, the stage and backstage areas of the two theaters are almost identical.

The main differences are that the Marian Performing Arts Center in Santa Maria is an indoor theater rather than an open-air type, and it has only 500 seats, 200 fewer than in Solvang.

The productions involve 200 actors and behind-the-scenes personnel, including paid Equity actors, guest directors and designers, artists-in-residence and scholarship students.

More than 1,000 graduates of the college’s nationally-acclaimed Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts program have become working professionals in such theaters as the Mark Taper Forum, Orange County Center for the Performing Arts, Old Globe in San Diego and the Metropolitan Opera.

To enjoy this summer season of plays at Solvang or Santa Maria, order tickets by calling (800) 221-9469. Box office hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Tickets are $8 to $16, with senior, student and military discounts available. (Minimum age for play-goers is six years.) Guaranteed seating plans include the Weekender, which offers five plays in three days for $65 on certain weekends in August and September.

All performances in Solvang are in the evening; matinees and evening shows are offered in Santa Maria. Curtain times are 2 and 8:30 p.m. The next performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Solvang with “Little Shop of Horrors.” The grounds open at 5:30 p.m. for pre-show picnicking.

The Thursday through Saturday schedule continues through July, with a choice of five plays. Six plays are offered on a rotating schedule most nights in August and through Sept. 23.

Some lodgings in Solvang offer theater packages, which include play tickets, accommodations and other features.

Contact the Petersen Inn, (800) 321-8985, Tivoli Inn, (805) 688-0559, and Sheraton Royal Scandinavian Inn, (805) 688-8000.

For more information about accommodations, as well as restaurants, call the Solvang Visitors Bureau, (805) 688-6144.

Drive to Solvang from Los Angeles by heading north on U.S.101 beyond Santa Barbara and exiting east on California 246. That highway becomes Mission Drive and leads to the heart of town.

Turn right on Atterdag Road, left on Copenhagen Drive and right on 2nd Street to the Solvang Festival Theater. Park on the street or in the city’s public parking lots.

Round trip from Los Angeles to Solvang is 270 miles.

For the record: The schedule of special days this summer at Mission La Purisima in Lompoc was dropped inadvertently from the June 10 Trip of the Week. It is as follows:

Purisima’s People Days are scheduled July 7-8, Aug. 4-5, and Sept. 1-2. The activities take place from 1 to 3 p.m. Mission Life Days are set for June 24, July 21 and Aug. 18, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information, call the park office, (805) 733-3713.