Irvine and the New Barclay, Take a Bow : Theater Project Foundered Many Times Before Becoming a Triumph of Cooperation

It took 17 years to do it, but the 756-seat Irvine Barclay Theatre at long last has opened its doors to the public. The $17.6-million theater is a tribute to an extraordinary cooperative effort by UC Irvine, the city and civic-minded Orange County residents that should provide a model for other communities.

The theater will be home to UCI and local community productions, as well as to a lively program of musical and other events to be coordinated by the theater’s nonprofit operating company.

So far, the offerings have been eclectic--the South Coast Symphony, the National Theatre of the Deaf and singer Judy Collins among them. Coming this year will be theater, dance, civic light opera and mime performances, as well as classical and popular musical events. All told, there will be 100,000 seats to fill in the 1990-91 season.

The theater is just the right size and configuration to fill in the gap between the much larger Orange County Performing Arts Center and the county’s smaller theaters and concert halls.

However worthy the building or the programming, top billing belongs to the cooperation that allowed the theater to come into being at all. UCI, which provided the 2.3-acre site, helped with private fund raising and also chipped in $1.8 million.

Corporations and individuals--including million-dollar donors Richard and Marjorie Barclay, for whom the theater was named, and Arlene and George Cheng, who contributed $750,000--are committed to raise $4.8 million over the next five years. And the city appropriated $11.3 million in voter-approved bond money.

One UCI administrator commented that he learned that projects don’t start when bulldozers begin to dig out a construction site but, “when the City Council votes, 5-0.” He might also have said things happen when a city’s residents are persuaded that cultural offerings are as valuable as municipal services.

Of course, not all communities are fortunate enough to have a major university at hand to provide the cultural and fund-raising resources for a facility such as the Irvine Barclay Theatre. But not all communities would have picked up the gauntlet thrown down by UCI when it offered the acreage for the facility on its campus. Irvine did, to its great credit.

Here is a project that foundered many times before it came to fruition. All involved in helping Irvine Barclay Theatre become a reality deserve to bask in the spotlight.