SIMI VALLEY : Gala to Celebrate New Culture Center

More than once, Simi Valley resident Patty Marker-White says she has heard her hometown described as a “cultural wasteland” or a “cultural black hole.”

And each time, Marker-White says, she’s been forced to silently agree.

“People here are just really into TV, watching videos and going to softball games,” she said.

But Marker-White, along with a small group of other residents dedicated to promoting the arts, thinks things may be about to change. The reason lies in a nondescript building a stone’s throw from the city Police Department.

There, starting with a gala opening tonight, residents will have access to an art gallery, 98-seat theater and art conservatory for children--all under one roof.

“This really is filling the void,” said Eileen Cohen, president of the Simi Valley Cultural Assn., a nonprofit, volunteer-dependent group that recently obtained a five-year lease from the city for the old courthouse on Cochran Street. “Until now, our biggest struggle has been to offer this. Now the challenge will be to let people know we are here.”

The building was made available to the association when court cases were moved last March to the new $11.1-million East Valley Courthouse.

The art gallery, occupying the area once used by the Probation Department, will be open Friday and Saturday evenings from 6 to 8.

The courtroom-turned-theater across the hall, already booked each weekend through 1992 and showing the Santa Susana Repertory Company’s production of “The Foreigner” at its grand opening tonight, will have five arts groups performing there throughout the year.

But it is the children’s conservatory, which will occupy the theater and gallery areas, that Cohen said has already struck the deepest nerve in the community. Since it opened two weeks ago, the low-cost program--which includes art, drama and music classes after school and on weekends--has had a tremendous response, Cohen said. Classes are nearly filled to capacity through April.

“The problem with the arts is that the schools have cut back so much,” she said. “So unless they get it from the outside, these kids wouldn’t get the cultural arts.”

The association was founded in 1971 to promote performing and visual arts. But by most descriptions, the group has existed during that time much like the Flying Dutchman.

“Theater groups were using the elementary schools or renting a tent, and they even used Tony Roma’s (restaurant),” said Marker-White. “Until now, though, there has never been a place to call home.”

The free gala opening from 6 to 8 p.m. will include refreshments. Tickets for “The Foreigner” are $10. For information, call 584-9952.