Vision for Arts Center on Campus Becomes Concrete : Education: Theater and dance at CSULB are expected to take a giant leap forward when a new center opens in the fall.

Scaffolding obscures the towering steel structure. Inside, the cavernous space, with its enormous stage and ascending levels of concrete, is a theater taking shape.

The performing arts and dance complex on the northern edge of the Cal State Long Beach campus is also a longtime dream slowly coming true.

“The process for the new facilities was started 25 years ago,” said Rich Kerlin, executive director of the new Performing Arts Center, as well as construction coordinator for the project, which also includes the adjoining Dance Center.

Work has been under way for more than two years on Atherton Street, west of Palo Verde Avenue. The Dance Center will begin training its first students in September, and the performance center is scheduled to open in October.

The impetus for the complex came from the university Dance Department’s desire for a home. The department is now housed in two buildings and uses a tent as a studio.

But the project got bigger with the addition of an auditorium for lectures and conferences, student productions, touring professionals and local organizations looking for production space.

Despite the college’s earlier attempts to secure state funding, it wasn’t until 1989 that the Legislature approved $27 million in general revenue bonds for the project.

The result, officials said, will be the first 1,200-seat auditorium in the 20-campus state university system (although Cal State Los Angeles is building a similar facility and Cal State San Luis Obispo is planning one) and a dance center described as the best university dance facility in the nation.

Kerlin said that the auditorium will have a larger stage than the Terrace Theatre at the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center and that the space over the stage will be 10 stories high. “Any touring attraction can be accommodated,” he said.

The back half of the auditorium’s seating area can be blocked off with a curtain to create a 750-seat theater for intimate performances, such as modern dance.

Backstage, an area to build and store sets will permit a complete set to be removed from the stage while a show is running, so the theater could be used for lectures and conferences during the day.

The Dance Center will have a 250-seat theater, seven roomy dance studios, each with an average floor size of 3,000 square feet, a physical therapy clinic that specializes in treating dance injuries and a computer lab where dance steps can be recorded as dancers work.

“This is absolutely incredible . . . and an idea whose time had long since come,” said Joan Schlaich, who chairs the Dance Department. She said that once the center is open, the department will begin offering the university system’s first master of fine arts in dance. The degree is intended to prepare students for careers as dancers, choreographers or teachers.

The center has drawn praise from dance experts.

David Wilcox, artistic director of the Long Beach-based Los Angeles Classical Ballet and a former Cal State Long Beach dance teacher, said the new facilities “are at least as good as any I’ve seen.”

“It’s going to be very important in the world of dance, both as a training and performance center,” said Bella Lewitzky, a choreographer and founder of the Bella Lewitzky Dance Co.

When the Performing Arts Center stages its grand opening in October, it will be entering a Southeast and Long Beach entertainment market that includes the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, which opened two weeks ago, the Downey Theatre, La Mirada Theatre and the Long Beach complex. Local audiences also patronize performance centers in Orange County.

Kerlin said he is developing programming that will not compete with existing venues but will fill a community-focused entertainment niche.

For example, he said, he will not present touring musicals and symphony orchestras because Long Beach already has built a strong audience for those through its Civic Light Opera, symphony and opera companies.

And he will not feature blockbuster entertainers like Frank Sinatra, who opened the Cerritos center. Cerritos has a $3.1-million budget for talent for its first season, but the university’s budget is $200,000.

“We know we have to be different than everyone else to succeed, so we’ll be considering original plays or West Coast premieres of plays done elsewhere, jazz, modern dance, emerging commercial musicians and comedy,” Kerlin said.

The center is working with members of the Latino, Cambodian and gay and lesbian communities, as well as followers of dance and jazz, in selecting what it presents.

Long Beach is a community with an international flavor, he said. “We have a lot of opportunity to stand out. A lot of people in Long Beach are going to Los Angeles for entertainment, and they could get it right here.”

Apart from programming, Kerlin said, his major challenge is raising money. Unlike the Dance Center, which will be part of the university academic program, the Performing Arts Center must cover its operating costs, estimated at $750,000 to $1 million a year. It will be run by the university’s foundation.

Income sources include corporate and individual donations, ticket sales and rentals. The center is negotiating with the Pasadena Playhouse to become an anchor tenant, presenting five plays a year.

The center also plans an entertainment series with four events in the spring of 1994, and a 10- to 12-event series that fall.

Last March, a three-year campaign was begun to raise a $7-million endowment. Income would maintain both the performing arts and dance facilities, although Kerlin said the bulk of the money would go for staffing, operations and maintenance of the performance center. Some $2.5 million has been raised.

Critics have complained that the buildings should not be constructed at a time when the university has eliminated classes and reduced student enrollment in the face of state budget cuts.

But officials point out that the project is being paid for with bond funds that can’t be used for classes or other academic programs.