OCC Believes Moore Is Better : The auditorium has undergone a $1.6-million renovation that designers say the audience will notice in ‘South Pacific.’

“South Pacific” and the Robert B. Moore Theatre at Orange Coast College go way back.

When the musical first played there, it was 1956, and the building--only a year old--was dubbed simply the “auditorium.” “South Pacific” ran for just two performances, but it inaugurated an ongoing series of summer musicals at the college, a tradition that included a 1968 revisit with the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic.

Starting Friday, “South Pacific” is back for its third go-round in the building, but this time things are different. The Moore Theatre (named in 1982 for the outgoing college president) has just undergone a $1.6-million renovation, one that designers say will smooth out flaws in the building’s acoustics while adding to the comfort of patrons, chiefly with the addition of an air-conditioning system.

The primary goal of the project was to “improve the enjoyment of the customer,” said project architect Rush N. Hill II. “This project has really focused on the inside of the building. . . . We built a theater inside the auditorium.”

Closed since August, the Moore Theatre has in years past been used for larger student productions, but primarily it has been a home to touring performances in the realm of dance, music (including jazz, folk and classical) and theater.

Performers slated for the remodeled 900-seat space in the 1993-94 season include Buddy Greco, the Kingston Trio, the Peking Acrobats and the dance troupe Navidad Flamenca. Tickets for most events range from $8 to $15.

The Moore Theatre was once the primary performance space in the area--before the opening nearby of 2,994-seat Segerstrom Hall and the 750-seat Irvine Barclay Theatre.

Still, “we feel like we can fill a niche that isn’t being filled,” as a “mid-range facility,” said Jim Carnett, director of community relations for the college. “We feel that there’s an audience. Not everyone can afford to go to the Performing Arts Center on a regular basis, yet they like to go out.”

Before the theater closed for renovation, touring programs booked by the OCC Community Services Office cleared as much as $500,000 in profits annually, making it one of the most successful programs in the state, Carnett said.

Much of that success came despite, rather than because of, the facility. Even college officials admit it had notoriously bad acoustics. College president David A. Grant, in a fund-raising letter, wrote of the time he attended a performance at the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena and overheard someone rate the Moore Theatre as having “the absolutely worst acoustics” in Southern California.

“So many times, the acoustics were mentioned in reviews,” Carnett said. There were two essential problems, according to Hill: The sound “wouldn’t come off the stage,” and when it did, “nothing important would happen to it.” Especially for theatrical performances, the center seating was a large “dead spot” for sound.

Hill’s Newport Beach-based architectural partnership, working with acoustical and theatrical consultants, made several alterations to the hall in hopes of improving the sound and the sight lines. The side walls were brought in about 15 feet on either side, reducing the hall’s capacity from 1,134.

“We did occasionally have full houses,” Carnett said, but “those (side) seats in all honesty were not good seats.”

Heavy drapes were added above the new partial side walls and along the back, allowing operators to vary the acoustical qualities of the theater for drama and music performances. A portable orchestra shell was purchased to help project the sound for musical performances, a new orchestra pit cover will be added and all the stage lighting has been replaced.

The addition of air conditioning also is a major boon, said Carnett. Summer musicals were moved from the Moore Theatre to the smaller Drama Lab in 1984 because “in summer, it was just a sweatbox in here.”

Doug Bennett, director of the Orange Coast College Foundation, said the renovation is seen as the first step in a major overhaul of the building. Future projects, which are not yet funded, included renovation of the backstage areas and, eventually, the construction of an enclosed lobby area and a fly loft for the stage.

Of the $1.6-million cost of the current renovation, $1.1 million was raised from private sources, $400,000 came from state maintenance funds (for upgrading of the electrical system) and the rest was interest from earlier foundation gifts.

Planning for the renovation began in 1989, before the prolonged economic slump put a damper on fund-raising efforts of all kinds.

“I don’t think we would have had the courage, had we known what direction the economy was going,” Grant said this week. The success of the effort “is a marvelous example of what a lot of good, hearty people working together can do.”

About $70,000 was raised from current and former OCC faculty, largely through the sale of seat plaques in the theater (at $250 a pop).

Friday’s opening is a special event for purchasers of seat plaques and other donors, with remaining seats on sale for $50. Among the expected guests are Robert Moore, who lives now in Medford, Ore., and James Fitzgerald, who was choral director of OCC’s 1956 production of “South Pacific.”

* “South Pacific,” by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, opens tonight at 8 in the Robert B. Moore Theatre, Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. through July 25. $50 (opening night); $10 to $14. (714) 432-5880.