Theater Commission Refuses to Change Arts Plaza Scheduling : Thousand Oaks: Panelists favor emphasis on the complex’s regional appeal after hearing a dispute over which symphony should perform first.

A scheduling spat between the county’s two symphony orchestras has forced Thousand Oaks officials to confront a key question about programming at the Civic Arts Plaza: Should they aim to draw a regional audience or cater primarily to local performers?

For now, the city’s seven theater commissioners have decided to emphasize the theater’s regional appeal.

“The earlier we can get people (from outside Thousand Oaks) to come, the quicker the financial success of this center,” Commissioner Larry Sparrow said.

But several commissioners acknowledged that the issue is bound to crop up again, part of the “growing pains” involved in running a new theater.

On the one hand, commissioners have resolved to present world-class shows and turn the Civic Arts Plaza into the premier cultural center between Los Angeles and San Francisco. At the same time, they have pledged to give preferential treatment to local artists.

The tension between those goals exploded into a philosophical debate Wednesday after Conejo Symphony Director Everett Ascher protested the Civic Arts Plaza’s opening week schedule.

The schedule calls for the Ventura County Symphony, which usually plays in Oxnard, to present the auditorium’s first full-fledged classical concert Oct. 26. Just three days later, the Conejo Symphony would open its subscription series with a performance featuring pianist Victor Borge.

Perceiving the second-place position as a snub, Ascher pleaded for the opportunity to kick off the auditorium’s classical season.

Scores of Conejo Symphony supporters packed the Thousand Oaks council chambers Wednesday to press their case before the commission. Backers of the Ventura County Symphony turned out as well, bumping the audience count well above 100.

Conejo Symphony boosters argued that they deserved the first shot at performing classical music, especially after 33 years of staging concerts in a creaky Thousand Oaks gymnasium.

“The Conejo Symphony has been rising over adversity for so long, it would be nice if we had an occasion to rise to,” cellist Janet Bergamo said.

But the group’s cross-county rivals insisted that changing the schedule to favor the Conejo Symphony would imply a retreat from the vision of the Civic Arts Plaza as a regional facility.

Several arts patrons predicted that scrapping the Ventura County Symphony’s Oct. 26 concert would antagonize music lovers outside Thousand Oaks. Such a move, they said, would make fund raising--not to mention ticket sales--extremely difficult.

“It’s embarrassing to hear (Thousand Oaks groups) behave as though we want to be the first, the most, the best, and no one else can play in our sandbox,” said Joyce Johnson, whose husband runs the Civic Arts Plaza endowment campaign.

After a two-hour debate punctuated by cheering and occasional jeering, commissioners voted unanimously to stick with the original schedule and allow the Ventura County Symphony to claim the classical music opening.

They pointed out that the Conejo Symphony will make the first orchestral appearance in the auditorium, during a grand opening performance headlined by Broadway star Bernadette Peters on Oct. 21.

“Just offering crumbs to the Ventura County Symphony--I don’t think that would be all that neighborly,” Commissioner Mary Hekhuis said.

She also expressed disappointment that the symphony directors had been unable to resolve their conflict in private. Her colleagues on the panel agreed.

“We have enough naysayers. We have enough people telling us this edifice is a hunk of junk,” Commissioner Virginia Davis said. “We don’t need to fight ourselves.”