Education a Casualty of High Cost of Culture : Thousand Oaks: Civic Arts Plaza rental is more expensive than school budgets allow, despite discount.

To the men and women who govern the Civic Arts Plaza, the vision seemed impossible, illogical, wrong.

Thousand Oaks’ new auditorium would sit quiet and dark, plush seats empty, broad stage bare. Meanwhile, hundreds of local third-graders would crowd into a school cafeteria to watch a makeshift symphony concert, squirming on the hard floor.

No one on the Civic Arts Plaza Board of Governors liked that notion.

But in the end, they could do little to change it.

Required by the Thousand Oaks City Council to maintain a balanced budget, board members refused to waive rental fees or labor charges for school groups seeking to use the performing arts center.

“I am very, very adamant that we do not go into the hole for anyone,” board member Virginia Davis said. “I won’t back off that for anything.”

That decision may put the Civic Arts Plaza out of reach for the local school district.

The Board of Governors voted earlier this year to slash theater rental fees in half for performances that take place during the school day. But even with the half-price discount, the school district’s bill will reach $3,200 for two hourlong concerts Wednesday morning.

On top of the theater tab, the district must pay the musicians and charter school buses.

“We have a real dilemma now,” said Barbara Ryan, director of elementary education for the Conejo Valley Unified School District. “Our budget cannot stand an extra $3,200 per event.”

With just $40,000 a year set aside to provide arts education and field trips for kindergarten through sixth grade, the district simply will not be able to afford visits to Thousand Oaks’ elegant new concert hall, Ryan said.

“I find that desperately ironic,” said Board of Governors member Larry Janss.

“We are under the mandate, given to us by our superiors on the council, that this facility shall not tax city coffers,” Janss said. “But the City Council has to come to grips with the idea that we may be requiring the (performing arts) center to remain dark while kids sit on floors.”

*

Hoping to find a way out, several board members said they will ask council members to consider subsidizing school district rentals of the 1,800-seat Probst Auditorium or the 400-seat Forum Theatre.

“It’s my philosophy that a city is here to serve its citizens, and the most precious of our citizens are the little kids,” Janss said.

Council members, however, have long vowed that they will not dip into the city treasury to pay the new theaters’ operating costs. They are counting on private fund-raising to cover the light bills, buy toilet paper, pay custodians--and provide any subsidies needed to make the theater affordable for schoolchildren.

“Certainly we want to encourage the use of the facility by children--that was always one of our stated purposes--but we never said it would be free,” Councilwoman Judy Lazar said.

Incoming Councilman Andy Fox, who will take his seat at the dais next month, agreed. “We can’t get to the point where we are even thinking about dipping into the general fund or using tax dollars for subsidies,” he said. “That cannot happen.”

*

Renting Thousand Oaks’ halls costs about $1 a seat--comparable to nearby venues, theater director Tom Mitze said.

Nonprofit community groups pay $1,800 a night for use of the large auditorium, or $400 for the smaller theater. Professional performers must fork over either 10% of their box-office take or $1,800--whichever is more.

Those rates haven’t stopped local artists as well as international superstars, who have rushed to book gigs in the Civic Arts Plaza. But when they receive their contracts, they find that hefty costs are hidden--literally--behind the scenes.

Because of the theaters’ complex high-tech equipment, the city allows only trained professionals to work backstage. So in addition to renting the hall, performers must cover the cost of hiring stage crews. The wages quickly and inevitably add up.

The school district’s symphony concerts, for example, are costly because the city must hire six people to set up the stage’s acoustical shell, Mitze said.

“It’s not something that can be done with volunteers,” he explained. “We have to hire those people.”

*

To defray the cost, several theater board members suggested that school district officials seek corporate grants. And they promised to scrutinize the budget in search of funds for a partial subsidy.

For now, however, the $755,000 annual budget is shot through with question marks. With the theaters up and running for just three weeks, board members still do not know how much it costs to run the facility. They have never reviewed a theater light bill or tallied a box-office telephone tab.

As board member Julian Macdonald said, “There are a lot of iffies.”

One big if: how much board members will have to raise to subsidize the half-price school-day rate they agreed on months ago.

Mitze said he has signed about two dozen contracts with groups that want to rent the theaters at the reduced rate. To bring the budget into balance, the board will have to come up with $10,000 to $15,000 this year, he said.

“We haven’t identified how to raise these funds,” board member Stephen Woodworth acknowledged.

Recognizing the theaters’ tight budget, school district officials said they hold no grudge because of the high rental rates.

They will go ahead, as planned, with this week’s symphony concerts for third-graders in the Probst Auditorium. But they may have to scrap dreams of bringing other students to the Civic Arts Plaza for folk concerts, puppet shows and dance performances--unless the city can come up with subsidies.

“They’re under a lot of pressure, and we understand that,” Supt. Jerry C. Gross said. “But it seems such a shame that we have a wonderful facility sitting here that we’re not able to use.”

Although the school district may not be able to afford the Civic Arts Plaza, other community groups have jumped to rent both theaters, apparently undaunted by the charges.

*

Theater director Mitze has already booked shows through the summer of 1996--everything from a national-tour production of “Les Miserables” to a teen-age rendition of “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

“Last year, I was thinking, ‘Will there be enough performances?’ This year, I’m thinking, ‘What are we going to do with all the performances?’ ” Mitze said. “We’re swamped. It’s our dream, but it’s turning into our nightmare.”

In assigning dates, Mitze and the theater board must balance a desire to present splashy, world-renowned stars against a commitment to welcome amateur community entertainers. A recent citywide survey found the highest interest in Broadway musicals, comedy and drama but also substantial support for community theater.

“It will be a number of years before we find the correct balance,” Mitze said. “If we ever do.”