Thousand Oaks Performers Look in Vain for Place to Call Home : Entertainment: The groups search for permanent office and rehearsal space despite the city’s new $64-million Civic Arts Plaza.

Like a troupe of wandering players, Thousand Oaks performing arts groups roam the Conejo Valley looking for places to hang up their costumes and instruments. But this bohemian lifestyle is not by choice.

With the new $64-million Civic Arts Plaza and Performing Arts Center looming in the middle of town, some of these groups are wondering why they have not been given even a sliver of its beige splendor.

Although many of the groups perform regularly at the new building, there is no place for the groups to rehearse or stash sets and costumes between shows. And while they could rent office space at the plaza, none of them can afford the monthly rental fees of $1.85 per square foot, or about $3,700, for a 2,000-square-foot office.

Last week a request for use of office and rehearsal space came back from the Board of Governors of the Civic Arts Plaza with the clear message, sorry, no room .

Laura Lorona, executive director of the locally based production company Gold Coast Performing Arts Assn., was dismayed.

“Our belief, and we feel very strongly, is that there is definitely room for everyone there,” Lorona said.

For Lorona and others, there is a growing concern that local nonprofit groups are being neglected by the city in favor of the big-time stars who breeze into town for lucrative, one-night stints--even though the nonprofit groups pay the same rent and insurance rates as would Tony Bennett, Bill Cosby and Frank Sinatra.

Their complaints underscore a dilemma for the new theater as it tries to balance the needs of the community, while at the same time develop a national reputation. Last month, the theater’s 15-member governing board considered a resolution that would have favored national performers over local groups in scheduling conflicts. In the face of community protest, that resolution was rejected.

Board Chairwoman Virginia Davis said board members have no intention of putting stars before local talent. “Nobody is downplaying anybody,” she said. “We all want a balance.”

But Lorona disputed that, saying the plaza is choosing stars over local talent, and that it is bad for business.

“Going solely with the big-name pop stars has time and time again driven theaters across the county to go under after three or four years,” Lorona said.

She cited the former Valley Music Theater in Woodland Hills as an example. The theater opened in 1964, drawing more than half a million patrons in its first year, but failed by 1966.

Lorona said mingling headline performances with local productions is the key to keeping the Civic Arts Plaza thriving.

“Eventually people will get tired of paying $60, $80, a ticket,” she said. “There are only so many Frank Sinatras and Liza Minnellis to go around.”

But Valerie Baltzer, a volunteer with the Cabrillo Music Theatre, said she too believes that big-name entertainers are more valued by the board, particularly in scheduling.

“It seems like maybe they are a little star-struck,” Baltzer said. “This isn’t about money, they keep saying, so what is it all about?

“It’s very frustrating to us, because I feel like we provide and give to the community,” she added. “This is something wonderful for our children to get involved in. Not everybody plays sports. My feeling was that when they proposed this whole Civic Arts Plaza, it was going to be a place for the community groups.”

Davis said there have been some scheduling conflicts at the theater, which she attributes to the growing popularity of the venue.

“It is marvelous to be successful,” she said. “Right now everyone wants to use the theater, and they all want weekends. We’re trying to balance that and we can’t satisfy anyone.”

Larry Janss, who also serves on the Board of Governors as well as being chairman of Gold Coast--he abstains from voting on issues related to the community groups--said the board is still working out its priorities.

“There seems to be some disagreement as to what the priority should be,” Janss said. “My belief is that there should not be a priority at all. But the board has not yet made its position known.”

Tom Mitze, the Civic Arts Plaza’s theater director, said he feels a balance between stars and local performances is needed to continue the theater’s burgeoning trend of success.

“I feel very strongly that the Civic Arts Plaza should be both a place for community-based groups and outside professionals,” Mitze said. “I don’t think it should be 100% of one or the other.”

*

Many local groups are experiencing some growing pains at the moment, he said.

“They are expanding and growing into the facilities here,” Mitze said. “They are really flowering now because of the Civic Arts Plaza. Their dreams are bigger now, so their demands are bigger.”

For years, the nonprofit groups have relied on the kindness of strangers, borrowing office space where they can find it, holding rehearsals and auditions in a Newbury Park mall, pounding together sets in back yards and garages.

“We’re homeless waifs,” Janss said. “We’re nomads,” said Everett Ascher, director of the Conejo Symphony. “We sure as heck would like to have a permanent space.”

“Vagabonds,” said Cheryl Mastrovito, a volunteer with the Cabrillo Music Theatre.

The Conejo Symphony’s four full-time staffers work out of office space borrowed from attorney Chuck Cohen, but if and when Cohen finds a paying tenant, they will have to move on.

The Cabrillo Music Theatre, which last fall staged “The Music Man,” the first full-scale musical at the Civic Arts Plaza, is about to relocate into its third temporary and borrowed office in a year--a former karate studio in Newbury Park.

The Santa Susana Repertory Company, the resident group of players at the Civic Arts Plaza Forum Theatre, rehearses in a vacant furniture store in Simi Valley and stores its sets in a Camarillo warehouse, rent-free.

Although these arrangements cost nothing, they are tenuous. Mastrovito said the company’s arrangement with an Oxnard landlord means being ready to pick up and move at a moment’s notice.

“Our arrangement with them is that if they rent the space, we are out of there the next day,” Mastrovito said. “It’s a big hassle, but so far we’ve been able to pull it off.”

The company has loaded all its costumes, sets and props into moving trucks seven times in the last five years, she said.

Tired of this vagabond lifestyle, Gold Coast Performing Arts Assn., the loose coalition of local theatrical groups, has been lobbying Thousand Oaks for a home of its own, so far unsuccessfully.

Rudyard Beldner, president of the Arts Council of the Conejo Valley, wrote an appeal to the City Council in November, asking for the city’s assistance in finding space in one of the city-owned buildings, including the Civic Arts Plaza.

His request was forwarded to the Board of Governors, who promptly sent it back to the City Council. Members said the only room at the Civic Arts Plaza is the retail office space in the suite Supervisor Frank Schillo will be moving into this summer.

The arts groups almost secured those offices last month, when it seemed as though a knight in shining armor had ridden in to save them in the form of Charles Probst, the elusive North Ranch businessman whose name adorns the theater at the Civic Arts Plaza.

Probst was negotiating a lease with the city for the available office space, reportedly to sponsor an administrative suite for the various local arts groups under one roof.

But plans for the lease mysteriously fell through at the last minute, causing the disappointed arts groups to resume the search for an alternative and central location.

The governing board’s Davis said it is a shame there isn’t additional space at the plaza for rehearsals and set construction. But tight budgets for the $64-million project did not allow for such uses, she said.

“We were really very constrained by the public opposition to the project to spend very little,” Davis said. “We had to keep to the necessities.”

Furthermore, it is inappropriate for the board to make recommendations for other city properties, members said, including the Goebel Center and the former City Hall on Willow Lane, which the arts council had also inquired about.

“The Board of Governors is not unsympathetic to any group,” said board member and former Mayor Alex Fiore. “It is up to them to get together and pool their resources. The city can only do so much. I recognize that they have a problem with their scenery, but there isn’t anything we can do about it.

“It isn’t like the city has warehouses and warehouses stacked around the city,” he added. “If we had it, we would certainly give it to them.”

Based on the board’s recommendation, the City Council voted last weekto send the request back to the arts council.

“The City Council elected to punt,” Janss said. “It’s being passed around like a little hot potato.”

Now that his original request has come full circle, Beldner is trying to find new solutions.

“It’s ironic,” Beldner said. “They built that center and there is just no place for the local nonprofit groups to store and build sets.”