New Arts Center a Dramatic Change for Local College

Even after bulldozers had begun work, many at Moorpark College couldn’t believe that the decade-long wait for a professional-caliber Performing Arts Center was finally over.

But last week, workers screwed in the last of 288 light bulbs and finished wiring the stage in the $10-million complex some have dubbed a “mini Civic Arts Plaza.”

“It is like moving from a bachelor’s apartment to a mansion with nothing in between,” said Les Wieder, who has taught drama classes at the school for 18 years.

On Thursday, the college will unveil the new performing arts “mansion” with the debut of a student performance of Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Our Town.”

The occasion will mark the end of years of making do by staging plays and dance recitals on makeshift stages in cramped quarters and sending the school’s choral group to nearby churches to perform. And, administrators say, it is a chance for the school to boost enrollment, strengthen community ties and put Moorpark College on the cultural map.

College planners began struggling in 1989 to secure state money for the center--the last facility in the college’s master plan that remained unbuilt. But with stiff competition in a system that ranks requests for classrooms over gymnasiums and theaters, the school’s performing arts center remained at the bottom of the state’s list of educational projects until 1993.

When construction finally began in January 1994, Moorpark officials began touting a June 1995 opening date. But hobbled by a rash of design problems that ranged from misplaced fire doors to needed improvements in ballet barres, opening day was pushed back until this week.

And even now, the center will open to the public without its complete sound system and orchestra shell.

There simply weren’t enough college employees to handle all of the details, according to Mickey Howell, a drama department instructor.

Currently, a handful of instructors and student volunteers serve as house manager, janitor, publicist, box office staff and stage crew.

But if the 47,500-square-foot center is to run like the professional arts complex college officials envision, a full-time house manager will have to be hired, Wieder said.

For now, the overworked instructors and students view the extra chores--from manning the box office without pay to screwing in light fixtures until the wee hours of the morning--as a small price to pay for so grandiose a facility.

Many students say rehearsing in the new center makes them feel like professionals or students at a well-funded university instead of a junior college.

“It’s gorgeous,” said Joe Sanfelippo, who will play the lead role in “Our Town.” “We have space, we have dressing rooms. It’s just like a little, mini Civic Arts Plaza.”

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Although its 400-seat capacity is a fraction of the Civic Arts Plaza’s 1,800-seat main auditorium, the center lacks few amenities.

At the heart of the building is a theater with a stage three times the size of the one used in the past, an orchestra pit with a hydraulic-lift floor, a computerized lighting system and the soon-to-be-installed advanced sound system. Not to mention wings and a backstage area large enough for a crew of 12.

A so-called black-box theater--with movable seats--will be used for acting classes. Before, drama students had to compete with other classes for use of the school’s Forum Theater--a lecture hall converted to a theater with a small, temporary stage.

For dance students, there is a new studio included in the complex about four times the size of the old one, which was in the basement of the college’s gymnasium.

There’s an online library of famous oratories in the speech annex, a large box office, dressing rooms equipped with showers and 24 makeup stations, a separate room for costume storage, a dress shop where all theater outfits will be made, and the county’s largest scenery shop.

Among other high-tech equipment, the scenery shop has an automated device that allows students to paint 30-by-40-foot canvases without using ladders. They simply push a button and the canvas sinks through an opening in the floor.

While students are bedazzled by the center’s bells and whistles, administrators are counting on the high-tech center to help boost enrollment.

Already, classes for the spring semester in drama, dance, speech and music have filled up quickly and have long waiting lists.

Howell said his stage-craft class--in which students learn the technical aspects of staging a production--has swelled.

“We used to have to scramble to get 15 students to make the class, but now it is almost getting too big to handle,” he said. For the fall ’95 semester, he had 30 students.

And dance classes, once taken under the auspices of the physical education department, now comprise an independent major.

“People are taking dance classes now not because they need a P.E. class, but because they want to dance,” said Stella Matsuda, the director of the dance program.

Some instructors say their classes are even attracting students from Ventura College, which used to be the only community college in the county with a theater. Though comparable in size, Ventura College’s theater lacks Moorpark’s state-of-the-art equipment.

Cecilia Lopez, a former music student at Ventura College who has also taken classes at Oxnard College, switched to Moorpark College to take advantage of the new facility.

“That swayed me, most definitely,” she said. “By far, I ended up going back because of their music program, which is just a lot more professional than what it was at Oxnard and Ventura” colleges.

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With plans already in the works to boost community involvement--ranging from children’s theater to joint programs with the Simi Valley Unified School District--many feel the complex will place the college in the center of an east county arts revival.

“It puts the campus on the map in another way,” said Sid Adler, the college’s dean of humanities. “What it boils down to is a lot of stuff is happening in this area, as proved by Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks and the one in Simi Valley.”

But simply having the facility and making sure it lives up to its potential are two different things, Howell said.

He fears that Moorpark College won’t be able to invest the money necessary to expand its performing arts program with new classes and teachers.

“We’ve spent millions on the building and we have added $3 million for technical equipment, but we’ve added no classes,” he said. “There is not enough personnel.”

“We’ve been working under no budget,” said Matsuda, “but trying to do a lot.”

And Wieder sees yet another challenge.

“The biggest challenge will be to publicize and market it,” he said. “Now that we have it, we have to fill it.”