Old Warehouse Gets New Role as Theater That Serves Community

In the days of its youth, this old warehouse offered nothing for the imagination. For decades people came to this building at 24th and Hoover streets to work. Not to play. Not to dream.

Yet the moment Jon White-Spunner stepped inside the dreary brick building--boarded up after years of disuse--his imagination took over.

White-Spunner, a lecturer at USC’s School of Theater, looked at the dusty emptiness and saw a stage and cushioned seats, curtains, lights and audiences.

And he spent 2 1/2 years making that vision real. Now the warehouse is a sparkling new theater full of dreaming.

“Every time I walk in the building, I think of what it was like when we moved in, the factory rubbish that was lying around,” White-Spunner said. “And now there are people there enjoying theater.”

Neighborhood children spend Saturday mornings on stage, climbing ladders to Mars, turning themselves into lions.

Since opening in March, the 24th Street Theatre has offered live performances to many in this working-class neighborhood for the first time. Workshops for youths are free, and neighborhood residents pay what they can for professional shows.

“I grew up on this street,” said Jim Alvarez after a morning at the theater with his daughter Katherine, 4, and brother-in-law Alex, 7. “This place was abandoned many years. Look how nicely it turned out.”

Creating the theater brought together area residents, USC and a group of theater professionals headed by White-Spunner.

In 1995 White-Spunner and Stephanie Shroyer were running a theater company on the Westside and looking for a new space when a USC dean invited him to consider the neighborhood around the university. When the two partners saw the warehouse, they fell in love with it.

A $30,000 grant from USC helped buy equipment and pay for renovation. But White-Spunner, a native of South Africa, knew that for the theater to work, he had to learn the community--and become a part of it. So he attended neighborhood meetings and met with school officials.

“Right from the first Jon wanted to include the neighborhood as audience and ushers, performers and writers,” said Patsy Carter, a member of 23rd Street Impact, a community organization. “He’s moved in from the very beginning with the notion that it would be a community effort, and he’s really done it.”

One of the first productions at the theater was “Working Here,” a play about the history of the warehouse. Constructed in 1924, the building was once a garment factory. Some in the neighborhood still remember those days. One parent told White-Spunner: “My mother used to work a steam press right there.”

With a grant from the city’s Cultural Affairs Department, the theater put on “Working Here” with 15 students from Norwood Elementary School. It was the first time fifth-grader Jeanine Guerrero had ever been on stage.

“The first time I saw all those people, I was so scared,” she said. “I did my best, and all the people in the seats clapped and clapped. They liked us.”

On a recent Saturday, Jeanine was one of about 20 youngsters working on skits and acting exercises.

“They are making Jeanine grow more,” said her mother, Juany Molina. “Watching TV is not good for her. Here I feel she gives everything she has inside.”

For White-Spunner, igniting that kind of spark is part of the beauty of the arts. He worked for nearly a decade at Johannesburg’s renowned Market Theater, where such plays as “Sarafina” were first performed.

“People all over Johannesburg could put on plays together, where they couldn’t in other parts of the country and at any other theater,” he said. “That’s been my major influence in the world of theater, and in some way I would like to re-create the feeling in this space, so that it’s a place where communities can gather and where art can happen. Hopefully it can sort of spark some new ideas.”

Anne-Merelie Murrell, owner of the building that houses the theater, said the playhouse is attracting people to an area that “has sometimes been discredited for many reasons.” But once in the neighborhood, visitors see the rich history, the Victorian homes and the attractions at USC.

At a fund-raiser today--an afternoon of tea and theater--guests will take a mini-tour of the facility. The day will begin with excerpts from two upcoming productions, William Saroyan’s “The Cave Dwellers,” and Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” with an all-black cast.

Raising funds to pay for productions and keep the theater open is a major concern. But even “when things get bad, and you think we’re not going to cover the rent,” there’s a glint of hope, White-Spunner said.

“It’s being here and seeing the faces of the people who come into the building and tell us how much they like having it around,” he said. “That makes this interesting and exciting and worthwhile.”