Ribbon to Be Cut at New Arts Center

Show time is still a month away, but school officials plan to hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony this afternoon to celebrate completion of the 400-seat Newbury Park Performing Arts Center.

The theater, at Newbury Park High, has been more than two decades in the making. After the death of Lori Ponzuric Brown, the school’s first theater arts instructor, 23 years ago, faculty began a fund-raising drive. Over the years faculty shows and other fund-raisers kept the “dream theater” alive and continued when drama classes moved to a converted classroom in 1989.

In the 1992-93 school year, developers’ fees, donations and district financial support were sufficient to build the Newbury Park theater. However, construction was delayed until the city of Thousand Oaks was able to provide financial assistance to build a theater at Thousand Oaks High School, which is expected to be completed at the end of December.

“It’s definitely a tremendous facility and tremendous opportunity,” said English teacher Jeannine Reyes, manager of Newbury Park’s theater. “We’ve always had the talent. Now we are going to have the space as well.”

Each theater is approximately 10,500 square feet and costs about $3.6 million to build. Both have 400 seats, a control room, full-size towers, a stage, an orchestra pit, catwalk system, ticket office, dressing room, public bathrooms, bathrooms for student performers, specialized lighting and sound systems. Both also have handicapped access to the theaters and to the stages, said Tony Joseph, construction manager.

Julia Lees-Smith, a 17-year-old Newbury Park senior, is looking forward to performing in Stephen Sondheim’s musical, “Into the Woods,” which opens Jan. 15.

“To be on the stage and to look out at the 400 seats is quite an amazing experience,” said Lees-Smith, who has walked the new stage. “We’ve been waiting for it for so long.”