Man Behind Scenes Plays a Starring Role at Arts Plaza

Midway through the construction of the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, with disputes raging over whether the 1,800-seat Fred Kavli Theatre and the 400-seat Scherr Forum would be cultural saviors or unworthy drains on city funds, Theaters Director Tom Mitze arrived for work.

Five years and several controversies later, the $86-million Civic Arts Plaza is widely deemed a success. Rental fees, ticket sales and donations have kept it in the black, and its stages have attracted the likes of Mikhail Baryshnikov and Liza Minnelli.

And much of the credit for that success goes to Mitze, the man behind the curtain.

“It’s a success because of the professionalism and the insight that Tom Mitze brings to it,” said Larry Janss, a photographer, developer, arts donor and founder of the Gold Coast Performing Arts Assn. “Tom is my hero.”

Mitze has many bosses to please, from taxpayers to donors to arts organizations to city officials to a board of governors. He works for the city and answers to the donors, community activists and volunteers on the board. Somehow, he seems to be making everyone happy.

“He’s got a unique ability to bring together many different components of the community,” said Thousand Oaks City Councilman Andy Fox.

Ever the diplomat, Mitze answers every letter from patrons upset over bad seats or sound problems and often sends them free tickets as an apology. He shoots down bad programming ideas without offending those who came up with them. Janss said Mitze has saved him from getting involved in productions that would have failed.

“He never diminishes anybody, but he is also frank and sufficiently honest,” Janss said. “He knows in his heart and his mind how to run a healthy performing arts center.”

The path Mitze took to the helm of the Civic Arts Plaza was a circuitous one. The 56-year-old with thin gray hair and an easygoing nature grew up in St. Louis, Mo. His father was a music professor, and at 81 the elder Mitze still works as a music critic for public radio in Sacramento. Both parents put a high priority on the arts.

“I was taken to symphonies before I could walk,” Mitze said.

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He studied English in college, and after years of dreaming about living in New York, he moved there and channeled his talent for writing into a job crafting television commercial scripts for products such as Cheerios.

He was considering a career change, possibly into the world of book editing, when the Army drafted him during the Vietnam War. After a test revealed he had a propensity for work decoding Russian messages, he was pulled from basic training, taught Russian and cryptography and sent to Sinop, Turkey, as an intelligence analyst. After a year, he was transferred to the National Security Agency in Washington, D.C.

As Mitze’s term of duty drew to a close, he considered his options. The covert nature of intelligence work discouraged him from continuing in that field. And he no longer wanted the fast pace of New York.

He had started volunteering at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which was just being built, and decided to accept an entry-level position there. He performed an assortment of tasks--from setting up the discount-ticket program to writing speeches.

Mitze went on to serve as assistant managing director of the Milwaukee Performing Arts Center and helped launch the Milwaukee-based Great American Children’s Theatre Company. He ran the La Mirada Theatre from its construction in 1976 through 1993. He also presided over the Theatre League Alliance of Los Angeles and worked as a consultant for the National Endowment for the Arts and other arts organizations.

While attending theater conferences, Mitze met his wife, Marnie, a pianist. She became a competitor when she took the job as director of the Center for Arts at Pepperdine University in Malibu. In the span of a year, they married, started their current jobs and moved to a house in Malibu overlooking the ocean. Mitze became a doting first-time father to their son, Michael, at the same time the Civic Arts Plaza opened.

When Mitze took the helm at the Civic Arts Plaza, a hard hat was required attire. It hangs on a rack in his office, serving as a reminder of those early, tumultuous days. As he did in La Mirada, Mitze guided the organization from its infancy.

“I’m not sure I’d want to do it again,” he said.

He has had his share of troubles while running the theaters. The City Council shot down his requests for financial help to add flags along the entrance, lights in the reflecting pool and other improvements that have yet to materialize. After pledging $2 million and having the main theater named for him, reclusive millionaire Charles E. Probst backed out of his promise. And debates about how to change the much-maligned copper curtain hanging outside still continue.

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Mitze shrugs off the problems, saying controversy is par for the course whenever a performing arts center opens. If he has a regret about the past five years it’s that the theaters haven’t connected with the young adult audience. Not that he hasn’t tried, he said. He won’t name names, but there are a couple of bands he has approached with requests to perform. According to Mitze, they shot him down, saying Thousand Oaks just isn’t hip enough.

Along with trying to attract younger audiences, Mitze said he will spend the next year scheduling events and performances consistent with what is happening outside the theaters. Plans for building a children’s museum, shopping center and Gardens of the World are in the works, he said.

“When that’s all done, this will really be the heart of the city,” Mitze said. “We bring in 300,000 people a year. I think it will double to 600,000 or more with those things here.”

As far as Mitze is concerned, that is great news for him, the theaters and the entire community.

“I think performing arts centers are like a museum or library. They’re not integral to daily life, but they enhance life,” he said. “I think a life without culture and performances would be like Thousand Oaks without the hills.”