Valley Theater Complex Will Mark Rebirth as Arts Center

Tonight’s unveiling of the refurbished El Portal Center for the Arts in North Hollywood is described by its organizers as a housewarming, not an opening, and with good reason.

Widely hailed as the crucial next step in the creation of a vital arts scene in the east San Fernando Valley’s NoHo Arts District, the ambitious arts center is nearly finished--but not quite.

“We’ve still got a lot of things we’ve got to do,” said Robert E. Caine, president of the El Portal Board of Directors.

Visitors who attend the black-tie dedication will see how dramatically imagination and $6 million have transformed the ruined 73-year-old movie palace at 5269 Lankershim Blvd.

Where there was once an earthquake-ravaged hulk, there are now three theaters, an art gallery and support facilities in a complex of 23,000 square feet.

The facility is expected to be completed by the time its inaugural theater season begins Jan. 14. But earlier this week, tile was still being laid, walls were wet with paint and the seats in the 400-seat Mainstage Theatre and 99-seat Circle Theatre had yet to be installed.

Sparks flew as welders installed metal railings, and workers rushed to make sure lights and toilets would be working in time for the event.

“It’s all flying monkeys and firetrucks right now,” said design consultant Terry Evans during a tour of the resurrected building, which opened as a silent movie house in 1926.

Some of the best features of the earlier building are being restored, including bas-relief sculptures in the lobby depicting the Gold Rush and other scenes from California history that are the work of the Depression era Works Progress Administration.

“It’s at the 90% completion point,” said Richard F. McCann, the Pasadena architect in charge of the project.

Actors Alley, the nonprofit organization that will operate El Portal, has taken to calling the project “the miracle on Lankershim.”

Renovation of the faded former movie and vaudeville theater was already underway when the Northridge earthquake struck in 1994, rendering the building unusable.

The first sign of the site’s rebirth as a theatrical venue was the opening, shortly after the quake, of the tiny 49-seat Storefront Theatre, in office space next door.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency contributed just over $4 million to the project and the Small Business Administration another $1.5 million. Actors Alley and El Portal raised the remaining $500,000, Caine said.

Finishing touches are being put on the Mainstage Theatre--the first new Equity contract venue in the East Valley in more than 20 years. Architect McCann said the theater is unique in the Valley in the scale of its stage, which is comparable to that of the Pantages, the Shubert and other large theaters on the Westside.

Instead of a modest platform stage, the Mainstage Theatre boasts a performance space that soars 70 feet from the stage to the grid area above.

McCann, whose Pasadena firm specializes in theater design, said the center is the first in the area to apply a multiplex approach to theatrical space.

At tonight’s gala, a lifetime achievement award will be presented to actor and dancer Donald O’Connor, who has appeared in more than 50 films, including “Singin’ in the Rain,” and who continues to perform.

O’Connor, 74, first appeared at El Portal when he was a toddler and performed in his family’s vaudeville and circus act.

Actress Carol Channing, who will present the award to O’Connor, said she is excited about the opening of El Portal because it has the potential to function as an important regional theater.

“Regional theater is the essence of theater,” she said.