After Years of Roaming, Theater Group Finds Home

The Woodland Hills Theatre has finally found a home--in Canoga Park, of all places.

A fixture in the West Valley for more than a decade, the nonprofit organization has done what plucky community theaters have traditionally done. It has bounced around, mounting its productions in whatever church, school or small theater would give it space.

But the vagabond years are over.

The organization is about to move into the West Valley Playhouse, a brand-new 170-seat theater at 7242 Owensmouth Ave. A former Masonic lodge, the space is being renovated at a cost of more than $500,000, paid for by the Clyde and Mary Lou Porter Foundation, which purchased the building with the project in mind.

Jon Berry, founder and artistic director of the Woodland Hills Theatre, couldn’t be happier.

“I’ve always wanted a theater of my own,” says the 56-year-old actor and impresario, who was able to incorporate many of his ideas into architect Morris Brown’s design. “That’s been my dream since I was a little boy.”

Berry is quick to point out that the theater isn’t really his. His sense of ownership is like that of the actors getting ready for the playhouse’s upcoming first production, who look at the half-finished theater and ask, “Is that my dressing room?”

A Booster for Culture

The real moving force behind the project, Berry says, is Clyde Porter, the 74-year-old businessman and philanthropist who has supported cultural activities in the Valley for years.

Porter discovered the former Masonic lodge on the Internet and thought it would be a good fit with Berry and his organization. Porter has long lamented the limited cultural facilities in the Valley and watched with regret as once lavish plans for a full-scale arts center near the Warner Center were scaled back. The West Valley finally got a community performing arts center when the Madrid Theatre, which includes a 499-seat theater, opened on Sherman Way in Canoga Park in 1998.

The new playhouse, which is just around the corner from the Madrid, is much more modest in scale. (At 7,500 square feet, it’s two-thirds the size.) But Porter, whose foundation underwrote the $1.2-million purchase and renovation, believes the playhouse, too, will ratchet the West Valley cultural scene up another notch.

“This will be an intimate facility and will be a nice addition to the community,” he says modestly.

The Madrid was one of the stops the Woodland Hills Theatre made along the way to the new playhouse.

Berry, whose cast and crew change from production to production, did three shows at the Madrid last year. “I like the Madrid Theatre a lot,” he says. “It just wasn’t the right theater for us.”

The new playhouse, he says, “is much more friendly for our style of production.” In the new theater, a 28-foot by 32-foot stage will thrust toward, though not into, three groups of seats, arranged around the stage so there are no obstructed views.

“I wanted the audience to be close to be part of the show, but not so close that they think they’re in the show,” Berry says with a laugh.

Berry says his organization wanted a theater it could put its stamp on. In essence, the Madrid is a rental facility, managed and programmed by the somewhat bureaucratic City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.

A local cultural organization such as Berry’s can’t hang photos from its productions up on the walls of the Madrid the way it can in a resident theater. It can’t make such a theater its own.

“Once you’re gone from there, you’re gone from there until you’re there again,” Berry says.

Berry and other West Valley culture mavens dream of creating an arts-oriented neighborhood that’s the equivalent of the East Valley’s vigorous NoHo arts district.

The Madrid was the essential first step, Berry says: “If it wasn’t for the Madrid, I wouldn’t even have looked in Canoga Park.”

Just as the Madrid helped draw his group to the area, Berry can imagine the day when the area is full of small theaters, coffee shops, arts facilities, even a decent restaurant or two.

“We’ll feed off each other,” he says. “The more theater you have, the better.”

Inaugural Season

The West Valley Playhouse will open its doors Oct. 6 with a production of Neil Simon’s 1997 relationship comedy “Proposals.” Subsequent offerings include the thriller “Haunting of Hill House” in November, an opera program in January, Agatha Christie’s “Spider’s Web” in February and a wacky farce, “Room Service,” in May.

As soon as he is confident he can do it well, Berry hopes to produce a musical. (The Woodland Hills Theatre won a number of Valley Theatre League awards in 1998 for its musical version of “A Tale of Two Cities.”) And in 2001 he hopes to stage an original thriller by William Link, “Murder Plot.”

Unlike community theaters in Paducah or Pocatello, Berry’s has all the acting talent of Los Angeles to draw on--at least that majority portion still at risk of returning to the purgatory of waiting tables. The organization is also able to use Equity actors under a special agreement with the guild.

“I think we can compete with the big boys,” he says of his productions. “This is not a small town in the Midwest after all.”

The Woodland Hills Theatre already has 300 season ticket holders and a mailing list of 3,000. When they come to the new theater in October, they will discover such amenities as a vast lobby lit with chandeliers and a women’s restroom with extra stalls. They will also find upholstered theater seats.

“The audience is looking forward to coming over here,” Berry assures. “They’re getting tired of folding chairs.”

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Spotlight appears every Friday. Patricia Ward Biederman can be reached at valley.news@latimes.com.