Inactive Theater May Be Cast in a New Role

As a theater, the Dorill B. Wright Cultural Arts Center seemed to have a lot going for it: a lovely seaside setting, first-rate acoustics and a size that lent warmth and intimacy to smaller-scale productions.

But the municipally owned performance space has sat dormant for years, the victim of a budget crisis in 1993 and city leaders unwilling to fund its operation during better economic times.

Now it awaits transfer to private hands, and officials are hailing the sale to a Simi Valley entertainment company as a potential revival of the cultural venue.

But the celebration may be premature.

The prospective owner, Pacific Coast Entertainment Inc., a film production and distribution company, has yet to specify its plans for the facility, including whether the venue will ever again showcase local performance groups.

The $2-million cultural center, standing on the site of what was once a sewage treatment plant, was built in 1984 as part of Port Hueneme’s redevelopment of a once blighted coastal area.

In return for its approval of a beachfront condominium development nearby, the California Coastal Commission had required the city to build a facility for the community. The theater’s namesake, former Mayor Dorill B. Wright, pushed for an arts center.

The 564-seat theater at first relied on in-house productions funded by the city, but that proved too costly, said the center’s former director Denis Murrin.

Under Murrin, the center changed direction by booking both local and touring acts and scheduling a regular season of performances, including dance recitals and concerts. It also offered lectures, art and acting classes and scheduled special performances for local schoolchildren.

“They were doing everything you’re supposed to do when you have a cultural center,” said Joy MacKinnon, who as the owner of MacKinnon Dance Co. in Oxnard staged numerous dance recitals at the theater.

The center regularly featured performances by Channelaire, the local women’s chorus; the now-defunct Port Hueneme Men’s Follies; and the Ventura County Master Chorale.

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It also became home to the Cabrillo Music Theatre, which staged productions of “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Gypsy.”

“We found the Dorill quite charming,” said Cheryl Mastrovito, executive director of Cabrillo Music Theatre. The theater group formerly resided at what was then known as the Oxnard Civic Auditorium, but left because of the cost of operating from that 1,600-seat theater. “[The Dorill] doesn’t have an orchestra pit, so it was perfect for smaller productions.”

The theater company, now based at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, was holding auditions for a production of “Annie” when Port Hueneme eliminated the center’s funding amid a budget crunch in May 1993.

Murrin said the theater’s closure came at a time when season performances were nearly selling out and thousands of county residents were attending at least one performance there a year.

“We could have continued to expand, to mature,” said Murrin, who now works for the city’s facilities maintenance department. “And then the plug got pulled.”

Clearly still pained by the loss of the center, Murrin, 42, said he had difficulty assessing what the closure meant to its mainly west county audience.

“How do you put a value on a common community experience that gets people out of their living rooms to see something they don’t see very often?” he asked. “Where do people go for community experiences--the workplace, the mall?”

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Murrin, who previously worked at performing arts centers in Redondo Beach and San Pedro, said the 15,000-square-foot theater had superior acoustics.

“That room is distortion free,” he said. “You can hear and you can understand what you’re hearing.”

But at the same time, he said, the center, with $250,000 in annual operating costs, had problems that limited its ability to raise funds separately from the city’s $150,000 subsidy.

Its location, miles from the nearest freeway, may have limited its ability to draw financial support from arts patrons living outside the Oxnard-Port Hueneme area.

“If it was in Ventura, we probably would have had more support from the community,” he said. “Too bad you can’t just pick it up and move it.”

Lee Montemorra, former executive director of the Ventura County Master Chorale, said the theater’s location may also have been too long a haul for the chorale group’s core audience.

“We had an awful time getting our audience to follow us out there,” she said. “It’s a lovely facility . . . but it’s like a great restaurant in the wrong place.”

And while the theater’s intimacy enhanced its value, it also served as a detraction, Murrin said, because it was too small to replicate the success Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza has had attracting promoters to produce their seasonal performances.

“If it just had 200 more seats,” he said wistfully.

But city officials never envisioned that the cultural center would be self-sustaining, Murrin said. Like most municipally run theaters, it required a subsidy or private endowment to survive.

Greg Brown, community development director for Port Hueneme, agreed but said the city was too small to justify a performing arts center.

“How many other cities with a population of 20,000 have one?” he asked. “Performing arts centers are not cost recovering, and the city could no longer afford it . . . even as a rental house.”

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Unlike Thousand Oaks, which has a large sales tax revenue from auto dealerships and a wealthier population to privately support the arts, “Port Hueneme doesn’t have the level of income to support it,” said Mayor Murray Rosenbluth, who along with the majority of the City Council voted to approve the $1.1-million sale last month. Councilman Jon Sharkey abstained because his home is near the theater.

While the amount of the sale is substantially lower than the building’s construction cost, it is higher than the city’s asking price of $975,000, which reflected the limited use buyers could make of the facility. The center also needs about $250,000 in repairs and costs the city at least $35,000 in annual upkeep.

Rosenbluth agreed that parks and libraries also have annual upkeep costs and bring in very little revenue, but he said he would rather fund those types of amenities from the city’s $26-million budget than pay for a cultural center.

“Parks and libraries are so much a part of the quality of life,” he said. “They are just a little bit higher priority for me.”

Stephanie Angelini, president of the Ventura County Arts Council, said she is not surprised by the mayor’s fiscal priorities.

“The arts, for some reason, are always at the bottom of the list,” Angelini said.

She argued that cities should have performing arts centers because its sales tax receipts will increase from the influx of people coming to see shows.

“I don’t know, I was raised in Hollywood,” she said. “It’s so obvious why the performing arts are important.”

Rosenbluth said he believes the cultural center under its new ownership will be used in the manner for which it was originally intended.

“My impression is that these folks are straight shooters and will do what’s right for the community,” he said.

But representatives of Pacific Coast Entertainment have so far declined to publicly discuss their plans for the facility in any detail, and the statements they have made are not likely to draw raves from culture enthusiasts.

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” said Steve Kall, president of Pacific Coast One-Stop, an affiliated music distribution company. Kall said he and his wife, Tracy, who is president of Pacific Coast Entertainment, have decided to hold off promoting their intentions until the sale of the center is finalized.

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At the same time, he loosely described plans to use his contacts with the music industry to stage occasional concerts of contemporary adult music at the theater.

“I know almost everybody in the recording industry,” he said. “I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve been to Michael Jackson’s house.”

Pacific Coast Entertainment, which makes and distributes B-movies targeted for video and cable broadcast, also plans to screen films for film distribution companies at the theater.

“But the public will be invited to every screening,” Kall said.

Roger Rebbe, the company’s chief financial officer, said Pacific Coast Entertainment does not expect to generate a profit from audience attendance at the screenings, but rather from movie makers who are looking to cut their tax liability.

“We’ll be making money off people who need to have their films screened so they can write them off,” Rebbe said.

The company also plans to use the facility for location shoots, small conventions and a film festival timed to coincide with a long-established festival held each year in Santa Monica.

Kall said local groups may have access to the center so long as performances are staged in conjunction with management and fit within community standards. “This is not a rental facility, where you can just come in and put on anything you want,” he said.

Kall emphatically denied that the theater was purchased as a tax shelter for Pacific Coast Entertainment.

“We’re doing something that we think is positive for the city,” he said.

Wright said the cultural center was planned before Proposition 13 curtailed the opportunity to rely on property taxes for such funding.

The 79-year-old Wright, who served on the Coastal Commission at the time the theater was built, said the state agency ordered that a community center be built, but it did not require that it stay in public hands.

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He said it is his understanding that the center, under new ownership, “would be used in the manner for which it was designed.”

“Hopefully, that will be the case,” said Wright, who added that he is pleased that the city was able to sell the facility, which will continue to bear his hame.

“I’m just unhappy that we couldn’t do what we set out to do,” he said.