‘Clue’ plays at Estancia High theater, still producing hits as plans to build new venue stall
Estancia High School’s theater department is gearing up for a spring production of the popular mystery “Clue,” pulling off one more theatrical feat of magic in an age-worn facility that, despite its challenges, has graduated generations of thespians.
Drama students have been preparing since February for the latest play, which runs Thursday through Saturday at 7 p.m. in the Barbara Van Holt Theater. The 246-seat venue opened in the 1960s under director Van Holt, who passed the baton in 1996 to current director Pauline Maranian.
Maranian describes the space as an auditorium that has since been modified to accommodate productions, but which still lacks many of the components of a full-fledged theater. Although officials have promised a new facility since her arrival, so far nothing has materialized.
“[Other schools] have state-of-the-art facilities on their campuses, with fly lofts and orchestra pits,” she said Monday during a dress rehearsal. “We have nowhere for the orchestra to go. We’ve placed them in the aisles, but it was a fire hazard. We’ve placed them on stage, but the sound blows everything out.
“Everybody works hard — but our resources are different.”
Newport-Mesa Unified School District officials have, indeed, endeavored for nearly two decades to bring a new performing arts complex to the Costa Mesa campus.
While such a project was slated to be built with funds from Measure F, a general obligation bond approved by voters in 2005, the money ran out, leaving Estancia the only high school to not have received a theater upgrade.
A design was finally approved in 2019, and a site on the east side of the campus occupied by a nearly 1-acre senior lawn was selected by a project review committee. However, the location has drawn criticism from students and community members, who claim the lawn offers a green space badly needed at the school.
The proposed complex — whose price tag has ballooned from $27 million to $41 million — is also the subject of a lawsuit filed by the city of Costa Mesa, whose officials allege NMUSD failed to provide proper environmental and public review.
District leaders in a forum last Thursday sought feedback from community members about five different sites examined by the committee, expressing an openness to possibly changing the plan. However, relocating the theater could increase costs and delay construction even further.
Maranian, who served on the project review committee, said the senior lawn site seemed most optimal precisely because of the problems posed by the other locations.
“We were supposed to break ground before COVID, then there was the controversy,” she added. “To delay it again means more time we’re not going to have a space.”
Amber Marroquin is a 2017 Estancia graduate who went through the drama program and is earning a theater teaching credential through CSU East Bay and directing “Clue.”
Though she remembers her time with the department fondly and is proud of the theater’s legacy, she’s also keenly aware of the challenges of producing shows at Estancia, especially compared to other Newport-Mesa campuses.
“When we were in high school, subconsciously, it made us feel we weren’t as important or as worthy when we had to work extra hard on the tech,” she said. “I love how intimate our theater is, but most kids deserve to feel what it’s like to be on a big, grand stage.”
With no backstage area, large props must be kept by the theater’s entrances and wheeled inside during the production. Seats were removed to accommodate a makeshift control booth designed by students and paid for by parents, while grants have funded lighting, sound equipment and a cyclorama backdrop.
The back wall of the theater isn’t technically a wall but an accordion-style partition that separates the theater from the school hallway outside.
Sophomore Taylor Nash, who portrays French maid Yvette in “Clue,” has attended productions at other Newport-Mesa schools and talked with friends about the many things they had that Estancia lacks. Still, she’s thrilled to be able to perform in person this semester.
“I remember joining the program and being scared because I didn’t know anyone. It’s so different now because these people are my best friends,” she said.
At a March 29 meeting of NMUSD’s Board of Trustees, Nash maintained the loss of the senior lawn could be mitigated. A theater, on the other hand, is something that could serve generations of students.
“It’s hard seeing students speak about it when they’re only speaking for themselves and what they would like,” she said Monday of the senior lawn defenders. “I’d like them to think about the whole program and all the other programs that could benefit.”
Estancia High School’s production of “Clue” runs through Saturday at 7 p.m., 2323 Placentia Ave. Tickets are available both online, at sites.google.com/nmusd.us/ehsdrama/clue, and at the door. Student and presale tickets cost $10, while general admission is $15 at the door.
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