Costa Mesa Playhouse seeks new home as it gets the hook at school site
The Costa Mesa Playhouse is on the lookout for a new home after being told by Newport-Mesa Unified School District officials that the playhouse’s longtime headquarters at Rea Elementary School will be repurposed as a technology learning center.
But where the small nonprofit community theater, now in its 51st season, will end up is anyone’s guess — and that’s worrying the tight-knit playhouse community.
“It’s been difficult, to say the least,” said its board vice president, David Blair.
Fortunately, playhouse President Mike Brown said, the theater has until June 2017 to find a new stage.
“We may have to rely on someone being generous to us,” he said.
The district’s plans for the school at 661 Hamilton St. also are forcing out the nonprofit Save Our Youth, which serves low-income youths in Westside Costa Mesa. It will move to a location nearby.
The Boys & Girls Club of the Harbor Area, which has a center at Rea, is staying put.
The Costa Mesa Playhouse has been at Rea since 1984, when the campus was a middle school. Before that, from 1965 to 1984, the playhouse used space at the Orange County fairgrounds.
The theater, which puts on about five productions a year, has dedicated spaces at Rea for a bargain rate — $525 a month, Brown said. For that price, it gets a 73-seat theater with an attached lobby, a concession stand and small backstage areas.
Behind the theater, in a separate building that used to be a gym, is the playhouse’s prop and storage shop. It’s also used as a dressing area during shows.
According to a Jan. 25 letter the playhouse received from the school district, the group has until May 31 to vacate the storage building, which will be demolished this summer.
“We’ve lived in it for quite awhile,” Brown said during an interview Tuesday inside the prop shop, surrounded by scores of items collected through the years — a piano, window frames, a bag of hats labeled “Indian bonnets.”
Wedding dresses hung from the ceiling.
The room has an old musty smell to it, Brown joked, “because there’s a lot of old musty stuff in here.”
The playhouse is looking for a place to store its materials. It might have a sale to get rid of some of them.
Blair said playhouse leaders knows it’s going to be difficult to find another affordable space, but they’re optimistic.
“We are open to the potential of moving out of the city if that’s something we are forced to do,” Blair said. “But that’s not something we want to do. We take pride in being part of a 51-year legacy here in Costa Mesa, especially since it was the city’s decision to be dubbed the City of the Arts.
“We consider ourselves to be a very big part of that tagline.”
*
SOY’s new spot has more space
Arrangements have been made to move Save Our Youth to another district-owned property behind Rea on Meyer Place, where it will have more space. SOY’s former center will become a music classroom, according to a district spokeswoman.
SOY, a Rea fixture since 1993, was initially afraid it wouldn’t have a place to go, but Newport-Mesa Supt. Fred Navarro “really stepped up,” said SOY board member Mary Cappellini.
In September, SOY will begin using a building at the new location for its academic programming and three portable buildings for dance, music and office space, Cappellini said. There also will be an outdoor play area.
“We’re very thrilled,” Cappellini said.
