It’s show time

The Clark Center’s opening day is just around the corner and the entire county is abuzz with excitement

BY ANNE QUINN

Dateline: SLO County, May 10, 2002 "BC"

SLO County art calendars will forever change after May 10, from BC–as in before the Clark Center for the Performing Arts–to after.

When Clifford and Mary-Lee Clark cut the ribbon and throw open the doors of the Clark Center for the Performing Arts in Arroyo Grande on May 10, the curtain goes up–not only on their inspired vision, but on the dreams of many, including those who helped to build it and all those who can’t wait to perform in it.

The Clarks, who have always supported the arts, went to many performances in the Arroyo Grande High School gym and sat so often on cold metal folding chairs that they decided Arroyo Grande High School–and its theater department, under the inspired direction of Billy Houck–needed a real theater.

But does SLO County need two performing arts centers? The Clark Center and the Christopher Cohan Center, both named for their largest benefactors, differ enough to complement each other like grand and baby Steinways.

"I think the conception of the Clark Center is different than the PAC. It was really built to be a community theater," says Kate Stulberg, executive director of the SLO Arts Council. "I also know that Clifford and Mary-Lee Clark feel very strongly about arts education for young people and wanted students to know what it feels like to perform on a real-life stage."

The Clark Center will be owned, operated, and used by the Lucia Mar school district, which will in turn make it available to the public. The school district has first priority from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on all scheduled Arroyo Grande High School days, including the summer session. Its theater manager is Barry Hamlin.

Seeing the Clark Center is believing, says Bernie Kautz, who often took people to the center during its construction. "Just seeing it become a reality made people want to give more," she says.

The Clarks committed a whopping $2.5 million of their own money. But the effort to build a center would have died there, had it not been a shared dream.

Kautz, who has led the fund-raising effort for the past five years, says, "We always felt that what we were building was going to be a part of the community, something that’s a real asset to the Five Cites area, from Avila to Nipomo."

So did surrounding municipalities. Arroyo Grande chipped in $100,000 and Pismo Beach and Grover Beach each ponied up $50,000. The county contributed $250,000 and the center also received $900,000 from the state.

While the $33-million, glass-and-steel Cal Poly Performing Arts Center wraps its arms around the campus and winks at Broadway, the Clark Center holds hands with Arroyo Grande High School, looking like a well-dressed transfer student from Santa Barbara.

Unlike the PAC, which was short $2 million a week before it opened, until a fortuitous eleventh hour loan from Heritage Bank helped it complete its sound system, the Clark Center opens its doors with its $9-million price tag fully paid.

The center’s clay textures and turquoise, russet, and forest-green colors echo the Southwest. The architect even created a repetitive "branch" theme with the supporting frame, which is fitting, since Branch is the name of Arroyo Grande’s main street.

At 600 seats, the Clark Center is half the size of the 1,282-seat Harmon Hall at the Cal Poly Performing Arts Center. But it also rents for half the price. Proud members of the Clark Center Association think it’s just as pretty and similarly state-of-the-art.

Clark Center lighting consultant Rick Pierce is still learning the new Strand Lighting 520I board, which comes with two computer monitors. "You can conceivably sit in your office and program a whole show," he says. "These boards can also be networked together. They used four of these boards for the production of ‘Cats’ at the Winter Garden Theater (on Broadway)," he says.

The center also boasts a 25-foot movie screen; a multi-media projector capable of commercial-class, power-point presentations; and a state-of-the-art lighting system. After listing its many virtues, fans point out that the Clark Center offers one thing that will never be possible at the PAC: free parking.

Its 600 seats surround the stage in a semicircle, offering orchestra seating in nearly the entire house. There is an adjacent studio theater space, complete with its own lighting and sound systems, which will host recitals, receptions, and theater-in-the-round. The main house even has rock and roll lights. "We’re the only theater on the Central Coast with that," brags the Clark Center Association’s executive director, Curtis Reinhardt.

"The size is charming," says Sandi Sigurdson, director of the San Luis Obispo County Symphony Association, one of the few county arts organizations that has no trouble selling out at the PAC every season.

Its success at the PAC haven’t dampened the Symphony Association’s enthusiasm for the new Clark Center. For the center’s first season, the Symphony Association has developed a new chamber concert series under the artistic direction of Grammy-winning violinist Kathleen Lenski.

A resident of Los Osos, and personal friend of SLO Symphony conductor Michael Nowak, Lenski won a Grammy this year for a recording made with the Angeles String Quartet. Her chamber series for the Clark Center opens with a performance of Vivaldi’s "Four Seasons."

"We know we are going to have an outstanding series there," says Sigurdson. "The Clark Center offers the type of intimacy that chamber music calls for."

Other arts organizations are excited as well. "My little feet are going to be walking down there and putting shows on," says Cal Poly Arts’ manager, Ralph Hoskins, who does most of the programming for Cal Poly Arts. Hoskins sees the Clark Center as a way of developing new audiences on the Central Coast.

Wendy Eidson, director of the SLO Little Theater, says the Clark Center Association "has expressed interest in having some of our shows there." Although her group likes "the spot we’re in now," across the street from the Palm Street Parking garage in SLO, she says that SLO Little Theater is actually too little. "If I had a rehearsal room, I’d just be so happy."

Zoe Saba, director of the Shakespeare Festival, also looks at the Clark Center with interest. "My hope is that it will be for local arts groups that don’t have the ability to pay for the PAC," she says. The Shakespeare Festival used to be outdoors in the Architectural Garden on the Cal Poly campus until, she says, "Cal Poly tripled the price." The festival now rents the SLO Little Theater, while it searches for an outdoor venue, where, Saba says, it really belongs.

The Shakespeare Festival’s struggle to find just the right location is typical of that of smaller county arts organizations, a dilemma that some find ironic. "A friend of mine who moved here from New York and has since moved back couldn’t believe how much trouble we’re having finding an outdoor location to perform. He used to say, ‘Zoe, I come from New York, where we basically have no outdoors, and there are outdoor performances all over the place, and here you are in SLO County, where there is practically nothing but the outdoors, and you can’t find a place anywhere!’ "

The public’s first opportunity to see the Clark Center will be at the grand opening on May 11 and 12, starting at 1 p.m. and continuing until late at night. Activities will include jazz, chamber, and solo piano performances, a vaudeville variety show, the SLO Wind Orchestra, clowns, the Five Cities Swing Band, and more. Everything is free, even cold drinks at the concession stand, says Kautz.

San Luis Obispo County will then boast two performing arts centers and may someday have three if Project Theater, a 46,000-square-foot proposed fine arts teaching complex, gets built on the Cuesta College Paso Robles campus as hoped.

Many SLO citizens love the performing arts and SLO County so much, they want to help create performance halls here as a personal legacy. People like the Clarks, Gerry and Peggy Peterson, Jim and Lyn Baker, Doug and Ann Shaw, and, for the Clark Center, an anonymous donor who gave $1 million just in time to meet the deadline for inclusion on the center’s honor wall, a special section where donors’ names are inscribed. Until that wall is unveiled at the grand opening, no one is allowed to know the "mystery" donor’s name.

"I think [Clark Center Association members] are planning for the future," says Kate Stulberg, executive director of the SLO Arts Council. "The area is growing so much."

Kautz said, "People would just come talk to you about it and it becomes a reality. I feel as if there has been a little angel sitting on my shoulder the whole time–it’s been the strangest and most wonderful experience.

And the curtain hasn’t even opened yet. Æ

Anne Quinn can be reached at [email protected].