The final piece is about to be put in place as the third leg of
a community and cultural center is about to reopen.
MORGAN HILL – The final piece is about to be put in place as the third leg of a community and cultural center is about to reopen.
The Morgan Hill Community Playhouse will open to the public Friday night in its new guise.
At 6:30 p.m., the doors will be thrown open and the public can get its first view of what $2.5 million and a year of construction has wrought, followed by coffee and cookies and the music of harpist Jennifer Cass.
Morgan Hill City Council members said they were impressed by the renovated playhouse.
“I was very pleased,” said Councilwoman Hedy Chang. “There is a sense of surprise.”
A performance sampler will begin at 7:30 p.m. and a second show was added at 9 p.m. because of the demand. Music, dance and drama by Mes Amis String Trio, Alisa Fineman and Kimball Hurd, Opera San Jose, Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley and South Valley Civic Theatre will put the stage, its lighting and sound systems through their paces.
Rock musician and graphic artist Bob Snow said the playhouse’s $35,000 system is a good one.
“There are two sound set-ups,” he said. “One for speakers that can be turned on near the stage (for lectures, meetings and church events) and can handle up to four microphones. There is also a 16-channel mixing system for music and drama, controlled from the booth.”
Theater professionals said the playhouse was well-planned.
“I had a professor who said a building should give a hint of what’s inside, outside, and there should be a little moment of delight inside,” said Greg True of ELS Architecture and Urban Design.
True was principally responsible for turning the 4,000-square-foot, 1924 church building into a 7,000-square-foot, 2003 theater/concert hall.
“I wanted to create a new environment with an emphasis on historical quality,” he said. “We created a new identity.”
The church was fairly modest when built, he said, “and the tower was fairly homely.”
What to save and what to alter were considerations. The lobby (in the entry tower), True said, had been remodeled with a second story of offices.
“There was a clumsy floor right through the arch-topped window,” he said. “We tore it all out and returned the lobby to its original function – restoring its vertical spatial quality.”
True said they kept the strong parts as cues and generators for the new parts.
“If we had had the money, everything now painted brown would have been (quality) wood,” he said.
The City Council insisted on squeezing as much out of its $2.5 million as possible.
“It is always more expensive (to renovate) than if we had started from scratch, but the project went really well,” True said. “Project managers Glenn Ritter and Joyce Maskell with the City of Morgan Hill were great to work with.”
True and Ritter both praised Kent Construction of Gilroy, the company that did the actual hands-on work.
“They made construction go smoothly,” Ritter said.
Stage presence
Black curtains flank the sides of the stage and a red/orange velvet front curtain is in place. Proscenium doors have been installed on walls just off the stage, which Ritter said can be swung open to narrow the stage opening. A single pianist or vocalist, for example, rarely needs the full stage width.
Backdrops for theatrical performances will be hung from a grid of piping on the ceiling and anchored to the masonite floor. A flying prop tower common in most theaters, was not used because the area is formally called a “platform” – not a “stage” – to satisfy building code restrictions.
Gender-specific dressing rooms have five makeup stations each plus a closet for storage and a bathroom.
Seats of glory
When playgoers are seated for the first performances – South Valley Civic Theatre’s production of “Lend Me a Tenor” on Feb. 7 – they will be sitting on history. The 186 Art Deco seats are originally from the Campbell High School auditorium and from the same period as the playhouse building. Each seat has cast iron standards (side supports) with a custom powder coat in bronze with green trim. The design was common to the 1920s. The seats’ wooden backs are stained cherry to coordinate with green upholstery.
The seats cost the city nothing except for the renovation and re-upholstering, Maskell said.
Besides their use during performances, the chairs have been put to work to pay for their restoration and to bring in funds for South Valley Civic Theatre as well. For $300, 186 theater supporters will have their name or their business’ name engraved on brass plaques attached permanently to the chairs’ arms. $250 will go to recoup refurbishing expenses and $50 to SVCT.
Call (408) 842-SHOW or go to www.svct.org for information about plaques or SVCT tickets.
There are still some $5 tickets to Friday’s 9 p.m. grand opening performance left. For details call (408) 782-0008.
