A New Stage for Young Talent Breaks Ground

Acoustics are not something many people at Calabasas High worry about when it comes to the school's auditorium.

"It's small and the sound doesn't have as much places to travel," said Levenson, lead sound operator and a junior at the high school.

But an improvement in the acoustics for future concerts and plays is expected when the school welcomes its new performing arts center, which broke ground on Thursday.

The 33,000-square-foot facility includes specially made panels and even curtains that allow for better reverberations, which would make any sound operator happy.

"It's amazing ... to have a facility that goes above what we have," Levenson said."I'm just so excited and really jealous. I might not get to work in it."

The theater, which houses 650 seats, a 100-seat black box theater, and an orchestra pit, is expected to be built in two years at a cost of $17 million.

The project is funded by Measure G, a general obligation bond, passed in 2006. The funds can only be used for the new theater and not for discretionary spending within Las Virgenes Unified.

"These funds can only be used for this project and not for additional teachers," said Supt. Donald Zimring. "Our job has to be to fully protect the future interests of kids and we can't be distracted by the problems of today, if we do we failed."

The architecture firm John Sergio Fisher & Associates Inc. developed the performing arts center design. Fisher himself has designed about 200 performing arts facilities, but what made this experience different was the involvement of everyone from the students and the Board of Education to the construction manager.

"It's truly been a participatory process which is rare," Fisher said. "It's going to be the most technologically advanced state of the art high school performing arts facility in Southern California, the state and possible the whole country."

Senior Alex Robin said he is excited about the facility, although he won't be around when the new theater opens its doors in 2012.

"There's definitely a lot of drama at Calabasas ... we have a lot of people who come to school for the productions," said Robin, who last worked on a production of "Beauty and the Beast." "We spend most of our time in the auditorium, it's like a second home, a second family."

Work on the project is starting almost two years ahead of schedule in order to take advantage of the current competitive construction market and will produce about 500 jobs in the process, said Don Blake of Team Concepts Development, which will manage the construction of the performing arts center.

A similar performing arts center is also being built at Agoura High School.

"These are actually performing arts facilities that will compete with facilities like the Thousand Oaks Civic Center," Blake said, adding that they expect to finish the job without incurring any additional costs.

The center would also be leased or rented out to community groups, providing additional revenue for Las Virgenes Unified.