Lancaster Lines Up a 1st Season

The long-awaited Lancaster Performing Arts Center will officially open on the weekend before Thanksgiving, according to Susan Davis, cultural arts superintendent for the city.

The new 758-seat theater, located in the heart of Lancaster’s downtown commercial strip, will open Nov. 22 for three days of free performances by several local groups. Two weeks later, on Dec. 6, the city-owned facility will present its first paid attraction--the Oakland Ballet’s production of “The Nutcracker.”

Other attractions signed for the theater’s first season include singer-actress Shirley Jones, the Joe Goode Performance Group of San Francisco, A Traveling Jewish Theatre from New York, a touring production of the play “Nunsense,” the Repertory Espanol theater troupe from New York, Westside Opera from Los Angeles, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and the Famous People Players puppets.

Some of these performers have also been contracted to give master classes and workshops at local schools in the area.

Davis said negotiations are continuing with other acts for the first season, including the satirical Reduced Shakespeare Company, magician Harry Blackstone, a touring production of the play “The Boys of Autumn,” featuring members of the original “Star Trek” cast, and several Big Band and classical music ensembles.

“Up until now just about the only cultural attractions here, outside of local groups, were those presented at the Antelope Valley Fair,” Davis said, “and those were mostly country and Western groups.”

Davis, a city employee who will book the theater and oversee its operation, said that the new facility will present groups that play country and Western music, which is extremely popular in the area. But she believes that there will also be a large audience for other kinds of attractions.

“At one time this was a very conservative community, when it was just agricultural,” she said. “But so many people moved up here in the 1980s for the aerospace industry, economical housing and the lifestyle they can have up here that the area gained tremendous diversity. We can present a much wider range of events.”

Davis hopes to announce next week the complete schedule for the theater’s first subscription season, including an opening gala in late November or early December headlined by a well-known performer.

“We’re in negotiations with a couple different performers for the event,” said Davis, who declined to name them. “It depends on who can fit it into our schedule.”

In addition to presenting events, the city will rent the theater to local performing groups, including the Antelope Valley Symphony and the Cedar Street Theatre, and to organizations wishing to use the facility for meetings and fund raising. The California Peace Officers Assn. has booked the theater for a benefit magic show.

Plans to build a performing arts center in Lancaster--which has no other well-equipped stage facilities--were first drawn up in the early 1980s. Years of fighting over the costs, size and location of the theater followed, with construction finally beginning in May, 1989.

At that time the theater was projected to open in February, 1991, but construction slowed and then stopped for three months earlier this year when the contractor went bankrupt.

The city now plans to take full possession of the building in October to begin installing stage equipment and training personnel.

The Lancaster City Council has allocated $687,000, including artists’ fees, to operate the theater in its first year. A portion of those funds will be recouped through ticket sales and rental payments, but city officials are well aware, Davis said, that the facility will need to be subsidized.