Wright Cultural Center Becomes Budget Victim

The Dorill B. Wright Cultural Center, Port Hueneme’s theater by the beach, will go dark indefinitely after a final program tonight, the center’s director said.

A victim of city budget cuts, the center’s final scheduled show will be a musical tribute to a former volunteer. The 588-seat facility had been operating at its peak, attracting nearly 24,000 people last year, said center director Denis Murrin.

Despite the center’s popularity, Port Hueneme officials said they were hard-pressed to find areas of their budget to trim in the face of state cutbacks.

“It was a matter of cutting the cultural center or cutting police,” said City Manager Dick Velthoen.

There will be little fanfare to mark the center’s closing.

But city Recreation Director Brady Cherry, who oversaw the center’s operation, said the loss will be felt countywide.

“The center has lived up to its promise,” Cherry said. “It’s managed to expand cultural horizons in Ventura County and has made contributions to the Port Hueneme community.”

But a loose-knit group of Port Hueneme city officials and local theater aficionados is trying to bring the 9-year-old center back.

Some group members say it may be as long as a year before the organization can raise the $250,000 a year it cost the city to operate the facility in 1991-92.

But the center’s namesake, Port Hueneme City Councilman Dorill B. Wright, is more optimistic. He said the center could reopen within three or four months on a rental basis with small-scale performances.

“They will not be city-sponsored events,” Wright said. “It takes time to form one of these (nonprofit groups) and to achieve the tax-exempt status.”

Wright said the group has found donors, but it might be a long while before the center has a performing arts season.

Wright met last month with other city officials to discuss the formation of a nonprofit foundation with a board of directors that would oversee center management and fund-raising.

Cherry will make a presentation to the council at its May 19 meeting to ask the council to set guidelines for forming the nonprofit foundation, Wright said.

“The preferred route is to go with a public-private partnership kind of thing,” Wright said.

Or, while the foundation is getting on its feet, Wright said the city could lease the facility to community organizations and schools.

The center’s recent bookings included folk and cowboy musicians, the Shanghai Acrobats and Dance Theater and comedian Soupy Sales.

Sonia Tower, who heads cultural arts programming for the city of Ventura, agreed with center director Murrin that the reason for the center’s closure was not a result of the eclectic acts, which traditionally play smaller venues.

“Not everything can be a big Broadway show,” Tower said. “There are a lot of solo performances that are very powerful.

“A facility like the Dorill Wright theater builds community pride,” Tower said. “The residents of Port Hueneme are very proud of their community. This is an achievement for them to have this building.”

The center was once criticized by some residents as a white elephant and a money loser because it booked acts irregularly and drew low audience turnouts. In recent seasons, however, there were many sold-out performances, Murrin said. The center had even won back some of the original subscribers that it lost in the mid-1980s, he said.

In 1988, the center was shut down for several months because of poor attendance. But ticket sales had been climbing in recent years, city records show.

Cherry said attendance and the caliber of acts booked at the center had shown steady improvement since it reopened under Murrin’s direction.

The 1989-90 fall-winter season was the center’s most successful because of diverse programming and a 16% increase in attendance over the previous spring season, Cherry said.

The average attendance in 1989-90 was 329 per performance, compared to 283 in the 1988-89 season, according to city records.

A total of 3,289 people attended events at the center that year, including shows by a flamenco guitarist, the Bella Lewitzky Dance Company, Pat Boone and a performance of the musical “Pirates of Penzance.”

The audiences were made up mostly of residents from Oxnard, Port Hueneme and Ventura, according to city records.

If an effort to revive the center is to be fruitful, director Murrin said, “It has to be the community that comes together to decide what direction they want to go in.”