CdM arts center is officially unveiled

The trappings in the new $16-million Corona del Mar Middle/High School Performing Arts Center are enough to make any thespian swoon.

School officials unveiled the sweeping, glass-walled venue at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday afternoon at the Newport Beach school. More than 200 parents, students and community members turned out to get their first glimpse of the center, which was more than three years in the making.

In opening remarks, Newport-Mesa Unified School Board Trustee Karen Yelsey said the arts play a key role in learning. The district’s vision, she said, calls for performing arts theaters at all four comprehensive high schools.

The 29,000-square-foot center opened less than a year after Costa Mesa High School unveiled its new performing arts theater. Funds for the venues came from the $282-million school construction bond measure known as Measure F, which district voters approved in November 2005. In time, the measure will also pay for a performing arts theater at Estancia High School, a district spokeswoman said.

“This theater is a testament to that commitment,” Yelsey said.

The theater, which seats more than 350 people, includes a high-tech control room, offices, green room, dressing areas and a scene shop. Outside the auditorium, two flat-screen TVs offer a peek at the performance going on inside the venue.

An attached black-box, or experimental, theater includes roughly 1,800 square feet of “flexible space” for recitals, performances and drama class.

Black-box theaters are becoming more common at schools, said Wendy Rogers, who is with the firm LPA, which designed the center.

“Before, the classroom was on stage,” Rogers said. “Now, this becomes the drama classroom.”