Q&A; -- A spotlight on the Balboa Theater

After seven long years and $2.5 million, community activist Dayna

Pettit is finally going to see construction start Tuesday on the Balboa

Theater. Pettit, president of the Balboa Performing Arts Theater

Foundation, is looking forward to watching the “bulldozer ballet” that

will help transform the 1927 building into a performing arts center

capable of seating 350 people.

It has been a labor of love for Pettit, a community activist who

helped to form the Balboa Merchants and Owners Assn. She sat down with

Features Editor Jennifer K Mahal to talk about the theater, its progress

and why the project has been worth so much of her time.

What made you commit so much time and so many resources to the

Balboa Theater?

I’ve lived in this community for 26 years, and I’ve always believed

that you need to give back to your community, especially when you live in

a paradise like we do. And I’ve watched the demise of our little town of

Balboa for some time with the advent of the shopping centers. All little

towns went through this. We used to have kind of a bustling little town

with a big department store -- Donaldson’s department store and hardware

store -- and things have changed, and you have shopping centers and

people start going there because they can get several things done at one

time and parking and all of those things.

I came downtown 10 years ago and started an association to see if we

couldn’t, maybe, start turning our little town around and get some of the

people who work down here involved. We started out, we really were on a

pretty good momentum, and then the City Council decided they were going

to do another major study of the downtown, probably the fourth or fifth .

. . and it just stopped everything that we were doing for a couple of

years while they were going to get this major redevelopment going. Well,

that didn’t go anywhere.

So we just kept plodding along, and seven years ago my neighbor came

to me early one morning and said “Dayna, we just have to save this

theater. It’s for sale. If the theater goes, it’s just going to be

another t-shirt shop and that’s just going to completely destroy the

downtown area.”

So, I said, “Ron, I don’t have any time.” And he said, “Oh, you’ve

just got to do this. It isn’t going to take any time.” Seven years ago,

March.

So, we made an offer to purchase the theater and that didn’t work out.

But it did put John Wortmann, who bought it, in touch. He called me and

we got acquainted and he said that he would be willing to rent it to us.

So we worked on a lease for six, eight months. Then he decided to sell it

to us, so we entered into escrow with him for a year, and during that

period of time, we lobbied the city heavily to see if we couldn’t get

them involved because it’s their downtown area as well. So we got the

city to purchase the building in 1998 and from that point we just kept

going forward. It’s just picked up all kinds of momentum.

My initial goal is to try to turn this little town around and I felt

that by doing it with the theater, you’re introducing a really fine

flavor into an area that attracts all kinds of wonderful people who love

theater. Rich and poor alike, it doesn’t matter.

Are you worried at all about the parking and the traffic?

No. No, I’m not. Traffic and parking, there’s always been parking and

traffic problems in this area. That’s just the nature of the beast. We’re

in a little small area here between Beach and Bay and we have a large

parking lot on the ocean front that is going to be enhanced and restriped

to accommodate some more parking. When people come down to the theater,

there are 350 seats, you’re not going to have 350 cars coming down. And

people can park in the ocean front lot and walk to the downtown.

What do you think the Balboa Theater will offer this community?

It will bring a richness that is needed in Newport Beach. We don’t

have a lot of art facilities. The Performing Arts Center is wonderful,

but it isn’t right here within our own city. And they have the little

theater on the hill that’s just under a hundred people. So, we felt that

we could compliment these other things that are available, add something

to Newport Beach that would give everyone a flavor of what we are.

We’re going to be not only cinema, but also live theater and other

things.

What would you like to see performed on the stage?

I’m an opera fan, so I’d love to see an opera. It couldn’t be “Aida,”

that’s for sure. Maybe an operetta or a musical. A smaller version of

“West Side Story.” I’d love to see “Riverdance” there. We’re going to try

and get them sometime.

Why not Elton John when we open, ‘cause that would be a great big

splash. Sarah Brightman, I think she’s wonderful. Gosh, I mean there’s

just so many wonderful things that I would like to see if we can get

them. That’s the question.

What’s your favorite memory of the Balboa Theater before it closed?

I’ve seen “Gone with the Wind.” I’ve seen a lot of other classics with

Humphrey Bogart. Evelyn Hart and I went to “The Rocky Horror Picture

Show” after the chief of police said it was going to be outlawed in town

if they didn’t clean up the act. So we thought, let’s go see it was. It

was just a stitch, we both thought it was hysterical and what was the big

to-do about it.

We hope to bring that back for a performance one night. Wouldn’t it be

fun if we could get Susan Sarandon, who really, initially filmed it. But,

yes, we thought we would do that one night. We would have “The Rocky

Horror Picture Show” for those people who were great followers of that

cult. It was a fun thing to do.

BIO

Name: Dayna Pettit

Age: 62

Family: Married 27 years to Bob. Has two dogs, Foxy and Pookie.

Community involvement: A local activist, Pettit helped start the

Balboa Merchants and Owners Assn. She is president of the

Balboa Performing Arts Theater Foundation.

Miscellaneous: Pettit likes working without gloves in her garden,

where she grows roses and impatiens.