Curtain to rise on UCI’s Claire Trevor Theater

Tom Titus

UC Irvine will launch its new season next weekend with “My Fair

Lady,” but the fair lady on everyone’s mind as the curtain rises will

be the Oscar winner who donated half a million dollars to renovate

the UCI theater now named in her honor.

Claire Trevor has since passed on, but her legacy endures in the

completely revamped facility formerly known as the Village Theater, a

32-year-old performance venue with a remodeled interior and

cutting-edge technology.

“‘My Fair Lady’ was Claire’s favorite musical and an appropriate

choice for the new theater’s first presentation,” said Jill Beck,

dean of UCI’s Claire Trevor School of the Arts. “This musical is the

epitome of beauty, elegance and style, and it was Claire’s view that

our theater needed to reflect these qualities in order for the

audience to experience fully the vitality and excitement of our

performances.”

Claire Trevor, who won the Academy Award as best supporting

actress some six decades ago for “Key Largo,” will be honored

posthumously Nov. 16 during a dedication ceremony at intermission, at

which her Oscar and Emmy awards will be presented to the school by

Donald Bren, Trevor’s stepson and chairman of the Irvine Company.

The two awards will be permanently displayed in the theater, and

some of the paintings created by the late actress will be on view

during UCI’s sixth annual ArtsWeek celebration, which begins today

and concludes with next Saturday’s festivities.

“Claire visited the old Village Theater many times to watch

rehearsals and talk with students,” Beck recalled. “She liked the

theater, calling it a ‘place with good bones,’ but she was really

unhappy with its cavernous, worn-out interior.

“Our major performance venue was cold and institutional, devoid of

elegance and intimacy,” the dean noted. “She felt the theater should

be a place that deals with the beautiful and that something could be

done to make it better.

In 1999, Trevor contributed $500,000 to support the renovation of

the Village Theater and the facility was renamed in her honor. In

June 2000, the theater closed to undergo a full interior remodeling

that would take two years to complete, and to which the school and

campus would allocate substantial additional funds.

“The goal for the theater interior was to combine intimacy and

warmth with a visual, high-tech edge,” said Cameron Harvey, UCI drama

chairman who doubles as producing artistic director of the Utah

Shakespeare Festival. Harvey took charge of the theater’s concept and

design phase and project oversight.

“We achieved our objective beautifully,” Harvey declared. “UCI now

has a theater for the 21st century that can serve and accommodate

current and future technologies.”

Leading features of the renovation include a technical gallery

around the seating area, which enables the use of projections, video

and other multimedia equipment. The ceiling has been lowered and the

side walls narrowed to increase intimacy and improve acoustics.

Two hundred eighty-five new seats have been installed -- removed

from the 420 originals -- to improve sight lines, and the concave

proscenium has been straightened. The theater also boasts

state-of-the-art rigging, sound and lighting systems, as well as

Ethernet terminals throughout the building to ease the integration of

current and future production technologies. The theater entrance now

is graced by an open-air lobby.

“The Claire Trevor Theater renovation was a major undertaking,

which entailed gutting the old theater and putting in an entirely new

interior with new technologies,” Harvey noted. “Everyone involved in

the project deserves a big round of applause, and as a thank you for

a job well done, we’ve invited the construction crew to a special

performance of ‘My Fair Lady.’”

Directing the Lerner-Loewe musical classic is Robert Cohen, a

Claire Trevor professor of drama who joined the UCI faculty at the

university’s inception in 1965. Donald McKayle, a Claire Trevor

professor of dance, is the choreographer, with longtime UCI conductor

and vocal coach Dennis Castellano as musical director.

Next Saturday’s benefit performance, which is sold out, will be

given beginning at 5 p.m. Proceeds are earmarked to fund student

scholarships, exhibitions and artistic presentations. Tickets were

$250 and $500.

“I know Claire would be pleased,” Beck declared. “The beautiful

theater she envisioned has become a reality.”

* TOM TITUS writes about and reviews local theater for the Daily

Pilot. His articles appear Thursdays and Saturdays.