Perception everything for Balboa Theater

TONY DODERO

It was one of those beautiful spring afternoons in Newport Beach. The

clouds were barely visible, the harbor was calm, the seals were

frolicking near the fishing boats, the weather was perfect and the

crowds practically none existent.

Mary Lonich, the executive director of the Balboa Performing Arts

Theater Foundation, Daily Pilot Managing Editor S.J. Cahn and I were

sitting down to a nice lunch on the upstairs patio of the Newport

Landing restaurant.

The topic: press coverage of the Balboa Theater past, present and

future.

Let’s review what’s that’s been like. To do so, we have to go back

many, many moons.

There were its many incarnations from its early days as a

performing arts venue, to adult movie house to home for old movies,

most popular of which were the midnight showings of the cult classic

“The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

I admit to attending a few of those in my teenage years.

Much later, as a reporter, I wrote about the theater in the early

1990s when it closed down. I reported its future to be ominous

because of the failure to conform to modern-day earthquake codes.

Other reporters followed suit.

The newspaper has devoted many pages of newsprint to the theater

ever since, following the birth of the performing arts idea, promises

of fundraising goals met and not met, proposed completion dates,

electrical wiring snafus, bulldozer ballets and much, much more.

We’ve written editorial after editorial about the theater, and in

September 2001, I took a jab at its long-running saga in this column,

noting that coverage of the theater’s progress has become a rite of

passage for our Newport Beach reporters.

At the time of that column, I spoke with Dayna Pettit, the

high-charged peninsula real estate agent and community booster who

had been pursuing her dream of a performing arts theater for more

than seven years.

“None of us ever dreamed when we started out that we would

encounter all of these difficulties,” she told me. “I’ve practically

given up my whole life for this.”

That was nearly three years ago. You can do the math.

I’m sort of going out on a limb here, but I’d bet Pettit is much

more hopeful these days.

The unexpected length of the project aside, Lonich exuded nothing

but confidence during our weekday luncheon, a confidence that I’m

sure is shared by theater proponents.

Coming aboard two years ago, Lonich has done a number of things to

set the foundation back on track, from structural changes to a new

logo.

Those achievements are all too numerous to mention here, but

Lonich knows there is an important maxim in this arena: perception is

everything.

And she wants to change the perception that the public has read in

the press, some of it she categorizes as inaccurate or incomplete.

We are most likely guilty of the latter.

For example, the Pilot and others have often reported that the

theater ran into snags with its plans to expand underground because

of the water table. While that may be partly true, there were other

reasons as well and what’s most important now is that the plans are

to move upward, a more than subtle symbolism of the theater’s current

path.

“What consistently permeates our thinking, as we seek to preserve

the legacy of the Balboa Theater, is professionalism, strategic

thinking, accountability and reaching out beyond the peninsula with

new leadership representative of broader Orange County,” Lonich told

me after our lunch. “This is evident in everything we do.”

Those things they’ve done include the following:

* Hitting 25% of an interim fundraising goal within three months.

* Adopting a new construction design that will encompass both live

performances and fundraising soirees on the theater’s rooftop.

* Creation of a new Executive Council made up of top-flight

individuals and corporations with a history of community

philanthropy.

* Creation of a new business plan, modeled after successful

performing arts organizations.

* Renovation and cleanup of the theater’s aging facade.

Like most in this community, we in the newsroom are looking

forward to the day we can stand in line for tickets rather than write

about the latest construction woes.

And thus will begin a new day of press coverage, one more based in

Klieg lights and curtain calls.

My prediction is that day is not long off anymore.