Arts Council Will Move to New Home

During the last year, we’ve seen the demise of the Marquie Dinner Theatre in Camarillo, and the temporary--its backers insist--hiatus of Gold Coast Plays in Thousand Oaks.

Now comes news that the Arts Council Center, hidden on a hill past the end of Moorpark Road and down a road around a tree in Thousand Oaks, will be abandoned by its occupants within 18 months for a new home.

The current center occupies what had been a weekend retreat, built in 1931, for the locally prominent Janss family. The building, which is about 5,000 square feet, has been the home of the Arts Council since 1975.

“The city hired architects to bring the building up to code and in line with the Americans With Disabilities Act, and the cost [would be] so great for a public building that it didn’t make much sense” financially, explained Scott Buchanan, recreation coordinator for the Conejo Recreation and Park District’s cultural unit.

Tom Hand, the city’s facilities manager, said renovating the building--a historical landmark--would cost about $1.6 million.

The good news is that the Arts Council will move into 36,000 square feet in the former City Hall at 411 W. Hillcrest Drive. The new facility will include dance-oriented rooms, workshop space and a black-box theater--with the stage somewhere in the middle of the audience, not unlike the current configuration.

After a $5.6-million refurbishment, the old City Hall will also become home for the Conejo Recreation and Park District, which is currently in its own building on Wilbur Road.

In addition to renting space to various theater companies--including Gothic Productions, whose “Arsenic and Old Lace” closes this weekend--the Arts Council now houses various dance and visual arts groups, the Valley Gem and Mineral Club, the Council’s own Young Artists Ensemble, an ambitious theatrical educational unit and a performing troupe.

Before Heather Graham played Rollergirl in “Boogie Nights” and Felicity Shagwell in the second “Austin Powers” film, Buchanan notes, audiences could have seen the former Agoura Hills resident as Dorothy in a Young Artists production of “The Wizard of Oz.” Robert Beitzel, who plays Romeo in “Romeo and Juliet” at the Civic Arts Plaza through this weekend and who guest-starred on a recent episode of “ER,” played Nathan Detroit in that troupe’s production of “Guys and Dolls.” Other Young Artists alumni include Jason Narvy of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers; and Chad Reisser, who played one of the Meaty Cheesy Boys in a series of Jack in the Box commercials. Surely this is an enterprise that warrants preservation.

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Tickets won’t go on sale for a while--heck, it hasn’t even been announced yet--for a production this August of “Gilligan’s Island--the Musical” at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza’s Forum.

The show was written by the television series’ creator-producer Sherwood Schwartz and his son, Lloyd Schwartz. Music and lyrics are written by Laurence Juber, best-known as the guitarist in Paul McCartney’s Wings, and his wife, Hope, who is Sherwood Schwartz’s daughter. Hope Juber produced her husband’s last four albums, the most recent one highlighting Beatles songs; Laurence Juber currently scores the NBC-TV series “Three Sisters.” Not surprisingly, the famous Gilligan theme song will be part of the stage show.

Hope Juber sums up the plot: “The cast gets shipwrecked, they get on the island, and they try to get off the island.” Adds Laurence Juber, continuing the pair’s tongue-in-cheek attitude toward the whole enterprise, “We can take these characters to a deeper level.”

He adds that the original music they have written crosses several genres, explaining that “it would not be necessarily appropriate to have the Howells sing in the same style as Ginger.”

The show was first produced in 1993 and has subsequently been in workshops in Chicago and San Diego.

“One of the [current] producers saw the show in San Diego,” says Laurence Juber, “and told us to contact her when we felt we were ready . . . [after several rewrites] this is the first time we can safely say it’s done.”

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Todd Everett can be reached at teverett@concentric.net.