The Morgan Hill Community Playhouse Friday night was as busy as
London
’s Piccadilly Circus – stay long enough and everybody you ever
knew will pass by.
The Morgan Hill Community Playhouse Friday night was as busy as London’s Piccadilly Circus – stay long enough and everybody you ever knew will pass by. The 187-seat theater and its lobby, on public view for the first time, were filled with the curious, the delighted and the exceedingly pleased.
The playhouse welcomed all comers for the first hour, served them pastries and punch and allowed sneak previews into the theater’s interior.
“This playhouse allows us to renew our pride in our community,” said City Manager Ed Tewes before he introduced the council. Tewes said he was one of the extremely pleased.
Mayor Dennis Kennedy and Council members Larry Carr, Greg Sellers and Hedy Chang cut a real ribbon, color-coordinated green with the new seats, and declared the place “a jewel in Morgan Hill’s crown.”
Kennedy mentioned how much this playhouse resembles a medieval theater in Morgan Hill’s Sister City of San Casciano, Italy.
“That theater is small and intimate, too,” he said. Kennedy pointed to the upper left side of the house, where, in San Casciano, the mayor’s balcony is located.
“I’m waiting,” he said to laughs.
Kennedy then reeled off the long list of businesses and people – professional, volunteer and city workers – who were responsible for the theater’s successful renovation: the architects, designers, construction and landscaping teams, Tewes, project construction manager Glenn Ritter of the Public Works department, project design manager Joyce Maskell of the Business Assistance and Housing department, the recreation and community development departments. Most of them were in the audience; all listened with looks of satisfaction.
Steve McShane, representing State Sen. Bruce McPherson, D-Santa Cruz, complimented the city at large.
“Few cities have made progress like Morgan Hill,” he said. McShane also referred to the playhouse as the city’s crown jewel.
Chang, rising to applause, had the job of listing details of the building and its renovation: built in the early 1920s, it cost $3.5 million – including $900,000 to buy the church and land from Temple Emmanuel church.
Chang was followed by Sellers who said he hoped his wife, Suzie, would find her way back to the stage, now that the playhouse was so convenient to their downtown home.
“This (the playhouse) is the best of a downtown,” he said, “some old, some new.”
Councilman Steve Tate was out of town and was not present.
Carr, a theater enthusiast and sometime actor, praised the house design.
“There’s not a bad seat in the house,” he said. “Though the tech crew (in the control booth high up behind the audience) may have the best.”
Carr introduced – to more applause – the South Valley Civic Theatre, about to begin its 31st season, which will be the playhouse’s resident acting troupe. SVCT is planning a variety of shows from the adult through musicals to shows by and for children.
After the hour-long public ceremonies, those with tickets to the 7:30 performance trooped back inside; those with tickets to the 9 p.m. performance went off to have dinner first. The second performance was added because of overwhelming requests to attend.
Three by five inch notes engraved with “intrigue, passion, mystery, music and comedy” were the hottest ticket in town. Those without them trolled the crowd for anyone with a loose ticket or visited the SVCT table to buy passes to its opening act, “Lend Me a Tenor.”
Eric Hilding hosted the evening, drawing out his jokes and comments when the next group up needed more time to get in place. He waited, verbally anxious, for the signal from Bob Snow up in the control booth – a burst of flashlight.
At the end of the first performance the spotlight turned on Maskell, who had orchestrated the opening night ceremonies – with help from her Business Assistance and Housing and the recreation departments.
Maskell was rewarded with cheering, foot stomping and loud applause, quite possibly the loudest of the evening.
Afterward the crowd reacted in different ways, though all claimed to be 100 percent pleased with the place.
‘“It looks like a place where the gin is cold and the piano is hot – and all that jazz,’” said Joanne Rife, who had just seen the movie “Chicago.” She said she thought that was an appropriate quote.
Closer to the point, theater consultant Rose Steele said Morgan Hill has made great use of an old building.
“This is a fabulous asset to the community, and the level of workmanship is very high,” she said. “People here knew what to do and cared enough to do it.” Steele’s husband John, who helped install the theater lights during the final days of construction with Snow and Peter Mandel and was in the control booth Friday night, said the crew was a pleasure to work with.
Congeniality appeared to be a significant part of the playhouse project; Greg True of ELS Architecture and Urban Design and Ritter said the same thing.
True praised the City Council for its vision.
“They had a vision about what it (the old church) would become,” he said.
“They kept the architectural integrity of style,” said Yarka Kennett, Architecture Review Board president.
Her husband, Alex Kennett, the outgoing Chamber of Commerce president and south county representative of the Open Space Authority, reviewed the building in a different light.
“Recycling an old building is environmentally sound – and it will be good for business,” he said. The couple, along with Yarka’s mother, Clara Prec, admitted that the evening was a special one.
“Rustic, cute with character,” said Aoregelio Balderas about the reformed church building.
After the hour-long public ceremonies, those with tickets to the 7:30 performance trooped back inside; those with tickets to the 9 p.m. performance went off to dinner. Those without tickets trolled the crowd for anyone with a loose ticket or visited the SVCT table to buy tickets to its opening act, “Lend Me a Tenor” due to open this Friday and playing through March 1.
THE PERFORMANCE
SVCT sang and danced its way into a new era with a review of old Broadway favorites. “Everything’s Comin’ Up Roses” with Christine Varela soloing, “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “Dancing Feet from the musical 42nd Street where all 13 cast members danced away with sparkly red canes were just a few of the many numbers.
Mes Amis String Quartet started with the Baroque (think early Bach or Vivaldi), sidled through Bizet’s Carmen – complete with roses in teeth – edged up to Turkey in the Straw and finished with Pennsylvania 6-5000 a hit from the 1940s. Mes Amis ranges more widely than most string quartets.
Alisa Fineman and Kimball Hurd gentled the crowd down with folk music and quiet acoustic guitar. Fineman, who is cantor at the local synagogue, shared a song in Hebrew and English from the Psalms familiar to all the Methodists in the crowd: “May the meditations of my heart…..”
Grabbing the audience by their shirt fronts and keeping them riveted to their $300 seats was Sandra Rubalcava, soprano from Opera San Jose. Accompanied by Simona Snitkovskaya on piano, Rubalcava filled the small auditorium with her operatic voice, playing and acting and charming with arias from Don Pascuale the Old Maid and the Thief and more and finishing up with the non-operatic Chanson Espagnole.
Rubalcava was a study of the old saying: “she had the audience eating out of her hands.” She didn’t just sing; she strutted, she acted, she connected with the audience.
The evening’s performances came to an end with a rag doll and toy soldier from Ballet San Jose. Patricia Perez and Ramon Moreno danced apart and together, she in jerky, floppy movements and he, stiff as a tin soldier.
The audience loved it all.
“The acoustics were awesome,” said Billy Lewis, chairman of the Youth Advisory Committee. His brother, Lee said he really liked the (folk music) guitars.
The playhouse is the third part of the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center located on the corner of Monterey Road and East Dunne Avenue. The playhouse is just north, at Monterey Road and Fifth Street.
For tickets to South Valley Civic Theatre’s “Lend Me a Tenor” opening Friday, Feb. 7, through March 1 or to inquire about a brass plaque with your name to be permanently attached to a playhouse seat ($300), call 842-SHOW (7469).
