Sketched on a napkin

In today’s OC Register: Irvine Valley College at center stage:

After 18-year wait, community college can boast of its own performing arts center

Stephen Rochford, conductor and director of instrumental music at Irvine Valley College, points like a proud papa to a cushiony chair in the college's new, 388-seat theater.

"Mezzanine, first row, last on the left," he says during a recent walk-through of the building.

That chair is Rochford's; that is, it has his name on it. Dance program coordinator Ted Weatherford joins the tour, and he, too, immediately gestures toward his seat – mezzanine, number 102.

… Tuesday, the college will hold its official opening for the 53,200-square foot building, which sits at the southwest corner of the campus, rising up over strawberry fields next to Jeffrey Road. An invitation-only gala concert that night will kick off with a trumpet fanfare and will feature the college's master chorale and wind symphony.


"Its just means so much," Weatherford said. "It means that we can now expand our program. It's going to attract serious music people, serious dancers. And it gives the students the opportunity to perform on a real stage. It also allows us to have more community events at our school. We are a community college, which means that part of our mission is to serve the community."

…Added Rochford: "The new Performing Arts Center is a significant step forward in the continual maturation of IVC. Everyone on the campus is talking about this building. There is a level of excitement here that we are not used to having at IVC."

…The building was designed by the award-winning Miami firm Arquitectonica, under the leadership of architects Bernardo Fort-Brescia and Laurinda Spear (the two are married). The firm has about 100 buildings under construction worldwide this year, according to vice president of marketing Tom Westberg. In Orange County, Arquitectonica designed the Rancho Santiago Community College District Digital Media Center, which opened in 2006, and Santa Ana's Taco Bell Discovery Science Center, known for its 10-story tall tilted cube.


…The concrete and glass center bears Arquitectonica's design trademarks, including bold colors and strong graphic forms. The building has an angular outside wall that juts out from its overall rectangular structure, an example of the firm's signature "surface articulation." The two-story glass lobby looks out on a grass lawn and across to another major building under construction, the $19 million Business, Sciences and Technology Innovation Center, being designed by another prominent, award-winning firm, LPA Inc.

"It was necessary for the building to make a statement about the importance of the arts in the college curriculum," Fort-Brescia said. "The building needed to be expressive, theatrical. The volume of the hall was enveloped by a series of planes that fold around the functional forms. Their planar qualities make them almost like sets."

… Rochford, Weatherford and theater arts chairman Ron Manuel-Ellison said the building has everything they needed.

In addition to the 388-seat multi-purpose main auditorium, the building houses a 170-seat, flexible black box theater; a 135-seat music hall; a green room, where artists wait before going onstage; a scenic construction shop; dressing room; design lab; costume shop; and several storage rooms.


"What's so nice about this is we designed it so it's multifunctional. We could have the audience at 360 degrees" around the actors, Manuel-Ellison said, standing in the black box theater.

"I am proud to say that this was an absolutely faculty-driven process," said Roquemore, the president. "The building was sketched out on a napkin and some of the same faculty are still with us and they have taken the vision to actual building plans."

The money for the project came from the state (about $14 million) and the South Orange County Community College District (about $15 million). The college is now seeking a final $2.5 million from private sources; it is looking, in particular, for an individual or family who would like their name on the building for a donation of $2 million. Roquemore admitted that the fund-raising was going much more slowly than he'd anticipated.

"We're hoping that folks will see a real jewel and be willing to help this along," he said. "On the $2 million naming rights (for the building), it's going surprisingly slow. We have so many folks that are into the performing arts, (yet) it's turning out to be quite a difficult task."


What will not be a difficult task, on the other hand, is attracting patrons, the faculty said, noting it's one of the few benefits of having performed out in the community for so many years. Students are deep into rehearsals for the comedy "A Tuna Christmas," and recitals, concerts and dance performances are already on the schedule for this "gala season," through May 2008.

"We'll fill the hall because we have such a regular following," said Rochford.