Plans are under way for improving the Second Stage at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, with the added benefit of also improving the adjacent Park Stage.
Scott Whisler, executive director of the MVCPA (as city employees call it), said Wednesday that the concept has “been in the formative phases for a bunch of years,” with the intention of solving some problems to get the Second Stage up to full usage.
The Second Stage is entered off the same huge lobby that serves the main auditorium at the Center for the Performing Arts.
It is an odd-shaped room, with eight walls that are of unequal length.
“There is not enough associated support space close to it,” Whisler said. “No dressing rooms are close, and there are not enough to go around if there is a production in the Main Stage.”
Among hoped-for changes are the addition of two dressing rooms and a green room for the Second Stage. The green room is where performers can wait when they don’t have to be on stage.
“It’s a place to hang out when not on stage,” Whisler said. “It’s nothing fancy, just a little space where they can rest, or read a book.”
Another problem with the Second Stage is its seating, which is made of square risers that don’t make the most of the oddly shaped room.
The risers are also difficult to modify, requiring a crew of four workers five or six hours to move them around to meet production needs.
A new seating plan will have new structures that one or two people can modify in a few minutes, and will make use of the corners of the octagonal room.
Whisler said he expects the new seating amenities to increase audience size by as much as 30 percent, which may help some troupes that want to use the room, but need to sell more tickets.
Chamber Music San Francisco has used the room in the past, Whisler said, but stopped booking it because it didn’t have enough seats for it to break even on ticket sales.
The room does get regular use by other companies, including Peninsula Youth Theatre, the TheatreWorks Silicon Valley Young Playwrights Initiative, A Theatre Near U, and two Russian-language theater troupes.
The project also includes making some improvements to the Park Stage, which exists on the periphery of Pioneer Memorial Park, adjacent to the Center for Performing Arts.
The Park Stage, which is basically a cement slab with a lattice-work roof, facing a ring of redwood trees, is mostly used for “little kid performers,” said Whisler.
Mountain View Communications Coordinator Shonda Ranson said that Peninsula Youth Theatre runs its Theatre in the Park program on the Park Stage in the summer. Today will see this year’s final show, “Sleeping Beauty,” on stage at 6:30 p.m. Seating is free, and on the lawn.
The new Park Stage, so far, looks a lot like a porch built onto the Second Stage building, and improves conditions for performers by putting a roof over their heads.
The seating, which is on a little hill in the park, will be improved by adjusting the slope.
Now, said Whisler, “If you sit up high, you slide down during the show until you’re on top of the audience in front of you.”
A ramp will be built to give wheelchair access to the top of the hill.
The project was approved by the city council in June as part of the city’s Capitol Improvements Plan, and is expected to cost about $3.5 million. It is expected to go out to bid soon, with work to take place in 2018-19.
