The World Nods...

Courtesy of Bev Sykes (via Jean Henderson), here is the official ribbon-cutting picture!

Bev also has a real nice blog post regarding last night. She also put together a video of her tour of the new Hoblit Performing Arts Center.

Then there was Beth Curda's recent article ("What would be more nerve-wracking than opening night of a stage performance?": available for a fee) in The Davis Enterprise (I missed the hard copy because I live in Sacramento, but I'll go check their back copies office):

Much work is under way this week, but by this time next week, Steve and Jan Isaacson, DMTC's founders, expect to celebrate the completion of their long-awaited playhouse.

"I am so thrilled that everything is in one place," Jan Isaacson said Tuesday.

That has been seen as one of the biggest advantages since the project began a few years ago. For 12 years, the local theater group has been renting the Varsity Theater, the city-operated stage downtown.

It has been dividing rehearsals and auditions, set and prop building, costume creation, storage and performances into various sites throughout town. Once the new theater — which is one tenant in a new building at 607 Peña Drive — is finished, all operations will move under one roof.

"This way, you get to hear if the actors are loud enough," Jan Isaacson said of having auditions and rehearsals on the performance stage. In the past, it has been difficult to tell sometimes how performances would sound once the rehearsals were moved onto the Varsity stage, she said.

In July 2002, the city told the Isaacsons it needed to explore other uses for the Varsity Theater. The Isaacsons saw no other workable space for their performances and began a campaign to build a theater of their own, long a dream of the couple and of DMTC.

Then, Jeff Hudson at the Sacramento News and Review took note (with a minor error):

The opening of a new theatrical venue is an uncommon event, but that’s just what the Davis Musical Theatre Company (DMTC) has planned for this weekend. The new Hoblit Performing Arts Center is a 10,000-square-foot facility with a stage, an orchestra pit and 240 seats. That’s about 100 more than the B Street Theatre and almost as many as the Sacramento Theatre Company.

DMTC is leasing the space under a long-term agreement. Its old venue was the city-owned Varsity Theater, which was primarily designed for movies and later retrofitted to accommodate live performances. Backstage facilities at the Varsity are minimal, so DMTC’s rehearsals, costume shop, office operations and other activities were spread over other locations around Davis.

The new theater will bring everything together in one place, which is a huge logistical advantage. Because the DMTC isn’t sharing the new theater with other groups, it also will be able to leave its sets and gear on the stage between weekend performances, instead of clearing out and locking up (which was necessary at the Varsity).

The new venue has a total cost of about $1.3 million and has taken about three years to complete. DMTC received many donations but also took out a loan to finish the building. The theater’s name, the Hoblit Performing Arts Center, reflects a donation for naming rights by the Hoblit auto dealerships.

Plus, The Sacramento Bee has a brief blurb today in their "Scene" section.