Oceanside theater construction to begin in January

Plans are under way to begin construction in January on a $17.7 million performing arts center on the campus of Oceanside High School.

Scheduled for completion in June 2017, the 29,067-square-foot complex will have a 500-seat main theater and a smaller “black-box” style theater, along with an orchestra pit, recording studio, control room, costume storage room, changing room, outdoor work yard to build scenery, and a scene shop classroom.

The striking building will be visible from the Interstate 5 freeway just off of Mission Boulevard, and north of the football stadium. It’s distinguishing feature will be a 60-foot-wide wall of glass panels in the front lobby, and metal panels bolted to the outside concrete block walls, painted with a green patina to create an aging copper look, said architect Jennette M. La Quire with Harley Ellis Devereaux, hired by the district to design the center.

Funds to build the complex are coming from the $195 million Proposition H, a 2008 bond measure approved by Oceanside voters.

The seats in the main theater will have cushions covered in red fabric with maple-wood backing, and acoustic ceilings and walls to absorb sound. A 10-foot-wide projector screen also is to be hung in the lobby area where public service announcements can be displayed, or project a performance in the main theater. The reconfigurable black box theater would seat about 120.

The first signs of construction will begin in late December when contractor Ericson-Hall fences off about 70 spaces in the parking lot in the northeast corner of Oceanside High School’s campus. The theater will absorb that space, meaning parking could get tight.

Visitors attending football games and other major events at the 2,000-student high school will be able to park in other lots at the campus, or in the rear of the school along South Home Street and Center Avenue, said Matt Evans, director of facilities with Oceanside Unified School District.

For at least eight football games and a handful of performances, a free shuttle service will be provided to pick up and drop off visitors who park in overflow lots at nearby Mission Elementary School or at the school district’s headquarters, both located just over a mile to the east along Mission.

Perhaps no one is more excited about construction of the theater than the school’s drama teacher, Sheryl Roccoforte, who was attending a staff meeting Monday when the principal announced the project would soon be breaking ground.

She and her colleagues erupted into cheers and clapping.

“There’s nothing like being in an actual theater,” said Roccoforte, who has roughly 100 students enrolled in her drama classes, and can’t take more without more room space.

“It’s not a good thing when you want to build a program,” she said about the cramped conditions.

Roccoforte anticipates doubling, or even tripling the size of the drama program, and beefing up the number of performances from two a year, to possibly three or more. The high school now relies on fundraising to lease the Sunshine Brooks Theater in Oceanside or rival El Camino High School’s Traux Theater.

The lack of theater space at Oceanside High has limited what kinds of productions Roccoforte can stage.

“It kills me to not be able to do musicals,” she said.