Is this Orange County town big enough for two theater companies?

It’s like a scene from an old Western, where one cowboy shuffles into the dusty lane and tells the other, “Don’t know if this town’s big enough for both of us.”

In the movie, the cowboy might spit, but this spat involves two accomplished community theater companies who’ve been comfortably separated by more than 8 miles of highway for decades. Instead, a palpably panicked missive from San Clemente’s little Cabrillo Playhouse went out warning its patrons that the San Clemente City Council might bring another theater company to town — San Juan Capistrano’s Camino Real Playhouse, a bigger theatrical gorilla that’s losing its long-time home near the historic mission to a redevelopment project.

“While we support expansion of the San Clemente arts scene, we feel this proposal would be a direct threat to our operation, especially since we are in the midst of our largest fundraising program in recent years,” said an unsigned email from the folks who run San Clemente’s Cabrillo that landed in my inbox.

“Since neither the Camino Real Playhouse nor the Cabrillo playhouse sells out every seat for every production, we believe such a move would endanger the future of both playhouses.”

The San Clemente City Council is slated to discuss negotiations over “price and terms” for space at 1030 Calle Negocio, in a rather industrial part of town, with the soon-to-be-homeless San Juan Cap Camino Real Playhouse in closed session on Tuesday, Jan. 16.

Less threatening

Now, this is a big change from what the city council was considering in December, which set off the panic — a space for the San Juan Cap theater smack dab in the San Clemente Community Center on Calle Seville, just a stone’s throw from the resident Cabrillo Playhouse.

Under this new proposal, though, the two companies would be separated by more than 3 miles, rather than a few hundred feet. Folks from the San Clemente group said that’s better, but they’re still a bit nervous. Can the community of about 64,000 support two community theater companies?

“We were concerned when Camino Real wanted to take over the San Clemente community center a half block from us,” Michael Lopez, Cabrillo Playhouse producing artistic director, said by email. “Parking in San Clemente is a problem for our patrons, and would this mean that the city is sponsoring this new theater? (We have been in San Clemente for 70 years).

“Since we now understand — but do not know for sure — that they may have found a different location not so close to us, we are not opposed to that. We have long been supported by the community and we do understand that another theater in the city will have some impact on that, but we think that more live theater in Orange County is positive. So many small theaters have closed since the pandemic. Let’s keep the arts alive.”

San Clemente’s Cabrillo Playhouse is in the midst of a “Raise the Roof!” campaign to fund new theater seating and, literally, raise the ceiling over its stage to make room for improved lights, sets and stage space. Cabrillo is run by the nonprofit San Clemente Community Theatre, which got nonprofit status in 1953 and moved to its current location on Avenida Cabrillo in 1966.

The San Clemente theater just about broke even on a modest budget of nearly $153,000, according to its latest tax filing with the IRS, and features productions including “A Comedy of Tenors” (“One hotel suite, four tenors, two wives, three girlfriends, and a soccer stadium filled with screaming fans”), “The 39 Steps” (“Mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a juicy spy novel, add a dash of Monty Python and you have … a fast-paced whodunit”) and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”

New neighbor?

Meanwhile, the South Orange County Community Theatre, which runs San Juan Cap’s Camino Real Playhouse, is a much bigger operation, with revenue of $547,000, according to its latest tax filing. It has been mounting productions for some 35 years, and moved into the antique city-owned feed store/turned Pacific Bell building/turned playhouse on Camino Real in 1991.

Its productions feature “The One-Act Play That Goes Wrong (in 2 acts)” (“…an unconscious leading lady, a corpse that can’t play dead, and actors who trip over everything (including their lines)”), “Deathtrap” (“Unknown dramatist Clifford Anderson has sent his new thriller to award-winning Broadway author Sidney Bruehl….”), “Don’t Dress for Dinner” (“an evening filled with mistaken identities, bribery, deception and plans that go disastrously awry”) and Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.”

What happens this fall for Camino Real has been something of an agonizing mystery. It has been casting about for a new home in San Juan for years as redevelopment swallows its city-owned site. The original vision for that project was a first-class facility providing “robust performing and fine arts programming” amid fine full-service restaurants, retail shops and office space. But that vision ran into one obstacle after another, and the performing arts portion was dropped from final plans approved by San Juan Cap’s city council.

The developer has created a nonprofit aiming to build that arts facility elsewhere in San Juan Capistrano, but none of that will happen soon enough to give the Camino Real Playhouse a new home in San Juan this fall.

“During the next couple of years, the organization will be conducting a capital campaign to raise the funds necessary to build and operate” a new San Juan Capistrano Performing Arts Center, according to the new nonprofit’s first filing with the IRS. Its mission is “to offer a diverse array of professional and community performing arts and educational programs for audiences of all ages,” and it reported $260,000 in donations and nearly $55,000 in expenses.

Folks from the Camino Real Playhouse would love to stay in San Juan, but it just hasn’t worked out. They expect the theater’s patrons will continue their support wherever the playhouse lands — hopefully expanding the theater-going audience in its new home, rather than dividing it.

Victor Cabral, mayor of San Clemente, urged calm all around. The council will consider the Camino Real proposal in closed session Jan. 16 just as it considers any other proposal, he said. It can decide “Yes, we’d like to do this,” or “No, we don’t want to do this,” or strike some sort of compromise or do nothing right now at all. It will report something out from closed session only if there’s action, he said.

“They are two different community theaters, and they seem to offer different kinds of productions,” Cabral said. “I think they could both survive — but I don’t think we’re at that stage yet. We’re just looking at the proposal.”

Source: Orange County Register