Virgen’s View: A night to celebrate
The Costa Mesa High School Madrigal Choir performed the perfect song Saturday night.
The choir sang “Come To The Music” in the school’s new 355-seat performing arts center moments after a brief ribbon-cutting ceremony. It could be said the number by Joseph M. Martin was the first song performed at the new facility, which is bound to make the Costa Mesa community proud. Those who attended, and they filled every seat, already beamed with pride.
Everything seemed perfect. Even the facade made the moment special and assuredly provided the accurate symbol. Theater masks, signifying comedy and tragedy, loomed large above the door.
There was no tragedy evident Saturday night.
“This is a great addition to our already-thriving programs,” said Jon Lindfors, the CMHS choir director, who is in his 29th year at the school. “We’ve been using our old theater, which was probably 50 years old, kind of run-down, kind of falling apart. To move into this spectacular new facility — it has dressing rooms, a second stage — it’s just a thrill. It will bump us up another notch.”
When Jake Haley, the high school’s new principal, welcomed people into the theater he couldn’t help but sing too, as he smoothly delivered a part of “Fly Me To The Moon,” a song made popular by Frank Sinatra.
Haley later spoke to me as he watched choirs from the Costa Mesa elementary zone schools sing together outside the theater and near the middle school’s new enclave. He called that “a really powerful moment,” and said the whole night was something to be proud about.
It was all a huge celebration. “A Night of Masquerade,” the Costa Mesa High School Foundation’s gala, took place in a tent on the Orange Coast College parking lot across the street.
A lot of work went into the plans and construction of the new performing arts center. Saturday night was a time for fun, and a time to raise money, as several auction items went up for bid at the gala.
Katrina Foley, the foundation president and a Newport-Mesa Unified School District board trustee, co-chaired the event with Tim Taber.
Foley cut the ribbon with NMUSD school board President Karen Yelsey.
“You can never be too overdressed or overeducated,” Foley said, borrowing from Oscar Wilde just before the ribbon cutting. “Fortunately we can be both.”
The majority of people wore formal attire and masks in keeping with the theme at the party across the street.
The whole night had the feel of an important and memorable event.
“It’s breathtaking to see,” Fred Navarro, the NMUSD superintendent and former CMHS principal, said of the theater. “The facade on it is beautiful. It represents all the activity that’s going to take place here. It’s going to be a showpiece for the school.
“It’s also going to be what the teachers that lead the music programs deserve. For years they’ve been in a subpar facility doing amazing things. This is just going to be the right type of venue to really take their kids up to the level they deserve.”
Navarro, as well as administrator Tim Marsh and project manager Craig Scaringi, said the construction of the new facility was a collaborative effort, mostly led by Paul Reed, the NMUSD deputy superintendent.
Construction on the $20-million project began roughly two years ago, Foley said. The funds came from Measure F, the $282-million bond measure approved by voters in 2005.
Taber, who has been in the music business for more than 25 years, said he was happy to support the arts at CMHS. He has three children who will attend CMHS in the future.
He’s the lead singer of a band of fathers of children who attended Sonora Elementary. They call themselves Silverfox, and they sang cover songs at the gala to add to the fun.
“Arts are huge to make a well-rounded human being,” Taber said. “You think about the creative innovators in our society. It wasn’t just business or math skills, which are hugely important. But it’s how to utilize those skills in a creative way that takes it to another level. We need to support arts at every turn.”
Lindfors said “Done To Death,” a comedy and murder mystery drama, is set to be the first show in the theater. It will run from Nov. 13 to 16.