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Staging community Amid pandemic, California Regional Theatre focuses on kids programs and revitalizing a downtown space
TRegional there’s what the folks at California Theatre have been up to.
here are pandemic projects, and then
Executive Director Bob Maness and company haven’t been learning how to bake bread, they’ve been spending it. The local theater group hired Billson Construction and has used its state-mandated downtime remodeling the space vacated by the Blue Room Theatre, which was forced to move out as revenues disappeared due the coronavirus shutdown. Maness said that, between California Regional Theater (CRT) and the building’s owners, roughly $300,000 has been invested so far on by what will soon be Jason Cassidy called First Street j ason c @ Theatre. The restoranewsrev iew.c om tion includes opening up the main theater space to reveal the New season: large hall of the origCalifornia Regional inal Masonic Lodge Theatre will be announcing its upcoming season and adding a full bar later this month. Visit to create an events crtshows.com for center that will be updates. used by his company Bring Back the Arts: and can be rented out This feature is a part to other producers. of the Chico News & Over its nine Review’s Bring Back the years, CRT has Arts campaign, an interview series featuring the made a name for leaders of Butte County itself by putting arts and music venues on large-scale, discussing their efforts professional-theaterto recover from the caliber produccoronavirus pandemic. The Q&As are published in tions of Broadway the CN&R and broadcast musicals—such as during the Chico News Les Misérables and & Review radio show, Sweeney Todd—in Thursdays, 5-5:30 p.m., on KZFR, 90.1FM. the Center for the 30
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Arts building on the Pleasant Valley High campus. The busy troupe was forced to put those regional shows, as well its smaller black-box productions, on hold due to COVID-19, and its expansive children’s theater program—made up of 200 or so students—dialed back its offerings to meet state requirements. All this meant that the new spot was able to get a lot of attention, and Maness is hopeful that it will be ready for a grand opening by the second week in September. With the smell of fresh paint strong in the air, the CN&R spoke to him in the transformed theater about the year that was and his hopes for a new future.
How did your company members respond to having to shut down due to the pandemic? We had just finished Little Women that February, so we hadn’t started our next regional show yet. So, we were OK as far as, “I don’t have to disappoint a lot of actors right now; I don’t have to cancel a show and do a lot of returns right now”—but our kids program was ongoing throughout the year,
Above: CRT produced Newsies at the Center for the Arts in fall of 2018. PHOTO BY JENNIFER REDEKER
Right: California Regional Theatre Executive Director Bob Maness stands in the main room of the new First Street Theatre, where the remodel of the former Blue Room black-box space is still in progress. PHOTO BY JASON CASSIDY
and they were in the middle of Willie Wonka [& The Chocolate Factory], just having a blast. When it all hit, our hearts broke because these kids worked so hard and they were only about one month out from performance. There was nothing we could do. Even though that happened, it wasn’t but a week before our staff had gotten together and said, “What can we do? What’s next for us? What is possible?” It wasn’t about what we had, but what was possible. What was possible was doing Zoom with the kids. What was possible was—as we went further into less restrictions—doing classes spaced out with masks on, whether that was outside or it was inside. SCENE C O N T I N U E D
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