The ribbon cutting ceremony to mark the grand opening of the new Performing Arts Center was held outside the theater entrance on Thursday, Mar. 19. The event brought over 100 people including city council members, Mayor Carmon Montano, staff from Congressman Ro Khanna’s office, Assembly Member Alex Lee, school board members, Superintendent Cheryl Jordan, representatives for County Supervisor Otto Lee, and many others.
The event opened with the MHS Jazz Band playing some music followed by multiple speeches and photos, beginning with a speech from Superintendent Cheryl Jordan.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony also marked the official end of the construction of the Performing Arts Center, Principal and Chief Innovator of New Campus Programs Greg Wohlman said in an interview.
“(The Performing Arts Center) officially finished today, ” Wohlman said. “We were still making some adjustments today and there’ll be a couple finite, little adjustments as we go in the next few weeks.”
The new theater will have lots of opportunities for students, sophomore Alexie Nogot, one of the speakers, said. The performing arts center can inspire upcoming and current students to take an interest in performance.
“The theater will open new doors for everyone,” Nogot said in her speech. “With the new equipment and upcoming production, the space allows students to explore their talents and come out of their comfort zone.”
The new performing arts center serves two functions. It will be used by everyone in the District and will be used to bring in revenue to maintain and upkeep the facility, Jordan said in an interview.
“The impact it has is truly going to draw our community to a central point where our learners, from elementary through adult, all will have an opportunity to experience what it means to perform in a professional space,” Jordan said.
On initial impressions of the new performing arts center and the music rooms, Nogot said in an interview, she was really impressed and excited about all the space and potential that it will bring.
“The stage is huge,” Nogot said. “It’s ten times bigger than our old theater, the audience is way bigger too. It has two stories (of seats),” she said. “In our old theater, there wasn’t that much room. You could only fit, at max, four people into the dressing rooms, and the wings are very sensitive to sound, so you had to be really quiet in them.”
The old theater has served the community well in the past sixty years, and it was state-of-the-art back then, but the new performing arts center will allow for even more professional performances that will amaze everyone, Jordan said in her speech.
“This is a place where our community can come together in only the way that performing arts can – that magic that brings people community together in spirit, it’s a very special place, and as our governance team has planned out, we will do all we can to make sure we maximize this resource for our community,” Jordan said in an interview.
