Rendering courtesy of Saratoga High School Foundation

This rendering provides an east view of the proposed performing arts and lecture center.




SHS performing arts center is goal of foundation efforts

When Saratoga High School stages Barnum, its spring musical, this year, the event will appropriately take place in a circus tent. That's not just because circus tents are synonymous with P.T. Barnum, it's really to hammer home the message that Saratoga needs a real performing arts center. In past years, the spring musical was performed in the Los Gatos High School auditorium.

And a Feb. 2 event called "Casino Royale Evening with the Stars," is a practical way to underscore the message that the school lacks a performing arts center. The message here is more pragmatic than symbolic, however. The evening of casino games is a fundraising event, part of an effort to raise some $7.5 million for a proposed performing arts and lecture center on campus.

Since the school year began, the Saratoga High School Foundation has hosted student and alumni concerts and a holiday boutique, done fundraising mailings and advertised in the newspaper, all to raise money for the proposed center. The foundation has raised some $4.4 million since fall 2000 for the building, which will benefit not only the school, say foundation members, but the rest of the community, as well.

The school performing arts groups either use the "Little Theater"--a makeshift theater that was once part of the school cafeteria--or other facilities for their performances and rehearsals. Foundation members would like to build a new theater, because the Little Theater only seats 150 and has no dressing rooms.

In addition to using the LGHS auditorium for performances, groups at SHS also perform at churches, the SHS gym and the West Valley College auditorium. However, the gym is not acoustically or spatially designed for lectures and musical performances. And the stage at West Valley is too small to hold the chamber strings, wind ensemble, symphonic band and full orchestra, according to those behind the movement for a performing arts and lecture center.

The foundation plans to build the center on campus, at the corner of Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road and Herriman Drive. Plans call for the 17,000-square-foot building to have a lobby; kitchen; control room; about 583 seats on a slope, so that viewers in the back can see over the heads of people in front; and an orchestra pit for about 30 musicians. The center will feature a 3,000-square-foot stage; green room; two dressing rooms; catwalks and landings; double doors to the entrance; and state-of-the-art acoustics. At the request of Promotion of Safe Environmental Practices and Sustainability, a club at the school, foundation members plan to include solar panels in the design to make it more environmentally friendly. Members also propose including more women's restrooms than men's restrooms and removing about 20 parking spaces to make room for the center.

Slightly more than $3 million of the $4.4 million raised so far comes from the $79 million Measure B bond, which voters passed in 1998 to fund construction at both Los Gatos and Saratoga high schools. Since the foundation was formed in fall 2000, it has raised about $1.3 million in private funds.

Foundation members hope to raise the estimated $7.5 million by this spring, begin construction this summer and have the center finished by October 2003. If the foundation doesn't raise the money by this spring, members say they will continue fundraising.

"Overall, we're very pleased that we've been able to raise $1.3 million in a very difficult economic environment," foundation president Bill Barmeier said. "As the economy improves, our opportunity for raising the rest quickly improves significantly, so we're cautiously optimistic as we go into 2002."

Foundation members hope to send full construction documents to the state for review by mid-January and receive approval in April or May. Once the state approves the design for the center, the facility will be ready for bid and construction.

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For information about the Feb. 2 Casino Night With the Stars, contact Dana Schroeder, 408.399.3380.

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