Not all that long ago, the City of Encinitas was preparing to take its own advice. A big sign on city-owned property at the corner of El Camino Real and Leucadia Boulevard trumpeted plans for construction of a live theater, something for which a 2002 city-conducted survey reflected support. The poll indicated that, given the potential for activity, a theater-less Encinitas no longer made practical sense. The local Coastal Concert Band, for example, regularly sells out at remote 1,500-seat houses, yet it doesn’t have a place to perform in its own hometown.
The sign is gone, but Encinitas resident Jill Mesaros has reason to remember it. She’s the producing director of Miracle Theatre Productions that is soon to leave its long-time home at the Theatre in Old Town. Miracle’s exodus from Old Town State Park is largely due to a state law requiring the venue to re-bid its contract every ten years, a process that Mesaros decided would be too costly for the production company to consider. Push is coming to shove, she reported, and Miracle’s departure is that much greater a reality.
The 250-seat Theatre in Old Town, 4040 Twiggs St., is one of several state park properties up for bid per state requirements. An award board will convene later this month to consider the lone proposal on the 27-year-old facility whose capital improvement needs would cost the bidder around $330,000.
That kind of money, Mesaros said, is better spent in an area rife with new possibilities for live fare.
“People in cities like Encinitas, Oceanside, Carlsbad and San Marcos have seen [local] live theater, but most of the theater in the county is south of La Jolla,” Mesaros explained. “We’ve been talking to the City of Encinitas for approximately six months about how we might help them realize their theater project, and we are really excited about the possibilities there.”
Moreover, Miracle has an administrative advantage over other companies that may be considering a move to Encinitas, Mesaros said. The company is virtually the only for-profit theater entity in San Diego County “” as such, its funding mechanism isn’t dependent on the shifting nature of conventional fund-raising efforts, she continued.
Meanwhile, the Encinitas City Council will vote on the proposal at its Aug. 23 meeting. Terms involve a 55-year lease at a cost of $1 per year, with Miracle footing the bill for constructing the venue.
Miracle, formed in 1994, is known for lavish music- and dance-oriented fare, a concept that largely escaped its audience base with the recent production of “Das Barbecã.” The play, a send-up of Richard Wagner’s “Ring” opera cycle, met with the wrong kind of critical acclaim upon its June debut. Ticket sales severely lagged, and the show closed almost as soon as it opened.
“Maybe the name scared everybody away,” Mesaros said, “but ‘Das Barbecã’ just never sold. In 12 years, something like that’s never happened to us.”
The company has hastily resurrected “Forbidden Broadway: Special Victims Unit,” favorably received at Theatre in Old Town last spring. The spoof of several hit Broadway musicals has an open-ended run, with its closing contingent on the state bid procedure timetable.
After that, Miracle may find a favorable response elsewhere. That 2002 survey, conducted among 28,000 Encinitans, garnered only 600 takers, though 72 percent of the respondents said theater was their medium of choice. That works out to a potential audience of 432, an ideal size for Miracle’s type of fare.
The down side involves the departure of a successful San Diego theater company from a popular Old Town venue.
Local theater is showing some signs of settling in in other quarters, such as south downtown, where two companies have set up shop a block apart.
But Miracle’s plans weigh in the balance on that kind of stability. The lack of venues is an enormous problem for San Diego theater “” and the loss of yet another doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
Tickets for “Forbidden Broadway” are $31 to $43 and available at 619-688-2494.