Performing arts theater too costly for Calabasas

I wore my pale green Easter dress with white lace at the bottom of the sleeves and hem, and my adored white patent leather Mary Janes with pearl buttons. My mother had managed to tame and curl my thick mane. I sat enthralled and motionless on my father’s lap. It was "The Desert Song." I was 6.

That’s the first live performance I remember experiencing. It was at the famous outdoor theater on the Dallas fairgrounds. It forever sealed my deep and abiding love of musical theater. Since then, I’ve attended performances every place I’ve ever lived or spent much time, from Fort Wayne, Ind. to San Francisco to Denver to Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles. I’ve been a dedicated theatergoer.

I’ve seen every Broadway musical committed to film, live, at the movies and on TV. I know the scores to almost every one produced since the 1920s.

I’ve attended countless plays, operas, symphonies and ballets (my second love), in venues large and small. In short, I adore live theater.

Like many Calabasas citizens, I would love a full-scale theater in the city hall complex. However, neither my fellow citizens nor I will pay to support such a costly endeavor.

As Thousand Oaks has discovered, massive corporate and other sponsorships are necessary to build, operate and maintain a professional theater because ticket sales (not cheap, by the way) contribute only a tiny portion to the costs. That’s also what our city’s feasibility study concluded more than two years ago.

Therefore, as much as I might desire a real theater in the civic complex, it’s simply not economically feasible for a city of 22,000.

Karmen Brower

Calabasas