On Friday Juliette and Sigrid and I met with Esther V. She heads a program called THRIVE and has been involved and connecting people and service organizations in Pacoima for many years. Additionally, she is on the board at Pacoima Charter Elementary School and she is life long friends with the Vice Principal at Maclay Middle School.
MACLAY COMMUNITY CENTER
She has recently taken over a space adjacent to Maclay Middle School-- it's called MACLAY COMMUNITY CENTER. Formerly a small elementary school connected to the middle school, the Center is a series of 4 or 5 "portable" buildings. Each building has 2 classroom size rooms, often with a connector door in the wall between the 2 rooms. The first bldg at the center has a reception office, and a meeting/reception room. A second building is empty and might be set up as a day care space in future. Another building has staff offices in half and a conference room in the other half. There is also a kitchen area and a shaded outdoor lunch area with picnic type table-benches for small people. All this area plus a smallish parking area is chain-link fenced in. I believe from what Esther said that it is all under her purview.
Two fence "walls" are shared with the middle school. Another is shared with a yard & office for LA Police Dept that specifically serves the local schools. The fourth border is to the street. The opposite side of the street is residential.
MACLAY MIDDLE SCHOOL MULTI-PURPOSE ROOM
ALSO, Esther took us onto the Maclay Middle School campus to meet the vice principal, to see two spaces there, to get information about potential obstacles for use of school space in July and to lay groundwork for asking to use school campus space.
The two Maclay campus spaces are an outdoor grassy plaza with a small raised stage area and a square of walkways all around. It is lovely but I do not think they would ever let us use that space because it would ruin the grass there.
The other space is, to me, the best indoor space we've seen yet-- the MPR - Multi-Purpose Room. Good acoustics, a stage space we could use as a stage or not, some backstage support area options, enough room to stage the play on the floor with a variety of audience configurations. And there is a disco ball.
Access to school spaces is complicated:
We'd need approval and permission from the principal, Ms. Arriguen.
The school needs to be "open," either in session with a program or, if not open for a program, at least open because staff are on contract at that time-- mostly the principal. There is no getting around this factor. It's tied into the city-wide school district and rules about having a Plant Manager present when the school is open. The Plant Manager has all the keys. It's like having a House Technician at a theater.
Even in all these circumstances, the usual LATEST time for an activity on campus is 9:00pm.
The principal might start back to work July 26.
This school might be in a "bridge" session starting July 28.
ESTHER FACILITATED OPTIONS
Here are things that are very appealing about Esther's community center facilities:
Good neighborhood in relationship to the community (ie: accessible) and good proximity to our housing home-base. Also it is a place that community comes to/will come to for community related events and services. Feels neutral.
Potentially 24 hour access. Definitely later access than anyone else seems able to offer so that we could have evening rehearsals as we'd like to.
Fenced in and next to a police facility-- safe.
Storage and support spaces, including kitchen for occasional use.
The classrooms at Esther's space are small for rehearsal-- half the size of what is usually best/available. If only there wasn't a wall between the 2 rooms!!
There is a driveway yard that, while not appealing to Juliette, could be an 
outdoor venue. Kerry would definitely need to take a look and see what his evaluation is regarding capacity and technical needs.
I am intrigued by the MPR on Maclay Middle School Campus-- it could be a great and INDOOR space! pursue the MPR at Maclay and see if we can manage to move in there for 10 or so days at the end of July.
OTHER OPTIONS
Other ideas with their own challenges and obstacles so far are all connected to schools and city parks. With LAUSD schools we will encounter the same problems as at Maclay but with probably less sway from Esther and maybe in less helpful locations. It is so so so ideal for rehearsal and performance space to be in proximity to each other as well as Discovery Charter Prep.
With charter schools the hours might be easier.
We might make some headway with Pacoima Charter Elementary-- it's a charter and Esther is on the board there. Their theater-like space is smallish and has fixed chairs. We should maybe try to see it properly. (X and I saw an Unusual Suspects performance there in November.) This school is still in good proximity for community access and in relation to the home-base location.
With parks (Humphrey and David Gonzalez parks are in the area of Discovery) and anything outdoors security and lock-up is a big issue. I think parks are unlikely to provide and/or allow storage of anything overnight.
There is a Baptist Church on Norris-- still in the right location zone-- that might have space, but it really does not feel neutral there to me. We can ask around and see what local opinion is about that. We have never been inside there.
Unknown at this time but there might be some other building in the area that is not in use. I'm not sure how to pursue this. Maybe Kerry can help with this inquiry.
I visited this space on Wednesday and here are my observations/thoughts
ReplyDeleteRoughly measured at 50’ X 70’ of open space. With tree.
It is not large enough for a 200 person bleacher set and playing area. We could get 150 – 200 seats if we have some sort of theater in the round or thrust type staging. We can probably put lights on the roof of the buildings and use our 20’ light trees but it will still be challenging to Keep light out of the audience.
Bet on a generator for power
The area behind the chain link fence has potential as more acting area if we are ok with looking through the fence.
The buildings have projection potential but they are not really placed where the audience can see them head on.
Due to the odd shape of the space We would most likely have to custom create some sort of shade cover using cables & fabric.
The space is secure with good production support (dressing rooms, bathrooms etc) from the surrounding buildings.
The fences & tetherball poles cannot be moved but there are several gates.
Although challenging and not particularly exciting this space is workable if we have to use it.
Cheers,
Kerry Farmer
Production Manager
So interesting to read about all of the work that's been done so far!
ReplyDeleteJust a question: when you say a space feels "neutral" or not, I'm not clear what you mean. Is it that the space clearly belongs to a particular organization because of signs or how it's set up or something? Do some non-neutral spaces seem like they wouldn't be welcoming to some members of the community, maybe because of their history in the area?
Thanks!
Looking for "neutral" locations for production events like rehearsal and performance for me is another way of removing obstacles for community members to participate. If we decide to perform at a church for example, there might be people who have specific, maybe even unconscious feelings about that place or what it means to them and so on some level might think "That is not for me" or might think, that's not a place i feel welcome.
ReplyDeleteAs you may have heard, Pacoima has some serious gang activity and that culture is a lot about territory and boundaries. When I spoke with Maggie Estrada, the field rep for City Councilperson Alarcon (whose district includes Pacoima), one thing she told me was that we won't get everyone involved or even to the show because some people will not (can not?) cross boundaries, cannot be in certain parts of their neighborhood. There are people who hang out at Humphrey Park and will never go to or use Ritchie Valens Park and visa versa.
We want to go to where people are and invite them to come together so a place that doesn't have a lot of history or "ownership" attached for a majority of people is helpful.
Maclay Community Center is a new space. It's adjacent to Maclay Middle School, which while centrally located does probably have a bit of rivalry attached to it for some people, though maybe not as much as, say, Humphrey Park.
Even without the gang/boundaries consideration, the same is true wherever we go. It's best to find a place that at best is inviting or welcoming, though there are different degrees of that. And for some people where is never an issue, but finding ways to extend the invitation to people who might not ever get invited or feel invited is key.
pd
Makes perfect sense. Already from the blog I feel like I've learned some things about the work of community engagement that I hadn't considered before ... for example, it's interesting that in Pacoima boundaries and history are important in different ways than they may be in other places. Paying attention to how the people in a community understand and interact with their surroundings does seem essential to making a project accessible to as wide a variety of people as possible. Thanks for the clarification!
ReplyDelete