Taking inspiration from the Sydney Opera House back home, the new executive director of Carpinteria’s Alcazar Theatre, Debbie Nomura, is leading the effort to revive and upgrade the venue.
Nomura, who is originally from Australia and has now been in the U.S. for five years, has been the Alcazar Theatre’s executive director for about four months now, after having been on the board of directors since last March.
While the theater already has a wide range of events, she wants to bring even more diverse offerings to the venue like a speaker series and panel discussions, youth performances and events to highlight local artists.
This year, the Alcazar Theatre will be 96 years old, having first opened on April 27, 1928, where the theater’s opening night featured a live band and the premiere showing of “The Fifty-Fifty Girl,” with an admission cost of just $1.10.
The theater changed names and ownership several times over the years since, and Mike Lazaro, the board president, shared how he and a group of community members came together to create a multi-use theater about 14 years ago.
At the time, the space was being run by Metropolitan Theatres, but Lazaro said he could see the way lights were not being replaced and other things weren’t being repaired, leading him to believe Metropolitan was going to let the lease run out.
This is when he got the idea to get a group together to buy the theater and transform it into a community space.
When deciding whether to just show movies or plays, Lazaro suggested doing it all.
“I said, ‘what if we bought a retractable movie screen, I can get my brother-in-law to build a stage, and we’ll have it where one day we can be showing a movie, the next day we could have a play, the next day we could have comedy, the next day we could have music?’ And so that was the deal — and no one had really done that before,” Lazaro said.
“We are going towards our 100th year, so how do we get there? What does that look like? We want intentional programming, we want you to come into this theater and feel comfortable and have it be like you don’t have to leave Carpinteria to have culture or education or curriculum — you could take your partner, grab dinner here, go to a show, and never have to go on that freeway.”
This is where Nomura came in, with the goal to “reposition and build the theater.”
Nomura said that she is passionate about bringing youth on stage and providing children and schools with these opportunities to perform.
“It’s such a huge opportunity [for children to perform at the Alcazar],” Nomura said.
“It’s much more than just the performance because the thing that I’m most proud of as an Australian — one of the things — is the (Sydney) Opera House, because most opera houses through the world are for the elite, but the Opera House is our opera house, so I want this to be their place. It’s a different mindset to it, and you’re not intimidated when you go there because it’s yours.”
Cate School is already set to perform in February, and Nomura said she wants to bring schools in for students to perform in any way at least once a month.
The Alcazar Theatre is currently closed for renovations, but it will reopen on Feb. 2 with the already sold-out benefit concert from Doublewide Kings.
Other concerts are lined up, as well as a community discussion event, “Transforming Adversities into Possibilities” on Feb. 29, which will focus on resiliency and resources for family caregivers and previewing a new caregiver support program called HyperLocal Care.
The Alcazar Theatre is hoping to host many more “In Community” and “In Conversation” panel events, covering topics such as bullying, ending human trafficking, events with local artists, and more.
In addition to bringing more events to the theater, the Alcazar Theatre is working on renovations and upgrades.
They’re currently doing a sound system upgrade and plan to update the electrical systems, enhance lighting equipment and build a new website.
“We’ve got huge plans,” Nomura said. “There’s lots and lots of plans of things that are happening, but we’re a very small nonprofit.”
To be able to do these upgrades though, the Alcazar Theatre is asking for help from the community to fundraise.
“The Alcazar hasn’t really done any big fundraising,” Nomura said. “So we really want to build, and in order to build, we need money. And it’s two-fold — we need one for doing the lighting, the sounds, all the things we’re doing there, and then we also need for the operational things.”
Anyone interested in donating to “The Alcazar Revival” fundraising campaign can visit the theater’s website for more information.
The theater also has volunteer opportunities, and Nomura said she really wants to put people to work with their unique skills.
“There’s a whole lot of things coming,” Nomura said. “It’s very exciting what we’re doing.”
