ENTERTAINMENT Center expansion breaks ground amid...

ENTERTAINMENT

Center expansion breaks ground amid fireworks

Costa Mesa took a dramatic step toward national notoriety last

week as the Orange County Performing Arts Center broke ground on its

$200-million expansion project that will bring Orange County to the

forefront of the arts scene.

Maestro Carl St. Clair directed the massive bulldozers in a

dazzling array of choreography, as each machine turned over the first

soil of the landmark project. The performance was highlighted by an

explosive fireworks display that rained shards of light across the

organized destruction.

The new 2,000-seat Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall and

500-seat Samueli music theater will cover 260,000 square feet and

feature a multilevel grand lobby space, a private donor lounge,

rehearsal rooms, dressing rooms, a music library, a restaurant, an

adjustable acoustical canopy and adjustable reverberation chambers,

all enclosed within a glass-curtain exterior.

Center officials have described the renovated arts area as a

meeting of the Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum

of Art and Broadway, all just across the street from each other. City

leaders have anticipated the project and the arts district it would

create.

* LOLITA HARPER writes columns Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays

and covers culture and the arts. She may be reached at (949) 574-4275

or by e-mail at [email protected].