Arts & Entertainment

Group Hunts Corporate Donors for San Clemente Amphitheater

The group has a lease, but little capital.

A San Clemente nonprofit group formed to build an amphitheater in the city has a lease of city land and some informal partners around the region, but is still fishing for corporate donors.

"We're in the middle of structuring a business plan that takes into account some of the things that have happened in the economy," said Association for the Amphitheater President Dick Dickey.

The association's land lease is in a canyon on the southeast corner of Avenida La Pata and Calle Saluda -- geographically perfect to build the 1,000- to 1,200-seat amphitheater the group envisions, said group member Jerry Velasco. The city renewed the 20-acre lease in October of 2011.

Dickey said the initial investment would be about $2 million, but total costs at full build-out would be closer to $4 million.

Velasco said he's been working to get an amphitheater built in the city since the mid 1980s. At that time, developers built out the Forster Ranch neighborhood, engulfing the natural amphitheater a city group had used to perform the annual Cristianitas Pageant.

The play celebrated the historic first baptism in California by Fr. Junipero Serra. He baptized two indigenous baby girls in the late 1700s just outside of town on land that now belongs is part of Camp Pendleton.

In addition to reviving that tradition, the amphitheater can serve as a first-class performance space for the drama programs of the surrounding high schools -- the largest auditorium in which seats only 500.

"That renovated cafeteria [San Clemente High School Drama] uses for their stage is an inadequate venue for the kinds of productions they put on," Velasco said.

The plan is to model the venue after the Moonlight Amphitheater in Vista -- with which San Clemente could share symphonies and professional Broadway productions to halve costs for both venues, Velasco said.

The Association for the Amphitheater has a small amount of cash in its coffers, but no big donors yet, Dickey said.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here