Another Theatrical Old Globe Triumph

SAN DIEGO — This city is fortunate that early civic boosters set aside a gigantic public park in its heart. Unfortunately, that early foresight in the creation of Balboa Park has been undercut by years of neglect of its grounds and buildings. The disregard has been compounded by the fact that the earliest buildings in Balboa Park were never intended to become permanent. They were flimsily constructed for international expositions in 1915 and 1935. Such structures as the House of Charm and the House of Hospitality, for example--both slated for complete reconstruction beginning in 1993--are crumbling today.

Given the park’s spotty maintenance history, the Old Globe Theatre’s impressive renovation of its two-story, 22,000-square-foot administrative building, next to its theaters in the park, looks all the more impressive. Accomplished in part with donated design services and materials, the renovation transformed the building’s interior from a warren of small, dimly lit rooms into open, airy spaces decorated with theatrical flair.

The building has been renamed the Jeannie Rivkin Creative Center in honor of the woman who co-chaired a $10.2 million fund-raising drive for the theater completed in 1990, of which $1 million came from the city. From the funds raised during the drive, $1.6 million was spent on this make-over.

A gift shop has been added behind the theaters’ refreshment stand. In back of the shop are two levels of offices. The first floor has a new reception area, the box office, subscriptions and telemarketing departments, several production offices, and set design. On the second are administrative functions including marketing and business development, along with offices for such top Globe executives as Executive Producer Craig Noel, Artistic Director Jack O’Brien and Managing Director Thomas R. Hall.

Such a reuse of an older building has limitations. The Globe was stuck with the building’s basic footprint and circulation. The main entrance is small and not well emphasized by the architecture. And the interior circulation plan, while improved, remains somewhat confusing. The central stairs and elevator, for example, don’t tie in as logically to the floor plans as they might.

Aesthetically, though, the renovation is first rate, thanks to the generosity of designers, artisans and Old Globe donors who raised a good portion of the $1.6 million the theater company spent on the renovation (in addition, donated materials and design services are estimated to be worth at least that much).

The San Diego chapter of the Institute of Business Designers took a lead role in the renovation. Thirteen of its members put in an estimated 1,500 voluntary hours of interior design time as part of the organization’s DesignSpace program, under which members volunteer services to a selected project each year.

About 25 artisans from the Globe’s set design and props departments added murals, faux finishes and other flourishes. La Jolla architects Liebhardt Botton & Associates were paid by the Globe to handle interior architecture and space planning.

With so many cooks minding this complicated theatrical stew, things could easily have gotten out of hand.

“We were afraid the areas would look so different that they wouldn’t be consistent,” recalls Roi Jossy, an interior designer and IBD member who, through a mutual acquaintance at the Globe, helped the designers and theatrical company begin planning this project four years ago. “We felt a way to solve that would be to come up with a theme or design direction.”

So “theater in the park” became the working concept. Through theatrical effects, the interior captures the spirit of a visit to the Globe, which involves a stroll through the park down formal promenades, under vine-covered trellises and past neoclassical elements such as columns and arches.

But Jossy and her fellow designers also decided that the new interior did not need to be faithful to Balboa Park’s Spanish Colonial architectural traditions, nor to the Old World, Shakespearean flavor of the Globe buildings’ exteriors. The two-story administration building was constructed in phases over 30 years, beginning in 1935, and has a wood-shingled mansard roof and half timbering.

“When the Globe started (in 1935), they concentrated on Shakespeare,” Jossy says. “Although they are committed to producing a certain number of Shakespearean plays during each season, they have really diversified to present a mix of new and old plays.”

Having a creative client such as the Globe gave the artists and designers an unusual degree of freedom. Unlike typical corporate clients, the Globe’s staff is accustomed to dealing with unusual costumes, bizarre sets--all manner of zany, creative ideas that can go into a production.

“We were really dealing with illusion,” Jossy says of the new interior. “And I think a lot of the theater is about illusion. So we were looking for the excitement of experiencing a play with all the different scenes and things that happen.”

The interiors of the Globe’s office building were extensively reconfigured. Walls were knocked out between small, old dressing rooms that were being used as offices to create a more open layout. Two rehearsal spaces became offices (the Globe eagerly awaits the renovation of the House of Charm, which will include three new rehearsal halls). Instead of several individual restrooms next to the old dressing room/offices, each of the building’s two levels now has large, central men’s and women’s rooms.

Spaces are tied together by the “theater in the park” theme, and by related colors, materials and textures. But each area within the building is also distinctive.

The new second-floor board room has a ceiling painted to resemble a starry night sky. The wide colonnade leading into it has a ceiling adorned with a painted-on vine-covered trellis. The executive office reception area is high-brow, with a limestone and granite floor and a hallway lined with classical, gilded columns, under a vaulted ceiling equipped with dramatic, concealed lighting.

Three new skylights and several new windows bring natural light to the offices, and the open floor plans help disperse this light to the inner reaches of each floor. Over the second-level marketing department offices, where office cubicles are defined by white, chest-height partitions that resemble walls from a stage set, the ceiling was raised to make room for clerestory windows that bring in additional daylight.

The only interior portion of the renovation that will truly be used by the general public is the new gift shop.

Entering the shop feels like stepping on stage. A center strip of hardwood floor is stained with large, pastel-hued triangles and dramatically lit by an array of theatrical-style spotlights suspended from an overhead steel grid.

Old leather luggage covered with stickers from around the world, a gilded chair from the Globe’s production of “Antony and Cleopatra” and a “cask” (a large, old-fashioned container for valuables) from a past version of the “Merchant of Venice” are among the decorations.

Some of the building’s common areas received special treatment by the Globe’s staff artists.

The second-floor women’s room, for example, features a mural by Globe scenic artist Ed Roxburgh that depicts a fair maiden in a pastoral scene. Walls in a first-floor hallway were painted by Globe artists Deborah Kaye-Jolgren and John Gibb with cloudy layers of pastels. The first-floor reception desk is covered with a swirling, faux-marble finish in pink, mauve and purple.

Last but not least, the renovation includes a new air conditioning and heating system that makes offices comfortable year-round.

The renovation is only the first phase of the Globe’s $10 million, two-phase building and renovation plan, which will eventually include new public restrooms outside the theaters, a landscaped outdoor public space to be named Copley Plaza and a remodeling of the Cassius Carter Centre Stage.

With the Globe’s summer season opening June 26 with Shakespeare’s “Two Gentleman of Verona,” the new Creative Center adds a welcome zing.

“With (the renovation) happening we are at a great high, thinking this is the best of all possible worlds,” says Noel, who, along with O’Brien and Hall, has a new canyon-view office that replaces his old office with its view of a blank concrete wall. “With this new vista, maybe our plays will have a new vista. Of course, we will all wake up tomorrow and have to face reality and have to raise more money and do more shows, but it is a very happy occasion for us, and we now have a lot of very comfortable spaces for our artists to work in.