Setting the Stage

By Susanne Rockwell

With the opening of Mondavi Center in October, a decades-long dream comes true.

If truth be told, the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts has been a long time coming. In fact, it’s been a campus aspiration for decades. And now, finally, thanks to a regional community of supporters, the world-class facility opens this October at UC Davis. Credit is also due to Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef, who saw in 1994 that the campus was finally ready to step forward and make a commitment to building a top-flight facility specifically for the performing arts.

“For decades, UC Davis has had a fine reputation in the sciences,” he points out. “Although the arts have always been important to us, we’ve never had the high-quality performing arts center that defines the best public universities. Now, after eight years of preparation, this jewel of a facility is ready to be showcased as a powerful symbol of how seriously we are committed to the arts.”

Mondavi Center will create a new venue for the Department of Music, the Department of Theatre and Dance, the region’s largest performing arts education program in the public schools, and the largest concert and lecture series in Northern California.

First and foremost, Mondavi Center serves as an academic facility that will help fulfill UC Davis’ teaching mission. Faculty members say the center will be an extraordinary classroom for students in music, dance and theatre. It will be the home of the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra, the Empyrean Ensemble, the University Chorus and Chamber Singers, the concert band, the gospel choir and the UC Davis Wind Ensemble. The Department of Theatre and Dance’s first use of the facility will be in November when a new professional performance ensemble presents The Ten PM Dream, and several other dance programs are planned for the Studio Theatre. In May, theatre and dance will join with the music department to mount Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore.

In addition, the center will become the heart of UC Davis’ school outreach programs for the performing arts. UC Davis has been enhancing K-12 arts education through school outreach programs for more than 30 years. Just last year, UC Davis’ performing arts program brought dance, theatre and music to 30,000 children in the Sacramento region.

As heir to UC Davis Presents, the Mondavi Center’s presenting program will also bring to the Sacramento region some of the world’s most celebrated speakers and performing artists. Highlights of the center’s upcoming debut season include cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, physicist Stephen Hawking, composer Philip Glass, naturalist Edward O. Wilson and the Tango Buenos Aires. All told, Mondavi Center’s presenting program will offer more than 70 artists and speakers in more than 100 performances in its inaugural year.

The earliest days

People have been dancing and making music on this land since the Patwin Indians first settled here at least 500 years ago. The Native Americans moved down from Oregon, attracted by the seasonal bounty of salmon in Putah Creek and other plentiful sources of food—acorns and wild cereals among them. At the site where Mondavi Center now stands, relics from the Patwin settlement have been discovered. In 2000, the tribal council of the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians, Yolo County’s only federally recognized Native American tribe, gave the performing arts center one of its first large gifts, $625,000, which was part of a $1 million gift to the campus that also funded an endowed chair for Native American Studies. The tribe wanted to strengthen ties between a Native American tribe and the university and encourage other organizations in the county to donate to this regional resource. Today the facility’s lobby is named in honor of that contribution.

“Music and dance express the spiritual side of existence. They are what we do as Native Americans, and I don’t think anyone can ever do without them,” explains Paula Lorenzo, chair of the tribal council for Rumsey Rancheria. “In music and in dance, we all speak the same language.”

Tradition of wine, food and the arts begins

When the University Farm opened its doors in 1908 as a branch of the University of California, Berkeley, its chief purpose was to teach high-school students and recent graduates the rudiments of scientific farming. The first “practical short course” in horticulture and viticulture (similar to a Cooperative Extension course these days) was offered during the farm’s first year, along with courses on poultry husbandry, animal science, crop-growing and dairy-manufacturing.

Renamed the Northern Branch of the College of Agriculture in 1921, the Davis campus was transformed between the two World Wars, as its various agricultural divisions gained greater scientific sophistication and thus greater academic reputation.

University Farm Orchestra, 1915.

Theatre became a popular activity in the 1920s, with the 1924 El Rodeo yearbook reporting that Two Crooks and a Lady was the first offering that fall by the year-old Aggie Community Players. The amateur players called upon whomever they could get to fill the roles, including children from the local grammar school for the Christmas Festival play. There is evidence that the campus and Davis community enjoyed professional theatre as well: The next year the Players invited the Wheeler Hall Players of Berkeley, known as a real “professional acting group,” to motor out to the Farm and present Three Live Ghosts “before a large, well-pleased audience composed of faculty, students and townspeople.”

When 22-year-old Celeste Turner Wright arrived in 1928 as the campus’s first female ladder-rank professor, she discovered a group of thespians ready to mount even more challenging theatre productions. During her 51-year tenure as an English, Latin and drama teacher, Wright directed some 20 plays and taught more than her share of drama classes. She learned early that necessity was the mother of creative casting. With only eight women among the 350-member student body in her first year at Davis, Wright called upon stenographers, librarians and other women on staff to help on stage and behind the curtain.

For the next 20 years, cultural entertainment continued to be of the home-grown variety. Then, in 1948, a volunteer campus group formed the Committee for Arts and Lectures to begin systematically booking professional music and dance performances on the campus. The first season was modest, featuring the Berkeley Singers, the Griller Quartet, and several other theatrical, poetry and film events.

Boom time of the 1950s and ’60s

The 1950s and ’60s were a time of growth for the campus as it worked to meet the baby boomer challenge and as millions of dollars in federal and state money poured in for research. During this era, the campus transformed itself from a college to a university, officially becoming a general UC campus in 1959.

During the decade after World War II, the Committee for Arts and Lectures sustained a modest but steady program of small-ensemble music performances, poetry readings, lectures, debates and film screenings in the original Recreation Hall, where the Memorial Union stands today. The conditions were not ideal: The old wood-shingled structure was not designed for performances and accommodated not many more than 100 attendees. The committee was run by six or seven volunteers and a single employee who coordinated the performances and handled the artist fees. By 1963, under director Alison Cramer, the committee was charging $2 for general admission and $1 for student admission to its performances. The idea of school outreach was popular during the ’60s, according to longtime committee staffer Teresa Kaneko, who served as a liaison between the schools and the artists. She recalls arranging for classical pianist Lorin Hollander to give master classes in the Davis schools, despite a lack of decent pianos.

Professor Emeritus Jerome Rosen remembers the power of a community committed to the arts when he arrived as the first and only music faculty member in 1952 with a mandate to develop the music department for the proposed College of Letters and Science. (The department was officially established in 1958.) A band, chorus and music-appreciation course already existed, but Rosen wanted to increase the musical offerings on campus. So he became a musician of many genres: He directed the ROTC band for the Tuesday afternoon military parades. He and his clarinet contributed to a Dixieland jazz band on campus. By plucking a flutist from the Davis Senior High School faculty and cajoling others like Professor Herman Phaff of food technology to pick up their instruments, he was able to offer weekly chamber music concerts that attracted many from the community. That series of Five O’Clock Concerts continued for a dozen years, eventually becoming the free Thursday Noon Concert series held during the academic year.

From the beginning of his tenure on campus, Rosen says, the idea of a performing arts center with excellent acoustics was always on the music department’s wish list, but it was destined to stay there because the administration had higher facility priorities across the disciplines, from the veterinary school to engineering to medicine.

Even without a dedicated arts facility, the campus maintained its commitment to good arts instruction, believing it was key to a comprehensive campus. Richard Swift, a second music instructor, was hired in 1956 to build the collection of music scores and scholarly books for the Main Library. Together, Swift and Rosen worked on the curriculum to create a major in music at UC Davis. In 1963, just six years after the department and major were established, a master’s degree in music was added, as was a research fund in composition and performance to support contemporary music.

The program also got its own building with practice facilities designed specifically for transforming student musicians into professional teachers and performers. And Freeborn Hall, an auditorium and assembly hall that has been the campus’s main venue for large groups and performances, was built in 1961, opening with a performance by the San Francisco Symphony.

Wyatt Pavilion is moved to a new site, 1963.

That same year, the Department of Dramatic Art (renamed Department of Theatre and Dance in 1995) was established. By then, performances were being held in a converted cafeteria in East Hall, itself demolished a decade later. The scene shop was in the hall kitchen, and paint and props were stored in the walk-in refrigerator. That changed in 1963 when an old cattle-judging pavilion, which seated 500, was transported to its current site on Old Davis Road, converted into a theatre-in-the-round and renamed Wyatt Pavilion Theatre. The conversion was paid for by retired Gerbers executive Fred S. Wyatt, son of Marcus O. Wyatt of Winters, who had helped choose the site for the University Farm.

Four years later, Main Theatre was built with the most advanced technology of its time—to this day, the theatre remains a favorite in the region because of its proscenium-style stage and good-sized wings, says arts critic Jeff Hudson. It remains the largest stage in the Sacramento region built specifically for theatre (rather than for music or multiple use), with ample fly space overhead, allowing for creative staging.

Reputation building in the 1970s and ’80s

The Committee for Arts and Lectures expanded its outreach programs in the ’70s, setting up artist residencies on campus and arranging performances at nearby retirement communities. It also connected regional ethnic communities with visiting artists, bringing, for example, a Japanese violinist to an Asian retirement home. When Ronald Reagan became governor, the program’s funding was cut as he focused on a “no-frills” basic education for UC students. The committee shifted to less expensive artists—mostly lesser-known but talented musicians. Poetry readings also proved to be popular at UC Davis, drawing up to 100 students, faculty, staff and community members.

Jere Curry, who had danced with a national ballet company and on Broadway, arrived at UC Davis in 1969 to teach dance in the physical education department. A popular and inspired teacher, Curry carried on the Davis tradition of involving both the community and campus in the arts by directing and choreographing on- and off-campus dance and theatrical events for 22 years. Curry is credited with single-handedly transforming a few P.E. classes into a full-fledged dance program that has produced Broadway pros.

In its quest to build a nationally recognized academic theatre program, the Department of Dramatic Art established a relationship in 1982 with Sir Denis Forman and the Granada Group of Great Britain to create the Granada Artists-in-Residence Program. Each quarter for the past 20 years, the program has brought a British artist—playwright, director or choreographer—to Davis to live, teach and create productions. Directors like William Gaskill, Julian Amyes, Annabel Arden and others who are credited with shaping 20th-century theatre have shared their aesthetic viewpoints and professional expertise.

D. Kern Holoman also brought a reputation for national excellence to UC Davis when he joined the music department in 1973. A noted expert on 19th-century French composer Hector Berlioz, Holoman began conducting the symphony orchestra in the late ’70s. Within two years, he had also helped persuade then-Chancellor James Meyer and Executive Vice Chancellor Elmer Learn to impanel a task force to revisit the idea of a performance hall with good acoustics.

“The atmosphere was rich with anticipation: We knew we were turning the biggest corner of all,” Holoman remembers. “There seemed no limit to what the members were willing to invest by way of time, effort and even personal funds to launch a center for the arts at UC Davis.”

“It was clear we needed a proper venue in which faculty and students could perform and enjoy one another,” Learn says. “Certainly Freeborn was not adequate for that purpose or in many ways didn’t represent what should be available at a great university.”

In 1985, the campus took another step forward when it hired Jim Wockenfuss from the University of Iowa to strengthen the presenting program’s offerings and to unify the campus cultural arts planning, incorporating both visual and performing arts. Wockenfuss’ first challenge was to build an audience to complement the burgeoning academic programs in the performing arts. Acquiring a regional audience was a major step before UC Davis could expect a performance center to succeed. Wockenfuss also was charged with developing an initial plan for a $30 million cultural center with an 1,800-seat main performance hall, 500-seat concert hall and large art gallery.

Parallel to Wockenfuss’ efforts, the campus established a new fund-raising office. Until the early 1980s, private fund raising played a modest role in most public university financing. But decreasing state allocations and expanding university needs made private donations ever more important to attaining campus goals.

While UC Davis prepared to launch a campaign to fund the center, as an interim measure the campus spent $1 million to remodel Freeborn Hall, which had been modeled on state fair pavilions. Improvements included new seats and curtains, a larger stage and better lighting, and the addition of an acoustical baffle system to reflect sound into the audience.

Center advances in the ’90s

Several dilemmas put the performing arts facility on the back burner for a short time in the early ’90s: A feasibility study indicated the fund-raising office needed more time to develop its capabilities, the facility’s estimated cost rose from $30 million to over $50 million, and the state entered a major recession, squeezing the campus budget as enrollment continued to grow. The campus downsized its staff and faculty, took on more students and focused on getting through lean times.

In 1994, when Chancellor Vanderhoef was inaugurated, the worst of the state recession was over. Vanderhoef, who had backed the center as part of a broader commitment to the arts since arriving as executive vice chancellor in 1984, said it was time to revive that dream. He pointed out that since the mid-’80s the campus had created a performing arts program “of sufficient substance,” developed considerable fund-raising experience and completed a number of high-priority classroom and research buildings.

“At major universities around the world, the performing arts center is the point of convergence where the achievements of the university are celebrated, new ideas debated, scripts and musical compositions tested, and the treasures of the world’s literary and performing traditions given life,” he said. “It is a laboratory for the fine arts and humanities. And it is a facility we must have.”

The campaign begins

Plans were made to finance the center through a $30 million, six-year capital campaign, to be matched by $31 million in university funds. The money would pay for both the construction of the facility and an endowment to fund its ongoing operation.

Beginning in 1997, the campaign brought in $2 million in seed money in just six months; in the next two years, significant support came from campus “insiders” like UC Davis Foundation trustees and the Friends of UC Davis Presents. Nearly $9 million was raised by the January 1999 kickoff of the public phase of the campaign. Key players in the success of the effort were volunteers, who worked to help introduce the project to hundreds of their friends and acquaintances throughout the region.

>	Final work on Jackson Hall in the Mondavi Center.

The campaign attracted supporters from throughout Northern California—donors who were old friends of the campus as well as those relatively new to UC Davis and its arts scene. Alumni strongly supported Mondavi Center, yet some of the campaign’s largest gifts to date have come from those interested simply in creating an exciting new stage for the arts in this region. Two of those individuals, Robert and Margrit Mondavi, gave $35 million to the campus in September 2001: $25 million to establish the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science and another $10 million to name the performing arts center. The gift is the largest private contribution to UC Davis and represents one of the most generous single gifts from an individual donor in the history of the University of California. The Mondavis have a long relationship with UC Davis through the education of family members and their connections with the viticulture and enology department.

When he gave the gift, Robert Mondavi explained: “We want to raise the art of living well. How wonderful that is. . . . We are so happy to be part of the team at the University of California, Davis, because they are really creating a great thing, enhancing the quality of life.”

UC Davis’ vision for improving the arts, set long ago by a 1975 task force, included a list of other goals that the campus continues to pursue. A 400-seat recital hall, suitable for rehearsals and performances by ensembles and solo musicians, is planned to open near the existing Music Building in 2008. The hall is part of a new $10.5 million facility for the music department, funded by state bond money. Also on the horizon is a center for the visual arts that will provide space for the three major collections of the campus, now housed in the Design Museum, Gorman Museum and Nelson Gallery. That center will be located near the Mondavi Center.

In addition, plans are proceeding to build the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science just west of the performing arts center. Beyond its teaching and research missions, the institute will be accessible to industry, government and the public.

Elizabeth Langland, dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, says the completion of the Mondavi Center marks a significant step in the campus’s commitment to the future of the arts.

“A world-class university is one that offers the world’s great artists a venue that showcases their excellence,” she says. “Such facilities are a standing, ongoing testimony to the importance of the arts in our lives.”

Susanne Rockwell writes about the humanities, arts and social sciences for the UC Davis News Service.