EDITORIAL: Foothills Looks Ahead

3-12-10

Doug Reeser, chairman of the Foothills Performing Arts (& Civic) Center, has begun conducting tours of the $7 million – soon to be $8 million, and complete – Palestra of Performance on Market Street.
And this is good.
The tours are low-key, a dozen or so people.  The relaxed pace and Reeser’s low-key recitation encourage questions and discussion.
(He and wife Brenda are a hoot:  If she thinks he’s speaking too softly, she reemphasizes his point for him – and listeners who may have missed it – in the form of a question, asked with a flourish.)
After that dust-up in January, when the executive director led the staff out virtually – no, actually – en masse, Reeser and his board members are right to invite the public in and show them that, yes, everything is just fine.
Even more so.  The ambition of the facility – with its spacious atrium and 600-seat main theater – can’t help but impress.

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Doug Reeser is disarmingly frank.  Just when you’re wondering whether to raise one of the sticky questions the staff did on its way out the door, he beats you to it.
No, there’s isn’t an orchestra pit, per se.  But there’s space in front of the stage for an orchestra, particularly when – due to all the wiring used in many modern productions – most performances will be on a platform to allow the electronics to be strung beneath.
Yes, you can see the stage from the seats – one criticism was that visibility is blocked.
To prove his point, the lanky retired engineer – if you call working uncounted hours overseeing construction of a huge building retirement – plunks himself into one of the plush seats, and shorter people plunk down behind him to test his assertion.

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A lot of information surfaces.  For instance, about why “& Civic Center” has been added to the name – to better define Foothills role.  Or that naming rights are being shopped around; that alone could close the remaining $750,000 deficit.
These tours are a good idea, and a reassuring one.  If the Foothills board decides to expand them.
If the idea is to show Foothills is back, the tours accomplish their goal.