"Reporting from San Diego - The Elizabethan theater built for the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition in San Diego's Balboa Park was never intended to be permanent.
But as the Old Globe approaches its 75th anniversary, the company is celebrating not just longevity and survival during tough economic times, but the completion of a new theater and education complex on the same green spot where abridged Shakespeare shows were first performed."
On Monday, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders will join executive producer Louis G. Spisto, Globe board Chairman Donald Cohn and lead donor Conrad Prebys to dedicate the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center, which includes the new Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre and the Karen and Donald Cohn Education Center.
At the heart of the handsome, steeply gabled $22-million complex is the White Theatre, a 250-seat, arena-style stage. It gets a test run Monday night when a black-tie crowd will hear Paulo Szot and Kelli O'Hara, stars of Lincoln Center Theater's Tony award-winning revival of "South Pacific," sing "Some Enchanted Evening" and other Rodgers and Hammerstein favorites.