Two decades after it closed, Petaluma’s Polly Klaas Theater eyes 2021 grand reopening

“This is such an iconic building, and people have wanted this renovation done for many years,” said Anne Gealta, president of the Petaluma Rotary Club. “It was a huge community effort to get this done.”|

It was the day before a milestone years in the making.

Raine Howe, executive director of the Polly Klaas Foundation, walked over old floorboards caked in dust Thursday, ducking through vertiginous scaffolding before stopping to stand inside the cavernous belly of one of Petaluma’s most conspicuous downtown structures.

By the end of this year, she said, the red-shingled former church at the corner of Western Avenue and English Street will welcome life back inside again, more than two decades after the youth performing arts center named in memory of Polly Hannah Klaas shuttered its doors and fell into disrepair.

Before the hectic pageantry of Friday’s groundbreaking celebration, Howe took a moment to envision what the 100-seat theater will look like when extensive renovations are completed.

“I want it to be Grandma, Mom and Dad sitting in the seats over there, watching their kid on stage, who will then grow up and come back to watch their kids and then their grandkids,” Howe said. “I want it to span generations. I want it to really serve the community and Petaluma’s kids.”

Friday marked a new phase in the building’s history, as dozens of Petaluma and Sonoma County residents gathered to officially mark the beginning of a nearly $2 million project to revive the Polly Hannah Klaas Performing Arts Center and attempt to reframe how Klaas is remembered.

Nearly 50 people assembled onto the theater’s triangular front lawn Friday to celebrate the launch of a top-to-bottom renovation of the historic structure, and celebrate the creation of a new space for youth participation in performing arts.

“This is such an iconic building, and people have wanted this renovation done for many years,” said Anne Gealta, president of the Petaluma Rotary Club. “It was a huge community effort to get this done.”

The 110-year-old building was dedicated to the memory of 12-year-old Polly Hannah Klaas in 1994, to honor her love of performing.

She had been abducted from her family home a year prior, Oct. 1, 1993, during a sleepover with friends. Her disappearance rattled the community, igniting a nearly two-month search for Klaas that enlisted upward of 4,000 Petaluma residents, while the little girl’s disappearance attracted a blitz of intense media attention.

Her body was eventually found Dec. 4, 1993, outside Cloverdale, and Richard Allen Davis was arrested, tried and sentenced to death for her abduction and murder. He remains on death row at San Quentin State Prison.

Out of the tragedy, the Polly Klaas Foundation was formed, a nonprofit devoted primarily to educating area schoolkids about online safety and aiding in the recovery of missing children across the country.

Yet ever since taking the helm of the organization in 2013, Howe often heard from outraged community members about the dilapidated theater, bearing Klaas’ name and sitting empty directly across from City Hall.

Up until the city closed the building over lack of funds in 2000, the Polly Klaas Community Theater hosted many youth performances. Several of the attendees at Friday’s event recalled seeing a show there years before.

In 2018, the foundation launched an ambitious project to gain control of the city-owned building and restore it into a functioning performing arts hub for Petaluma’s youth. By the end of last year, the foundation raised $900,000 in cash donations while dozens of local companies stepped forward to donate what Howe estimates is more than $1 million worth of in-kind donations.

Nearly every dime came from Petaluma or Sonoma County residents and companies, she said.

“We got $15 in the mail and we got gifts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Howe said. “Considering we did our fundraising in the middle of the pandemic, the community really came out in ways I didn’t think possible. I’m just so grateful for all the help and support we’ve received.”

The project’s leading donor, Sonoma County resident and arts benefactor Vickie Soulier, has long been a supporter of Santa Rosa’s Transcendence Theatre Company and has also financially supported three theater companies in Marin County.

“When things get hard, arts are often the first to go, and I really feel kids need more than reading, writing and arithmetic. They need the arts,” Soulier said Friday.

Her December 2020 donation exceeding $300,000 catapulted the fundraising campaign to its $900,000 goal, allowing the foundation to move forward.

Howe says construction will last through the summer leading up to a tentative fall 2021 grand opening.

Petaluma-based company Team Ghilotti is spearheading much of the construction and extensive repairs, from installing new support beams and sewer infrastructure to installing new concrete pathways and ADA-compliant entry points.

Kevin Ghilotti, 32, owner of the Petaluma-based family-run company, said he used to drive past the red-shingled former church every day for years, not knowing its history or its years of disuse.

Though Ghilotti knew little of the architecturally striking building’s history, he is painfully familiar with Klaas’ disappearance, as is nearly every Petaluma native or longtime resident.

“It’s great to think that when you drive by, you’ll see kids hanging around here, hanging on the rails and having fun. You’re going to see life here, after all this time,” Ghilotti said. “It’s going to be a revival of that energy.”

Contact Kathryn Palmer at kathryn.palmer@arguscourier.com, on Twitter @KathrynPlmr.

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