Built in 1928, the historic Balboa Theater in Newport Beach, CA, was originally a theatrical facility that presented vaudeville and other staged productions. By the 1940s, the theater had turned its interest to presenting first-run films, and it soon became the entertainment hub of Newport Beach. By the 1970s, the theater had evolved into a popular revival/art film house and continued to serve as a focal point for the community until its 1992 closing.

The capital campaign to renovate and restore the Balboa Theater will raise the necessary funds to create an intimate venue for performing arts, film and arts education activities to meet the needs of Newport Beach, the communities surrounding Newport Beach and the wider Orange County community.

The project has been envisioned to expand the Theater’s original design as a movie house into an intimate, state-of-the-art performing arts facility that will support:

While the Theater’s original walls have been preserved and will constitute an important element of its redesign, the entire interior of the theater will be newly engineered and constructed to meet the expanded use of the building. A brand new third floor, a roof garden, artist dressing rooms, restrooms, elevators and a fully functioning lobby will be incorporated into the building’s design to meet the requirements and needs of a modern performing arts facility.

The Theater has long served Newport Beach and Orange County as a movie house. There is great affection towards and desire for the Theater to reopen and to once again serve as the cultural hub and identity of Balboa Village and the surrounding environs of Newport Beach.

The renovation project has been enthusiastically embraced by the community and community leaders, and has been called "the pride of our community" by well-known Orange County arts philanthropist, Socorro Vasquez. Kris Elftmann (president of Noelle Marketing Group) sees the renovation as "a real golden opportunity for the community to have a wonderful little theater," while Jerry Mandel (past president of the Orange County
Performing Arts Center) believes that the Theater's reopening presents "an enormous opportunity for all of us in Orange County."

The Theater’s expanded use as performing arts facility will draw upon existing relationships between the Balboa Performing Arts Theater Foundation and top-tier arts institutions throughout Orange County. It will serve as an intimate venue in which to experience live performances that will be unique in Orange County. This will enable the Theater to present artistic talent under its own aegis, as well as acting as adjunct to arts interests throughout the county, such as the Newport Beach Film Festival, Pacific Symphony and Laguna Playlhouse.

Expansion of the Theater’s offerings to include performing arts in addition to its traditional movie house fare is an initiative that is being embraced with a firm understanding of the market dynamics of the 21st century. This includes use of the theater as a vibrant arts education center, with educational programming developed and implemented in collaboration with local school systems. Such programming will be offered through on-site outreach efforts into the schools themselves, as well as being offered in the theater proper. These collaborative efforts will provide much-needed arts educational outreach while supporting economic revitalization of the immediate area in ways that a more-conventional vision can not.

•The Balboa Theater will be transformed from a single-screen movie theater into a multiuseperformance space

•The restored and expanded-use facility will serve as a new, exciting and organic point of interest in Balboa Village

•The renovated facility will provide opportunities for professional development, top-flight artisticprogramming and educational outreach

•The redesigned facility will provide an acoustically vibrant venue for the presentation of live arts events

•The renovated Theater will enhance already existing relationships between the Balboa Theater and major arts groups throughout Orange County, while providing opportunities for performances unique to the size and scope of the Theater

•The Theater will offer innovative and collaborative instruction in the arts, establishing vibrant partnerships with our public schools that address the challenges they face in cuts to their arts education programs, effectively nurturing both the artists and the audiences of the future

•The Theater’s Rooftop Deck will provide a unique venue for a variety of social and civic functions that will directly benefit neighboring businesses and the Balboa Village in general

•The Theater will operate primarily during the beach off-season, targeting its outreach and programming to the residents of Newport Beach and greater Orange County

•The Theater’s reopening will serve as an anchor for the revitalization and transformation of the Balboa Village, solidifying the Village’s unique and historic cache as a desired tourist andeducational destination

•The Theater's reopening will expand local businesses’ economic opportunities beyond theirtraditional tourist season

•The Theater’s redesign and reopening will further enhance the existing desirability of Newport Beach as a choice place of residence