The theater was dark and hushed - no easy feat when you consider the audience was mostly under 10 years of age and we all pretty much knew the plot.

The occasion was a marvelous matinee performance of the musical “Cinderella” at the Marian Theatre on Santa Maria’s Allen Hancock College Campus, staged by the college’s Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts during the Christmas holidays a few years back.

The costumes were beautiful. The prince was handsome (and a great singer). The stepmother was appropriately wicked and the stepsisters at turns loathsome and laughable. It was a wonderful family afternoon. And it was the first of many trips to PCPA plays because it was also something else: a professional production of a beloved Broadway musical.

The witches of 'MacBeth' gather 'round the fire in PCPA's Spring 2000 production.

Professional theater is what PCPA is all about. The two-year program is called a “conservatory” because it trains students in an old-fashioned (almost medieval) way - “with apprenticies working alongside masters to learn a craft,” explained PCPA publicist Craig Shafer.

Almost all of the PCPA performing arts faculty are members of the Actors Equity Guild, meaning they’re performers themselves with a list of stage and screen credits from nearby Los Angeles or faraway New York.

Tuesday through Sunday, the 100 or so students in the PCPA program take classes from the faculty by day; by night they may find themselves working side by side on one of PCPA's nine annual plays.

"When the master and the apprentice 'practice' together, learning takes place," Shafer stressed.

A familiar cast of characters in PCPA's production of 'The Wizard of Oz,' Winter 1998.

The artisan apprenticeship model is the foundation at PCPA, which opened its classroom doors in 1964, and has been thriving ever since. In addition to the Acting program, PCPA also offers a full Technical Theatre Curriculum, which trains students in all of the "behind the scenes" aspects of theater, including stage management, scenic design, sound, lighting, costuming, paints, script analysis, theatre history, and props.

All acting students take classes in voice, acting, speech, singing techniques, dance, theater history, stage combat, movement, musical theatre ensemble, theatre processes, and Shakespeare. The mix is designed to give students a complete understanding and appreciation of theater.

It seems to be working. PCPA graduates include Oscar nominee Kathy Bates (a student in the late 1960s whose teachers remember her as fantastic), Oscar winner Robin Williams (there for the summer session only at about the same time as Bates but his teachers still remember him quite vividly), Kelly McGillis (of “Top Gun” and “Witness”), “LA Law” hottie Harry Hamlin, Mercedes Ruehl (“Married to the Mob,” “The Fisher King” and “The Last Action Hero”), and chipper Lauren Tewes of (remember this in your next game of Trivial Pursuit) “The Love Boat.”

The Music Man' grandstands at PCPA in this Summer 1995 production.

More recent PCPA grads are also faring well on stage: Jim Polous landed a role in the hot Broadway musical “Rent. PCPA alumnus Daniel Davis earned a nomination in the 2000 Tony Awards for Best Featured Actor in a Play (for his performance in “Wrong Mountain”). In the same Tony Awards ceremony, PCPA grad Boyd Gaines won his third Tony, this one for Best Featured Actor in a Musical (“Contact”).

These days, students from across the United States and even Europe are applying to the two-year PCPA program. In front of a panel of faculty, hopeful students perform a song, and a contemporary theater piece. PCPA faculty say they’re looking for students who are “serious” about theater.

That, in turn, makes for excellent PCPA productions. Students must audition for their roles in PCPA productions, frequently (especially during the summer session) competing with members of PCPA’s company of professional actors for roles.

All this makes for some great theater, from an audience viewpoint. PCPA’s annual seasons are a mix of well-known Broadway musicals (the 2000 Summer Season included “Gypsy” and “Anything Goes”) Shakespeare (“The Taming of the Shrew” in the same season) and contemporary works (like David Mamet’s “Oleanna” scheduled for 2001, or Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia,” staged in 1999.

'Anything Goes' on stage at PCPA Summer 2000.

PCPA productions are staged in any of three delightful settings. We saw “Cinderella” and later Stephen Sondheim’s Tony winner “Into the Woods” in the Marian Theatre on the Hancock Campus. The 450-seat “thrust” theater has a nearly round stage with curving “amphitheater” style rows of seats surrounding the stage. It’s almost impossible to get a bad seat anywhere in the house.

Also on campus is the smaller, studio-style Severson Theater, a more intimate setting for productions.

'A Midsummer Night's Dream' Summer 1999 at PCPA.

Since 1974, PCPA has also been staging productions at the outdoor Festival Theater in Solvang, a beautiful 700-seat open-air amphitheater. The Danish-themed community of Solvang invited PCPA to stage a Shakespeare production at the theater in the summer of 1974. It was such a hit PCPA expanded the outdoor summer productions in partnership with Solvang Theaterfest, owners of the amphitheater. Shakespeare summer productions at the Festival are a real treat.

So don’t let the lettuce fields surrounding the theater fool you. There’s some fine theater going on atop the PCPA stage floorboards. And while you might not see Robin Williams there this summer, who knows - you might just see the next generation’s Robin.

Or Kathy. Or Harry. Or…

- By Teresa Mariani

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