First Look: The $43.5M Joan & Irwin Jacobs Performing Arts Center
Rows of untouched seats face a stage still smelling faintly of sawdust and fresh paint. The air is quiet, almost reverent, as if the newly constructed theater is holding its breath before the curtain rises. After years of planning, one of the remaining puzzle pieces of Arts District Liberty Station is finally finding its place: the $43.5 million Joan and Irwin Jacobs Performing Arts Center (The Joan).
Named in honor of co-benefactor Joan Jacobs, The Joan is Liberty Station’s most recent addition to its lively Arts District and the new home of the Cygnet Theatre, which spent the past two decades in Old Town.
Housed in Building 178 (formerly a 1940s-era Naval Base Exchange) at Truxtun and Roosevelt roads, the project marries history and modern design. Inside the 42,000-square-foot space is a 282-seat mainstage, flexible 150-seat black box theatre, and open-air lobby. Backstage, the full kit includes green rooms, dressing rooms, and even an orchestra space.
“This is beyond anything we’ve ever done,” says Lisa Johnson, president and CEO of Arts District Liberty Station (formerly NTC Foundation). “It’s going to elevate our entire Liberty Station community.” Since the late ’90s, the nonprofit has overseen the transformation of its 27 historic buildings into a cultural playground full of galleries, dance studios, and the Public Market. Adding a dedicated performance venue, she says, was always the missing piece.
The idea first surfaced in 2008, when there was talk of converting the space into a theater, but the plan was deemed too costly to operate. By 2017, however, the demand for live performance space was impossible to ignore. Meanwhile, Cygnet Theatre was ready to trade its Old Town nest for something more permanent. A partnership was born, and the two nonprofits got to work raising funds and getting the show on the road.
To execute the vision, Arts District Liberty Station tapped Christopher Bittner of obrArchitecture and the theater-design wizards at Fisher Daxon Associates. For Bittner, who’s been behind some of Liberty Station’s most striking renovations, including the Public Market, the challenge was less about creating something flashy than about honoring the bones of a 4,000-square-foot historic building with a layered past.
The cast of Follies at The Joan
And what a past it was. Before The Joan, Building 178 was basically a sailor’s one-stop shop: a department store, a tailor, a coffee shop, a disco called “Hot Sounds,” a movie theatre, and even a bowling alley tucked in the basement. “The bowling alley was one of the biggest design inspirations,” Bittner says. “We thought it was so unique and weird that it was in the historic building, so the entire lobby was inspired by its design.”
Not in the neon bowling pins and cosmic carpet way, but with a sleek, open-air design; wood and steel detailing; and triangular floor inlays that point guests toward the stage like arrows on a lane. Think Gatsby, if he traded his Champagne tower for a bowling alley. Behind the scenes, the original lane numbers hang quietly by the dressing rooms—a wink to the building’s past life.
“Everything we talked about design-wise, we talked about acoustically,” Bittner explains. It’s one thing to build a well-designed theatre. It’s another to build one right under a flight-line—you can’t have the “Point Loma pause” cutting off the final act of the show. Eight inches of concrete and layers of acoustic materials and treatments fixed that right up, essentially grounding all flights until the cast takes their final bow.
Not a bad landing spot for a theatre company that spent the first five years of its life in a renovated women’s gym in Rolando. Despite its humble beginnings, Cygnet has now made a name for itself in the performing arts community and already has its full season at The Joan mapped out. Co-founder and artistic director Sean Murray compares it to “artistic whiplash,” or planning a multi-course dinner party. “You don’t want all dessert or all main entrées,” he says. “Every dish is one that complements the other, but [they] are totally different.”
Kicking off its full-course season is Goldman and Sondheim’s Follies—the gripping story of former Follies girls returning to the theater where they once performed, now to be destroyed and turned into a parking lot. The irony only makes it more riveting: the first show in a brand-new space featuring an old, crumbling 1930s theater as a set.
Plus, it’s a “ride home play,” according to Murray. “You leave the show and you don’t just forget what you saw. You actually have a conversation about it driving home,” he explains. “For us, that’s what theatre’s about. It’s not just being entertained. It’s about looking at ourselves, other communities, and other ways of living and opening our eyes to life.”
But The Joan isn’t just for loyal Cygnet fans. It’s meant to be part of the larger Liberty Station experience. The venue deliberately serves no food, nudging patrons to wander across the campus for dinner or a drink, while flyers for local artists and pottery classes dot the walls.
“We want to create that feeling that you’re not just going to see a play at Cygnet; you’re actually going to come have an experience,” Murray says. “Go to dinner, walk the grounds, have a bottle of wine, see the show, and linger after and argue about it. It’s all a part of the circular love fest.”
Ribbon cutting for The Joan will be held September 5, followed by a first preview of Follies on September 10 and an official opening date of September 13.
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