Starlight Bowl Making a Comeback

Starlight Bowl Making a Comeback
September 2016

About 300 volunteers turned out on a Saturday in August to help clean up Starlight Bowl, the 80-year-old outdoor theater in Balboa Park that became well-known for both musical theater and having to stop performances when airplanes headed to Lindbergh Field flew overhead. It has been six years since its last production. A new nonprofit group called Save Starlight publicly launched its efforts to revive the venue with a larger than expected turnout armed with shovels, rakes, and trash bags. Volunteers also joined in making a videotape that will be used for fundraising for rehabilitation and the group's organization.

Last year, Steve Stopper, head of Save Starlight, pressured the city of San Diego to end its lease with Starlight Theatre to make way for a new operator and it did so this summer. Councilman Todd Gloria, who was one of those who helped clean up the overgrown and vandalized theater, told the Los Angeles Times that the city may accept new lease bids by the end of the year.

Stopper, a former sound designer and engineer at Starlight, wasn't the only theater veteran at the cleanup. So were SOHO member and longtime theater critic Welton Jones and Steve Karo, who helped lead the long, ultimately successful effort to reopen the Balboa Theatre downtown.

Save Starlight is an initiative working to restore, revive and revitalize Starlight Bowl-an open-air amphitheater in the heart of San Diego's Balboa Park. To help bring back the Starlight Bowl, call (619) 252-1744 or visit savestarlight.org

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