All the World’s a Stage and El Cerrito Is a Player (part 1)

This is part 1 of a history of the Contra Costa Civic Theater, founded in 1959 in El Cerrito.

Starting from a makeshift stage in a high school gym and a derelict movie house in the 1950s, El Cerrito’s home-grown live theater community has not only staged hundreds of dramas, comedies and musicals, but also helped similar communities grow around the Bay Area and across the country. 

From writing practical lesson books for drama teachers and students to training actors and directors to providing stage props to other theaters, the programs at Contra Costa Civic Theatre and El Cerrito High School share the spotlight. 

The programs trace their roots back to two families, both of whom remain active in the community. Samuel Elkind, better known as Dr. Sam, launched the El Cerrito High School drama program in 1953 by creating classes in Drama and Stagecraft and putting on plays in the gym. Louis and Bettianne Flynn took over the empty Vista movie theater at the corner of San Pablo and Blake streets and established the Contra Costa Civic Theatre in 1959. 

The Contra Costa Civic Theatre’s first home was the Vista Theater at the corner of San Pablo Avenue and Blake Street. Photo courtesy Matthew Flynn.

Today, CCCT, located at the corner of Pomona Avenue and Moeser Lane in a remodeled Boys Club structure, is officially christened the Flynn Building. When El Cerrito High School was rebuilt and reopened in January 2009, the new campus included a museum where Dr. Sam’s director’s chair is on display, along with his well-used stage makeup kit. 

The show opens
After serving as a director of radio programs (and writing them, too) in the U.S. Army, Elkind returned home to San Francisco where he completed his education, got married, and started a family. He began teaching in the 1950s, first at Roosevelt Junior High in Richmond, then at El Cerrito High. The family moved from Richmond to El Cerrito in 1963. Under his tutelage, students put on one drama and one musical during each school year. 

“Dr. Sam” Elkind, who started the drama program at El Cerrito High School. Photo courtesy Risa Nye.

Elkind’s daughter, Risa Nye, who graduated from the school in 1969, remembers her dad taking her and her sister with him to rehearsals, where the students would babysit the young girls. “When I was a little girl, I remember seeing the students on stage in high heels, smoking and kissing and thinking they were glamorous grownups,” Nye said, “but now I realize that they were really relative babies.” 

Although he considered a career in entertainment, Elkind ultimately decided he wanted to teach. Lack of acting chops among students was not a deterrent to participating. Nye remembers her dad asking a student who wasn’t cut out for acting “Do you know how to use a hammer?” When the student said yes, Dr. Sam told him, “Ok, you’re in stagecraft.” 

“My dad was a great role model and mentor for students. His door was always open,” Nye said. “He enjoyed watching his students blossom.” The family continued the theater tradition and Nye said her father lived to see his grandchildren acting on stage in school plays. Nye’s son Myles also caught the theater bug and was an active member of CCCT drama camp through high school and beyond.

In a 1960 interview in the Caballero, the high school newspaper, Elkind said his pet peeve was the lack of theater and its related facilities at the school his pet peeve. “It robs the students of opportunities,” he said. 

When the Contra Costa Civic Theatre staged its first series of plays in 1960, Elkind directed “Our Town.” In 1967, he joined the San Francisco State University faculty as a professor of theater arts. During his career, he also wrote a series of instructional books for teachers and students of drama. 

CCCT’s first stage

Louis and Bettianne Flynn met in Seattle, where he was studying theater at Seattle University and she was a critic attending another college. They married in 1949 and moved to El Cerrito in 1956 when Louis was hired as a bookkeeper for California Parkerizing Co. in Berkeley.

Their daughter, Kathleen Flynn Ray, said her father dreamed of being a star as a young man and was featured in a KQED production on the history of San Francisco. Her father appeared live as a jailed prisoner wearing striped clothing. At the time, she was convinced her dad had been arrested and wouldn’t go to sleep until he came home. He got his break in local theater by playing Elwood P. Dowd in “Harvey” at the Richmond Community Players in Point Richmond. A rave review in the San Francisco Chronicle led to a 10-week run for the show. He went on to star in other shows.

But her father didn’t like how people were treated in theater and set out to create his own theater and do a better job. In the fall of 1959, the Flynns had their eyes set on using the vacant Vista movie theater at the corner of San Pablo Avenue and Blake Street, but the journey to setting up a community theater required a detour to Reno. 

The Vista (in what is today the Atlas Liquor store) was a property of Blumenfeld Theaters, a Bay Area chain, and “closed and trashed” at the time, Ray said. Her mother borrowed money for a Greyhound bus trip to Reno to negotiate a $300 a month lease with the owner Pete Claudianos. Once that was secured, Bettiane approached Mechanics Bank for a $20,000 loan, secured by the Flynn’s house and that of a neighbor. 

“The only reason the theater is here is because of my mom and her business acumen,” Ray said. “It’s all due to her.” 

Bettianne Flynn, the driving force behind the Contra Costa Civic Theatre. Photo courtesy Kathleen Flynn Ray

With the funds, the Flynns and a small army of volunteers rehabbed the theater, built a stage and put on their first show, “Dear Ruth,” which opened Feb. 5, 1960. “It was fabulous–I had the greatest childhood,” said Ray, who was 9 years old at the time. “The Sunday dress rehearsals were a family event with my dad directing and my mom taking notes.” 

Among the cast members was Robert Campbell, then a grocery clerk at the Mayfair market (now the site of the Mayfair apartment complex). Campbell would go on to other things, including representing west Contra Costa County in the state Assembly for 16 years. In all, six plays were staged that first year, including “The Orchid Sandwich,” written by Louis Flynn. 

The cast of Orchid Sandwich takes a bow after their performance during the CCCT’s first season in 1960. Photo courtesy Kathleen Flynn Ray

Also around this time, Bettianne Flynn and Betty McCarthy created a program for children. Called Pocket Theater, the program allowed kids to learn all aspects of theater, culminating with on-stage performances. The program for young people continues today, with three after-school programs serving different age groups and a summer drama camp, with the fees providing a major source of financial support for the theater. 

Two years after the theater opened, a torrential storm caused storm drains on San Pablo Avenue to back up and flood the theater during a performance. Soon after that, Bettiane Flynn appeared before the city council and, using her persuasive powers, convinced them to fix the drains. The Richmond Independent newspaper featured her forceful appeal under the headline “Second Storm Hits El Cerrito.” The drains were repaired and the project was informally known as “Flynn’s ditch,” Ray said. 

In 1968 the theater building was sold and CCCT found an interim home in the Harding Elementary auditorium, sharing the space with school programs and community events. In 1970, the Flynns convinced the city to lease them the closed Boys Club building on Pomona Avenue for $1 a year, a deal that still holds 54 years later. 

And again, a large group of volunteers helped turn the structure, composed of two surplus military buildings, into a theater. A foundation was poured, the stage was designed and built, and rows of raised seating were installed. The seats were reclaimed from an Oakland burlesque theater and reupholstered in the basement of CCCT’s new home. 

“To prevent vandalism, we sometimes slept in the building,” Ray said. “We brought our dog and slept on couches. When you love something as much as we loved it, it’s not a problem.” 

According to a detailed history on the CCCT website, “Finally, with a new stage and 199 seats to sit in, CCCT held its grand opening on Friday, July 23, 1971, with ‘Play It Again, Sam.’ Straight plays were done until 1973, when the theater gave its first musical production of “My Fair Lady.” 

While most people familiar with CCCT see only the theater and lobby, the building also contains a wardrobe room, dressing rooms, office space and a rehearsal area on the main floor. The basement includes a large shop for building sets, a tool room, and a rabbit warren of smaller rooms for storing props ranging from couches to chairs, kitchen glassware and bottles to a cabinet full of telephones, a stash of suitcases and briefcases to a stack of vintage radios, lanterns to lampshades. In one corner are parts from the old burlesque theater seats for making repairs. 

The CCCT building includes a large workshop in the basement and a wardrobe room filled with costumes. Photos by Jon Bashor.

“It’s a real luxury having a storage area in our theater,” Ray said. “We also loan out furniture and props to other local theaters.” 

Another luxury is having an online system for buying tickets. Ray recalled how she and her brother Matt used to handle ticket requests by answering a second phone in their El Cerrito home.

Matt and Kathleen Flynn look over the script for Hay Fever with their father Louis Flynn in 1969. Photo courtesy Kathleen Flynn Ray

As they grew up and pursued their own careers, Ray and Matt Flynn didn’t stray too far from their roots. Flynn majored in architecture at the California College of Arts and Crafts (now the California College of the Arts) and then earned a second degree in scenic design at UCLA. He became a set designer for television shows, including “The Office” and “Just Shoot Me.” When the pandemic hit, he retired and moved back to El Cerrito, living in the family home. He’s also back with CCCT, serving as vice president of facilities. 

Ray went on to teach drama at El Cerrito High School for six years, sometimes drawing upon the teaching books written by Sam Elkind. When the West Contra Costa Unified School District filed for bankruptcy in 1990, her job was cut. She then spent almost 30 years teaching at the Head-Royce School in Oakland. 

The school didn’t have a dedicated theater or stage so Ray continued her family tradition of building a stage and hanging lights in the gym, staging shows for 10 days and then taking everything down until the next show. When the school shut down due to COVID, she managed to stage plays via Zoom, which she described as heartbreaking. 

But she and her students rose to the challenge. In staging “Annie Jr.,” she divided the show in half and had two students play Annie. The student who played Daddy Warbucks had moved to Atlanta and for his dancing scenes, he held a computer screen showing his partner. 

“Every time I hear ‘You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile’ from that show it makes me smile,” she said. Now retired from teaching, she is also a member of the CCCT board and usually can be found in the lobby greeting people coming to shows at the theater. 

On stage and on the board
Kimberly Mayer was a kid when she was invited by a friend to her first work party to help build sets at CCCT in the late 1970s. Then the friend took her to see a show at the theater. This was followed by taking summer classes and acting in a show. And then more shows, including “The Music Man,” “Mame” and others. She played the queen in “Once Upon A Mattress.” In her 20s, Mayer worked on costuming for various shows.

“CCCT has been a crucial part of my life. It’s a great place with opportunities to do lots of interesting things,” said Mayer, who is the director of the California Social Work Education Center at UC Berkeley. “It’s also a great multi-generational place, with the kids’ programs being the heart and soul of the theater.”

Mayer served on CCCT’s Board of Directors from 2004-15, including as Board President from 2012-15, when her increased travel schedule made it necessary to step down. She continues to be a donor and advise the board when asked.

Steve Kirby’s route to the board was different. He was a member of the Boys’ Club in the late 1950s. Years ago, he convinced Louis Flynn and some of his buddies to talk about old memories as Kirby got it all down on a tape recorder. And as a fourth-grade teacher at Castro Elementary, Kirby taught both of the Flynns’ grandchildren. When the theater created a formal board of directors, Kirby accepted an invitation to join.

Then he made his bid to appear on stage. With no experience, he went into the audition for the musical “Fiddler On the Roof” wearing a beanie and, playing his guitar, sang “I Won’t Grow Up.” 

“I didn’t realize that serious actors would come in with a music script and ask the musicians to play it,” Kirby said. “Since I was the board president, I figured they wouldn’t kick me out. I got a call back, but not for a singing part.” 

He went on to act in more musicals, including “Oliver,” “Annie” (which he co-produced) and “My Fair Lady,” which he produced. “It was all really cool,” he said. 

As a teacher, Kirby also sees the value of live theater for younger participants. 

“Theater provides stuff you can’t get in the schools. It’s a great opportunity for kids to sing and dance, be creative and have fun,” he said. “You can see the younger ones open up and gain confidence.” 

New challenges
In 2020, CCCT was getting ready for its next show when COVID hit and everything shut down on the eve of opening night. The set for “The Waverly Gallery,” a play by Kenneth Lonergan, collected dust as it sat unused on the stage. When the Bay Area and the rest of the country began to open back up, the theater entered a new era.

By Jon Bashor. This article appeared in the January 2024 issue of The Forge. Part 2 can be found on the historical society website.