Performing Arts Center at Menlo-Atherton High School – opening soon

Linda Hubbard Gulker:

Finishing touches are underway in advance of the opening of the new Performing Arts Center at Menlo-Atherton High School the second weekend in October, highlighted by a performance by Music@Menlo’s Artistic Directors, cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han, and special guest Anthony McGill, principal clarinetist of New York’s Metropolitan Opera. The center – built in collaboration with the City of Menlo Park – includes a 492-seat theater, lobby, box office, rehearsal and practice rooms, and stagecraft workshop for production of scenery and props.
According to Sequoia Union High School District spokesperson Bettylu Smith, the 31,000-square-foot, 65-foot-high building is inspired by the beauty of the historical grove of Valley Oak trees on campus and has been carefully designed and landscaped to create a tree house-like environment and the impression it is following the contours of an already existing hillside.