Legacies | MOXI: The Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation

MOXI is located at 125 State Street adjacent to the popular Funk Zone neighborhood and just two blocks up from Stearns Wharf and the beach. The building was designed by the late Barry Berkus and AB Design Studio and is LEED Gold Certified. Photo courtesy MOXI.

MOXI is located at 125 State Street adjacent to the popular Funk Zone neighborhood and just two blocks up from Stearns Wharf and the beach. The building was designed by the late Barry Berkus and AB Design Studio and is LEED Gold Certified. Photo courtesy MOXI.

MOXI Marks Leap Into Year Two With New CEO, Expanded Programs

By Leslie Dinaberg

It has been a really incredible first year for MOXI … and we’ve just gotten started,” says Robin Gose, president and CEO. Gose began her tenure at MOXI late last year, after serving as director of education at the Thinkery in Austin, TX, where she oversaw all programming, exhibits and facilities at what was once Austin Children’s Museum.

MOXI’s attendance its first year has far exceeded expectations (175,000 guests versus approximately 120,000 estimated) and Gose says, “Attendance continues to be strong. The feedback that we’re hearing from members of the community, from donors, from tourists that come up, is that everybody is really excited by what they see at the museum.”

MOXI specializes in STEAM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Art-Math) learning through interactive experiences outside the traditional classroom environment. Because of the interactive elements, and individual children’s continued growth and development,

MOXI is designed so that it will be different each time you visit, with new challenges to solve and new discoveries to uncover throughout the 17,000 square-feet of interactive exhibits across three floors (including an incredible 360 degree view rooftop).

The award-winning, LEED gold certified building—which had the design challenge of fitting into the Spanish style neighborhood while creating both a high tech and kid-friendly vibe and was designed by the late Barry Berkus + AB Design Studio—has played an important role in the revitalization of lower State Street as a destination for both tourists and locals.

“We have about 75% local, and 25% non-local visitors,” says Gose, adding that school visits include many students from Santa Barbara County, as well as Ventura County, San Luis Obispo County and beyond. Last year, 10,000 school children visited MOXI on field trips, and nearly 50% were from Title I schools.

Adults are also big fans of the venue. MOXI’s quarterly Afterparty events have all been sell-out affairs, and include live entertainment, demonstrations, games and local food and cocktails. Also popular are the pop- up Twilight Time evening hours for guests 18 and up who want to explore the museum kids-free. These are advertised primarily via social media, Gose says. The theme for 2018 is “Making,” with monthly spotlights on subjects like cardboard engineering and digital creativity.

These themes extend to summer camp activities, as well as new weekly projects in the Innovation Workshop makerspace. Also new are an exhibit design partnership with the Dos Pueblos High School Engineering Academy and Toddler Tuesdays, a volunteer-run program where the youngest guests can have special story time and other activities and explore the exhibits without visiting school groups onsite.

With 44 full and part-time staff and nearly 100 volunteers, ranging in age from 13 to 75 years old, MOXI has quickly become an important part of the community. In fact, earlier this year the museum provided alternative classroom space to Montecito students and teachers displaced by disaster and opened its doors free of charge to Thomas Fire and Montecito mudflow evacuees as well as first responders and their families.

Upcoming fundraising events for the nonprofit museum include an intimate rooftop concert with Jackson Browne on August 10 and the annual gala fundraiser MOXI@Night on September 22. For information or to purchase tickets, email development@moxi.org or call 805/770-5003.

MOXI,125 State St., Santa Barbara, 805/770-5000, moxi.org.

This story was originally published in the 2018 summer issue of Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine.

Dos Pueblos Inaugurates New Theater Complex with Beauty and the Beast

Belle (Emily Day) and Beast (Blake Bainou) play leading roles in Dos Pueblos High’s production of Beauty and the Beast this weekend. (Dos Pueblos High photo)

Belle (Emily Day) and Beast (Blake Bainou) play leading roles in Dos Pueblos High’s production of Beauty and the Beast this weekend. (Dos Pueblos High photo)

The long wait is finally over. When Dos Pueblos High School opened in 1966, a lack of funds prevented the construction of a theater, and for more than 40 years students made due with a 135-seat converted classroom for their productions.

Now those original Dos Pueblos students can finally take their grandchildren to see the school’s first production in its new $14 million Performing Arts Center. Dos Pueblos Charger Theater will present “Beauty and the Beast” on May 22, 23 and 24 at 7 pm, with an additional matinee on May 24 at 2:00 pm.

“The purpose of this show is basically community outreach and to get people aware of the department and the new theatre,” says Theater Director Clark Sayre.

The crew has been hard at work behind the scenes getting the production ready for it’s Thursday night debut in the new 749 seat theater, which was funded by the Measure V bond and includes state-of-the-art sound and lighting equipment, an orchestra pit, two side stages, dressing rooms, a construction room and prop room, as well as drama and choral classrooms.

While the students are thrilled to be in the new performance space, the adjustment is not without its challenges.

“It’s really cool because it’s big, but it’s really hard because it’s big,” says Megan Harris, who is co-stage manager, along with Ana Zarate.

“Coming into this we had a lot of people with absolutely no experience whatsoever, so simple construction techniques that even someone who’s done one show before would know had to be taught,” explains Gabe Rives-Corbett, one of two student technical directors, along with Tim Jenkins. Typically productions work with modular, pre-made set pieces that just need to be painted for each new show. “We had to build everything. Even the workbenches are new,” says Rives-Corbett.

“In the old space we could never build anything that was higher than three or four feet,” says Sayre. “So we could never do a second story for anything. Without Gabe and Tim, we would not be moved into this theater and the lights wouldn’t be running and the sound wouldn’t be running. They’ve just made this whole thing possible.”

“The first time we set foot in here was the end of November and it was still heavily under construction. They were still screwing the stage down when I first walked in,” says Rives-Corbett.

“It’s coming slowly together,” says Harris.

“It always happens somehow. Sometimes no one is really sure how,” says Rives-Corbett.

” Theatre magic,” explains Zarate, whose father stops by with her computer so she can make some last minute changes to the program. She also designed the yellow posters seen around town.

These students and many of the more than100-members of the cast and crew have been working around the clock to bring “Beauty and the Beast” to life. It’s a complicated show with 133 different costumes to create, an effort led by costume designer Miller James, who is the costume designer for Opera Santa Barbara. “I just treat them like any other costume crew. I don’t consider them students … I expect them to work just like a regular costume house,” he says.

Putting on a production like this is a huge organizational effort, explains Sayre. “I always tell people that being a theater director in high school is like running a theater company, basically. You do everything that the theater company does but you do a lot of it yourself, so I’m bookkeeping and writing grants it’s just crazy.”

Other professionals involved with the production include choreographer Carrie Diamond, who is the Artistic Director of Ballet Santa Barbara and a former teacher at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City; set designer Daniel Girard and musical director Sarah Phillips, who both work with Stage Left Productions; and Sayre, who directs Rubicon Theatre’s Young Playwrights’ Festival, in addition to teaching theater full-time at Dos Pueblos.

Key cast members include Amy West and Emily Day as Belle, Anna Englander as Mrs. Potts, Lev Allan-Blitz as Gaston, Matt Parker as Belle’s father, Blake Bainou as the Beast, Claire Gordon-Harper as Chip, Rachelle Clarke as Babette, Mason Kopeikin as Cogsworth, Kristi Ware as Madame De le Grande and Trevor Dow as Lumiere.

Through a strange twist of fate, the Dos Pueblos production of “Beauty and the Beast” comes just a week after a Santa Barbara High production of the same show. Sayre explains that he has been working on doing the high school premiere of another Disney musical, “Aladdin,” but it was delayed, so he wanted another really big show to open the new theater.

“I wanted something that hadn’t been done. And then the ironic thing is that Otto Layman, the director at Santa Barbara High also chose it. … The reason that happened was nobody’s fault at all. He had heard that I was doing ‘Aladdin’ and I heard that he was doing ‘Hair’ which he is in the summertime. We didn’t talk directly and then we both just chose this and then by the time we both chose this it was way too late for either of us to go back, because we started this way back in December or November in terms of the planning,” Sayre says.

“You know what’s great is our kids all showed up on their opening night and I think are very supportive and they’re noting differences, just stylistic differences, which is great to take one script and realize there’s lots of different ways you can go with this. And then their kids are coming to our opening. So it’s really I think it’s a school building thing rather than anything else. It’s turned really positive,” Sayre says.

Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for students and seniors and can be purchased online at www.dphs.org. Tickets are also available at the school’s business office from 8 am to 4 pm Monday — Friday. For more information, please call 968-2541 ext. 228.

Originally published in Noozhawk on May 19, 2008.

La Cumbre principal goes recruiting

La Cumbre Junior High, courtesy SBUnified.

Touting a closer-knit junior high community, one school aims to turn tide of enrollment

The vibe is different at La Cumbre Junior High these days. While the enrollment numbers are still down, new principal Jo Ann Caines’ dynamic energy seems to be resonating, at least with the people who know the native Santa Barbaran.

Students at Adams School (where she was principal until a few months ago), once a symbol for white flight, are now flocking to La Cumbre.

While only about 450 of the approximately 600 eligible students will attend La Cumbre in the fall, “the composition of our student body is going to be drastically different,” said Caines, “with more of the middle-income and middle- and high-achieving students that didn’t come here before.

“We’ve turned a huge corner thanks to Adams School,” she said, with all but 11 of the more than 100 sixth-graders planning to attend La Cumbre. “So while we’ll be very similar in size, we’ll be hugely different.”

This fall, Caines and assistant principal Jorge Fulco will concentrate on Monroe and Washington schools. Caines has even recruited an Adams fourth-grade parent, Katie Parker, to help her with the outreach.

“Jorge and I have been on the road since Feb. 1 doing outreach,” Caines said. “We gave more tours here … than they have in the prior five years combined.”

Of course, pitching the school is one thing, but telling a compelling story is another — and Caines certainly has one with her reorganization plan.

It might seem to be by design that, when Santa Barbara Community Academy upper-grade students move to La Cumbre’s campus in the fall, the junior high will begin to implement a core knowledge learning community that builds on the same concepts the academy has used successfully. But Caines said she did her research on the core knowledge curriculum (a sequenced, coherent program that uses a grade-by-grade core of common learning) prior to the school board’s decision to move the academy there.

Caines also has a Gifted and Talented Education (GATE)/pre-advanced placement learning community planned, a liberal arts/college preparatory group, and an intensive English development/newcomers community similar to the successful program she implemented at Adams.

Caines emphasized that the communities — which will be separated geographically to make it easier on students — are not tracks.

“Students can participate in any one that they choose or they qualify for,” she said.

Each student will also have a homeroom class where she hopes the smallness of the school will work to its advantage.

“Teachers will not only know their students but the students in that community,” she said.

The staff is coming on board after what Caines characterized as lots of “not easy” discussions.

“Change is hard,” she said. “They’ve been through four principals in two years, so it’s hard to say, ‘Is this really a change or is it going to be different next month kind of thing?’ So what I said to teachers is if it’s not a match for you then you should put in for a transfer because part of what I’m doing is building a new team, and more than anything I want people to be here because they want to be here.”

Three teachers have put in for transfers, but Caines said others are anxious to come to the school because of the new programs.

“Let’s be real. If you asked 100 adults about junior high, 97 of them will say they hated junior high,” she said. “It’s all about friends … Even though we’ll do outreach to the parents, … we’re going to put a lot of energy into the kids, because kids really do decide …They want to go where their friends are.”

Blurred boundaries

Transfers are one of the hot topics of discussion where school needs are concerned. When students transfer in from other districts, the district gets additional money, but intra-district transfers don’t change the funding and campuses like La Colina Junior High (which had only 591 students in 1993-94 and was up to 1,027 students in 2004-05) are getting overcrowded while campuses like La Cumbre Junior High (which had 1,030 students in 1993-94 and now has 433 students) have empty rooms..

Here’s a snapshot look at where secondary students are going (all figures are from the 2004-05 school year):

Junior High

Goleta Valley Junior High School

Incoming: +21 students from other districts; +48 students from within the district (total +69)

Outgoing: -1 student to other districts; -79 students to another school in the district (total -80)

La Colina Junior High School

Incoming: +29 students from other districts; +250 students from within the district (total +279)

Outgoing: -0 students to other districts; -50 students to another school in the district (total –50)

La Cumbre Junior High School

Incoming: +14 students from other districts; +41 students from within the district (total +55)

Outgoing: -2 students to other districts; -257 students to another school in the district (total –259)

Santa Barbara Junior High School

Incoming: +43 students from other districts; +154 students from within the district (total +197)

Outgoing: -2 students to other districts; -107 students to another school in the district (total –109)

High School

Dos Pueblos High School

Incoming: +74 students from other districts; +218 students from within the district (total +292)

Outgoing: -0 students to other districts; -101 students to another school in the district (total –101)

San Marcos High School

Incoming: +61 students from other districts; +325 students from within the district (total +386)

Outgoing: -7 students to other districts; -382 students to another school in the district (total –389)

Santa Barbara High School

Incoming: +151 students from other districts; +268 students from within the district (total +319)

Outgoing: -7 students to other districts; -328 students to another school in the district (total –335)

— Source: PAT SALEY

Originally published in South Coast Beacon on June 2, 2005.