Celebrating the 85th Anniversary of the Newhall Auditorium

The history of Newhall Elementary School and the Newhall Auditorium goes back 100 years.

The Signal

In 1925, the Newhall Grammar School and auditorium were erected on the current campus location of Walnut Street. This campus stood for the next 14 years, before it burned down in 1939. Through community funds, and President Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, Newhall Elementary School and the Newhall Auditorium were able to be rebuilt in their current location. Some other notable WPA Projects include the Dock Street Theatre in Charleston, South Carolina; Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles; and Timberline Lodge in the Mount Hood National Forest. The WPA projects totaled 40,000 new and 85,000 improved buildings; with 9300 new auditoriums, gyms, and recreational buildings constructed.

When I first arrived to the Newhall School District in 2017, I did a deep dive into the history of Newhall, the elementary school, and the auditorium. I knew the building was original, but I didn’t know just how important this venue was to the community. One of the first things I found was a newspaper clipping from The Signal in 1940 announcing the start of construction of the Newhall Auditorium, as seen in this photo. Included in that article was the architect’s sketch of what the school campus and auditorium would look like. Remarkably, the front of our building still looks like that drawing.

Further research led me to find an article dated September 12, 1941 shared with the community the announcement of the opening of the Newhall Auditorium. It outlined that “permanent seats to the number of 486 and 164 folding chairs have been installed, giving a total seating of 650. The stage curtains and drapes have been installed, and a small moving picture projector set up…A feature of the auditorium which is attracting much favorable comment is the acoustics. Although the space is a large one, the material used for walls and ceiling so deadens reverberation that an ordinary speaking voice from the stage is plainly heard from every point on the floor.” When the renovation for the auditorium took place beginning in 2016, one of the key elements that the project team focused on was the acoustics. The Newhall Family Theatre features acoustic paneling on all interior walls, making the venue ideal for any type of live performance.

As we approached this milestone anniversary, I did additional research to see what type of events were held in the early years of the venue. Three months after the auditorium opened to the community, the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred and the United States entered World War II. The Newhall Auditorium served as a location for selective service registration, held training exercises in response to possible attacks, and showed films from battlefields from the war. To maintain community morale: play productions were held on stage, students still used the venue for promotion ceremonies (the first class being the class of 1942), and community sing events were held where citizens gathered together to sing songs of the time.

During the renovation period, it was important to the Newhall School District to honor the history of the building with the various design elements that can be seen today. Every detail of the venue was selected with a purpose to invoke the feeling of the original building, which opened 85 years ago. As we have grown over the last 9 years, we strive to accommodate various types of events: plays/musicals, dance recitals, movie screenings, stand-up comedians, live music. Our overall goal is to ensure that the Newhall Family Theatre is a place for the community. Here’s to another 85 years of creating lasting memories for the Santa Clarita Valley through the performing arts.