By dint of donations and hard work, community arts center opens Friday

On a back street in Napa, amid the sounds of hammers and saws, workers are putting the final touches on space that could well represent a new era for the arts in Napa.

The Lucky Penny Community Arts Center opens on Friday night with a production of the joyful musical Oliver!, itself a tale of trials and tribulations that all come right in the end.

To say there is a flurry of activity in the new space now would be an understatement more of a blizzard than a flurry as we get ready to welcome the first audiences, said Barry Martin. He, along with Taylor Bartolucci, are the founders of Napas Lucky Penny Productions, and the driving force behind the new venue.

The facility will not be fully completed, but all the necessary elements will be ready, and were excited, nervous and a little dazed, Martin said.

Just six months ago, Bartolucci and Martin announced their plans to transform a former tile showroom into an arts center, but the project has been in the dreaming stage for a long time.

From the very beginning, back in 2009 when Barry and I founded Lucky Penny, we had a dream and goal of one day having our own facility, Bartolucci said. Performance space in Napa was so limited and costly, and the more productions we produced, the harder it was to find a venue.

Over the past few years, Barry and I have encountered so many different people, and we realized there was a greater need in our county, and that need was a community arts center. As a county that prides itself on tourism, music, arts and culture, its crazy that we dont have a location for our artistic residents to gather, she added.

Yes, we have the Lincoln Theater, City Winery at the Napa Valley Opera House and the Uptown Theatre, but there is no facility in Napa that not only acts as an arts presenter, but also an arts creator and incubator.

Hence, our dream: a facility that brings all art disciplines together. Visual and performing arts, music and dance, and more. An affordable, accessible creation space was not only desperately needed in Napa, but desperately deserved.

The duo were used to dreaming big on a budget. They had, after all, begun Lucky Penny by each contributing $200. They set out on a search throughout high-rent Napa until they finally found a space that could work.

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By dint of donations and hard work, community arts center opens Friday