Civic Arts Plaza Theatres — Attraction in Thousand Oaks

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat turns into A kick to the head and a kick to the shin.

I love live theatre and go often, yesterday was my first time at this theater and first to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coats....

We drove about an hour and arrived early and visited the concession stand. I ordered a spirit, a water, a bag of Doritios, and a snack for our daughter, total was $35.00 or so.

At that time we were told that we were not allowed to bring food into the theater, which is fine. On our way to our seats and after finishing our snacks, which we purchased at a premium at your concession stand, we were reminded at least two other times that there is no food allowed in the theater.

During the MCs introduction, there was another reminder over the PA to silence your phones and candy wrappers (which was surprising to me as there is no food allowed inside the theater).

I was initially surprised by the amount of young children in the section we were sitting in (mezzanine) but hey, Im all about family and brought our daughter with us. I was really surprised when someone started handing them all candy, I thought... this is probably not a great idea.

As much as I would like to say that I was able to enjoy the performance. The child and father behind me talked the ENTIRE performance. The kid kept kicking my chair and I had to look back at the father several times to remove his childs feet from behind my head. After I got kicked in the head I started looking for a place to move but there really was no option.

The woman to my right also had four children, one child on her lap (about 5 years old) throwing some sort of tantrum kicked me in the shin.

The lady in the row in front of me was taking pictures and videos the entire time so I had to look through a cell phone for many of the peak moments.

This is a professional theatre?

Lastly as I mentioned before regarding the "no food allowed in the theater", I had to listen to a symphony of candy wrappers the entire show as well as the lady to my right eating apples... really, eating apples at a live theater performance? She couldn't eat before or maybe at the break? Couldn't wait an hour?

There were users who witnessed this but decided to do nothing. I really would rather not pay good money to attend a show only to have to police the audience.

I feel like we completely was of money and a terrible way to experience a theater performance.

The performers were entertaining, it was just really hard for me to sit back and enjoy the show with all of the rudeness going...

While the design of the hall and lobby are very nice, there's a few issues with the theater itself. Others have complained about this before and no changes have been made since, unfortunately. My husband is 5'11" and has a slim build. He struggled to get comfortable with the seat. The seats are oddly tiny and crammed together. There is no dividers on both sides of the rows, so you have to move past so many people. We luckily chose end seats. The speakers are painfully loud. We saw John Cleese's 50th anniversary tour for Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and the sound would blast. It wasn't until the clanking of the knights' armor during their fight scene that our ears were physically hurting. We had to stuff wadded up tissue in our ears to protect them and bring relief. I know we were some of the few younger people there where most seemed 50+, but we've been to plenty of concerts that didn't sound...

Decent theater, have been here many times in the past 2+ decades. Easy to be unsure of where you are without someone directing you, but the ushers are friendly.

I was prompted to leave a review today because I'm sitting in the Kavli Theater right now and on the balcony it is about 80 degrees and people are needing to fan themselves. The ushers agree they are overly warm. I considered leaving at intermission, but of course the night was not free so here I stay. Unfortunately it is a very unpleasant and memorable experience so it will be hard to recommend someone coming here in the future. I have never paid for an indoor show on any level that has been as uncomfortable as this (including "cheap" community theaters in the area and such). Very...