Kofman Auditorium

This old school auditorium on the campus of Alameda’s old high school has been the site of my little girl’s end of year dance recital for the past three years. We are there for two Sundays in a row every June for dress rehearsal and our big show. There are dressing rooms under the stage and plenty of seats for the audience. Sound and lighting equipment is solid. Bathrooms fill up quickly and water fountains can be tough to locate. While no food and drink is allowed in the theater, the Kofman is walking distance from a variety of restaurants. If there is no other event happening on/​near campus on a Sunday, you may get lucky and find a spot in the district employee lot. However, the parking structure a block away is free on Sundays.

Charming spot to take in a performance and what a beautiful building. It looks like there is a bit of a need for maintenance and repairs, but the bones are fine indeed. Street parking was capped at 2 hours, but I hear that during performances they are easy on the ticketing.

Nicely remodeled since I went to school here. Chairs don’t squeak like crazy. Love coming here for the Alameda chorus concerts held biannually, and for the AHS musicals.
Parking along the street is free at night after 6pm.

My church rented out this place for Sunday service during the summer and this place is a pretty nice auditorium. Lots of seating (albeit not the most comfortable), there’s a balcony for seating, lots of options for lighting, and the high ceiling of the room allows for good acoustics when sound is involved. Parking is hard to find around the area, but other than that, this place is better than most auditoriums I’ve been to.

Our group rents out this facility for large meetings a lot. I think they have built up a good trust relationship with us, and we try to abide by their rules and regulations pretty strictly. They have a large stage and plenty of seating, which is exactly what we need on those occasions. I definitely recommend renting this place out if you have need of such space.

The good people of Alameda were shaking some fierce ass this past Saturday at the Kofman Auditorium. Every year, this venue plays host to a very special performance by Beatles cover band, The Sun Kings. The proceeds go to Toys for Tots, and the band plays Beatles hits for a good 2 hours – much longer than the Beatles themselves ever played for.
All of the action happens in the little open area at the base of the stage which serves as a dance floor for most of the Sun Kings’ show. Good thing water – sold at the entrance – is exempted from the no food and drink policy. And it’s not just nostalgic baby-​boomers cutting it up down there, either. Everyone from 7 to 70 was having a blast dancing to live Beatles songs. I almost forgot what it was like to to shake it somewhere where dancing isn’t defined as dry-​humping everyone within a 5-​foot radius.
The seats, like the building itself, are creaky and old… but not run-​down. It’s actually Alameda High School’s auditorium. While it’s not as new and large as the Berkeley Community Theater on Berkeley High’s campus, it is more intimate and holds its own as a venue for a medium-​sized show in the East Bay.
Beneath the ionic columns towering in front of the auditorium are little metal plates embedded in the ground and engraved with the years of various graduating classes. I was informed by a graduate of Alameda High that embedded in the concrete beneath these are time capsules! Hopefully he wasn’t just blowing smoke up my ass. Also, Mrs. Fields (of Mrs. Fields Cookies), Danny Chauncey from .38 Special, and (briefly) Jim Morrison school here and most likely attended school functions in this very same building.