THEATER MERGER A HIT AT OCC, GOLDEN WEST

This is one merger that won’t make the business pages, but its success has some far-reaching fiscal and creative consequences. Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa and Golden West College in Huntington Beach have combined their theater departments, sending instructors and students commuting between the two campuses in order to fully utilize the facilities and talent at both locations.

Called the Coast Community College District theater department, the experimental two-year program went into operation last August, and at the end of the first semester it is drawing favorable reviews from students and faculty.

But the mood wasn’t always this cozy. In fact, in pre-Proposition 13 days--when students were plentiful and budgets more bountiful--there was an edge of competitiveness between the two campuses, which maintained fully staffed, autonomous theater departments.

According to Stewart Rogers, 48, a Golden West instructor who serves as coordinator of the new program, the departments had distinctly different reputations.

Many considered OCC a launching pad to an acting career; Golden West had the lure of its physical facility, attracting students who wanted to do a show on its Mainstage.

“We did totally different things. We had nothing to do with each other. We both handled lots of students; we both had lots of frill courses,” Rogers said.

Then came 1978 and the passage of Proposition 13.

“With Proposition 13 came the decline . . . . There were arbitrary cuts that went through the district, and for a lot of reasons, theater suffered severe financial setbacks,” Rogers said.

In 1983, predicting a $5.5-million budget deficit, Coast Community College District trustees voted to send layoff notices to more than 100 district employees. The theater teaching staff at Golden West was slashed from six instructors, full and part time, to one; at OCC, from 11 to one.

“That’s when we bottomed out,” said Rogers, who has taught theater in Orange County since 1964.

The slashing of theater arts in the college district was one of the grievances cited by persons opposed to the board of trustees. By November, 1983, opponents of the regime--and of its layoffs--mounted a successful campaign, and three candidates backed by the American Federation of Teachers were elected to the five-member board. The new majority had campaigned to rehire the laid-off teachers, including some of the theater arts personnel, and did so in January, 1984.

When the rehiring was done, the district faced red ink, but the state’s subsequent release of previously withheld funds, supplemented by unexpected savings and income, gave the district a $7-million surplus by the end of the last fiscal year, June 30, 1984.

With funds allocated to restore only six theater faculty positions--two full time, four part time--the idea of pooling resources of the two theater arts departments was hatched. And as faculty meetings began in earnest, the defensiveness, competitiveness and territoriality of the past dissolved, according to Rogers.

Bill Purkiss, 44, who has taught theater at OCC for 15 years, recalled, “Up until then, the campuses were autonomous. But when the going gets tough, there’s no such thing as autonomy; there are no sacrosanct programs.”

“Everyone just rallied around,” added Rogers. When the deans of the two schools of fine arts and others hammered out a proposal, the administrators agreed to give it a two-year trial run.

In this era of limited resources for community colleges, OCC and Golden West theater students have had their options doubled. They are exposed to twice the number of faculty members, have the opportunity to take a wider variety of classes on both campuses and are now able to practice their craft in six theaters.

This maximum utilization of theater facilities on both campuses is a major benefit of the joint program. Last year, many of the theaters were standing empty or had been commandeered for other purposes. Today, all the facilities are in regular use, from the tiny, 75-seat Playbox at Golden West to the 1,600-seat Robert Moore Auditorium at OCC.

One benefit Rogers and Purkiss hadn’t anticipated was the support among faculty members.

“We’ve always had the reputation of being so divisive amongst ourselves, and it wasn’t true,” Rogers said. “We fight a lot, but we have as many and as lengthy meetings as are necessary to articulate problems and get them addressed and resolved. It’s keeping us so honest. We have to work harder. There’s a tremendous amount of camaraderie and encouragement.”

Added Purkiss: “We can bounce ideas off each other. In a small theater department, there’s no chance to do that. We’ve become a very potent force by coming together like this.”

The program involves about 500 students, Rogers estimated. Some are headed for careers in acting or behind-the-scenes work as directors, designers or technicians; others are general education students seeking an introduction to theater. The response from students has been enthusiastic, Rogers said, but old habits die hard.

“The single biggest obstacle is an allegiance to an environment, a facility, rather than a program or a person,” Rogers said. That allegiance is complicated by the host of annoying details and recurring questions that accompany any change: “Where’s the business office?” “Where do I have to go to get my keys?” But the tiny irritants are being conquered one step at a time as the program finds its feet and strides toward permanent status, an expanded faculty and an integrated department curriculum.

The way Purkiss sees it, the innovative experiment, which offers students diversity and challenge, has contributed to a dramatic decrease in the drop rate for his fall semester classes, from a past average of 40% to 50% to the present 6% to 10%.

Of the program, Roger Pritchard, 36, a theater major at OCC, said: “There’s so much more opportunity. There are so many more plays going on. Last year, everything just died. OCC only put on two productions. It was pretty bleak.”

Pritchard, who hopes to become a “working” actor, also finds it impressive that students now have the opportunity to audition for shows on both campuses.

“It’s encouraging for students to have further outlets,” he said. “I wouldn’t normally go to another college to audition for a play. The expanded faculty is a real boon, also. You tend to get really stale if you take classes from just one teacher year after year. You don’t get a broader view.”

OCC student Kara Greene, 21, also finds the program an improvement. “The advantages much outweigh any disadvantages,” she said. “Everybody’s putting their all into it this year. The shows are much higher quality.” Performing on the Golden West campus last fall broadened her perspectives, she discovered. “It’s amazing how much where you work affects the performances,” she said.

As the new department coalesces, one of its goals is to produce revenue. “Dracula,” last fall’s Mainstage production, got the program off to a good start, bringing in $7,000 during a sold-out run.

Operating with a budget of $175,000, the department has plans to mount an ambitious spring schedule. Productions include “The Skin of Our Teeth,” Feb. 21 through March 3 in the OCC Lab; “The Glass Menagerie,” Feb. 22 through March 3 at the Golden West Playbox; “Amadeus” (directed by Purkiss), March 8 through 17 on the Golden West Mainstage; “Death Takes a Holiday,” April 12 through 21 at the Playbox; an evening of one-act plays by Tennessee Williams, May 3 through 12 at the Playbox, and “Man of La Mancha,” May 10 through 19 on the Golden West Mainstage. Purkiss is currently negotiating for rights to “Evita” as the OCC summer musical production, which would be the work’s first non-professional production in Orange County.

“Today, community college enrollment is generally down in the entire state and Orange County, but as far as theater is concerned, we’re healthy,” Rogers said. “We’re having a renaissance that can be substantiated by box-office numbers and by enrollment.”