CENTER TO NAME NEW DIRECTOR

An Orange County Performing Arts Center panel says it has picked another “final candidate” in its now 10-month-old nationwide search for a new executive director and expects to make a formal announcement within 30 days.

Speaking at the Center’s annual organizational meeting Tuesday night, officials would neither identify their latest candidate nor discuss the status of negotiations with him. “All I can say now is that we do have the man in hand and that we hope to be announcing who he is--and presenting him to (the Center membership)--within the month,” William Lund, head of the selection panel, told 200 Center members at the Westin South Coast Plaza.

The nationwide recruitment began last June after Len Bedsow, who was hired as the Center’s first executive director in early 1981, announced his intention to retire. Bedsow, 67, vacated the post Feb. 1.

Negotiations with the selection panel’s original choice collapsed last February. Although Center officials have not identified that candidate--who reportedly rejected the Center’s offer--sources close to the search said he was Lawrence Wilker, president of the Playhouse Square arts complex in Cleveland and a former Shubert Organization executive.

Lund, the Center’s new chairman of the board, and Timothy Strader, the new board president and chief executive officer, also announced that a program committee is being formed to help set booking policies for the Center’s 1986-87 opening season. They said they hope to announce the signing of some of the initial major attractions by this June.

Among the big-name organizations sought are the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York City Opera Co. and the American Ballet Theatre. Lund and Strader reaffirmed that Orange County-based organizations also will play “significant roles” in the first season.

Officials reported that Center construction in the South Coast Plaza Town Center in Costa Mesa remains on schedule. Set to open in October, 1986, is a 3,000-seat multipurpose theater, along with a 300-seat “black box” facility and the “grand portal” main lobby. (A 1,000-seat second theater, still to be designed, is to be built after 1986.)

Henry Segerstrom, the fund-raising chairman, said the amount raised to date is $62.2 million--all in private monies--toward an overall target of $85.5 million. He said $45.7 million has been raised for construction (the goal is $65.5 million), and $16.5 million for an endowment fund to underwrite maintenance and operating costs (the goal is $20 million).

The first concert to be presented in the Center--a private tribute to donors on May 19--will be in the 300-seat “black box” facility. Members of the Orange County Pacific Symphony, Orange County Master Chorale and Pacific Chorale are scheduled to perform.