BOARD ORDERS STUDY : CENTER PONDERS SECOND THEATER

Plans for a much-discussed second theater at the Orange County Performing Arts Center moved ahead this week as the Center’s board of directors approved a feasibility study, Henry T. Segerstrom announced Friday.

The study, for which the Center will seek an outside consultant, will look at the architectural and financial aspects of the structure, said Segerstrom, chairman of the Center’s board and its chief executive officer.

In early planning of the Center, construction of a second theater was to begin in the fall. But Center officials pushed that timetable back to cope with the higher-than-expected costs and initial programming at the main 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall theater, which opened last September.

Now the Center has tentatively set 1990 as its target for starting the second theater, which, in early discussions, was planned largely for drama performances by Costa Mesa’s South Coast Repertory. A preliminary plan for the theater called for an smaller facility with about 800 to 1,000 seats, next to the main hall.

“The Center has proved its need in the community, and now we are moving along with the corollary commitment of the second theater,” Segerstrom said, referring to the vote the board took at its Thursday meeting. “It was a broad authorization to proceed (with a more elaborate study),” he added, saying the board’s “open-ended” action did not fix any specific goals for the theater.

In other actions Thursday, the board elected four members, Segerstrom said. They are: Leonard Shane, chairman of the Huntington Beach-based Mercury Savings & Loan Assn.; Joan Beall, a supporter of museums in Orange County, Los Angeles and New York and the wife of Donald R. Beall, president of Rockwell International Corp.; John R. Miltner, vice chancellor for university advancement at UC Irvine, and Timm F. Crull, president and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles-based Carnation Co.

In addition, Center officials announced the resignations of board members Harvey Stearn, president of the Mission Viejo Co.’s California division, and Robert Engman, founding president of Opto 22, a Huntington Beach electronics company. Stearn said recently that he left the board in May to devote more time to his duties as chairman of the California Arts Council. Engman could not be reached for comment.

Looking toward the one-year anniversary of the Center’s opening last Sept. 29, Segerstrom and Center President Thomas R. Kendrick devoted much of Friday’s press conference to an upbeat summary of the $70.7-million facility’s “extraordinary first year” and an optimistic appraisal of the prospects for its second season.

Segerstrom said volunteers are “ahead of schedule” in working on the Center’s Performance Fund, which was started May 21 with a goal of raising $1.5 million toward the Center’s $4.1-million 1987 operating deficit. But he declined to give specific numbers.

In addition, Segerstrom said the Center has reduced the total of uncollected pledges from $14 million to $13 million since May and has paid off $400,000 on $10 million owed to banks for the Center’s construction.

The additional $600,000 in pledges were used for “adjustments” to the Center, including new tiles and acoustical improvements, Center officials said. Looking toward fund raising and ticket sales in the future, Kendrick said the Center will have to market itself more aggressively than in the past.

“We’ve already detected that our prospective donors and prospective supporters will be more selective in what they purchase over the next year, and we are expanding into areas that you would not expect,” he said.

He specified the Center’s series of contemporary jazz musicians and its newly announced Ambassador Series of international artists as efforts to vary the Center’s fare and target more specialized audiences.

“You do not expect to be filled to capacity” for those kinds of offerings,” Kendrick said. “We’re looking at 65% to 70% capacity for the Ambassador Series, and jazz would have to break even at 85%. . . . We’re testing.”

Kendrick said subscriptions to next season’s five musicals--”My One and Only,” “Cats,” “Me and My Girl,” “South Pacific” and “Can-Can”--are selling rapidly.

He repeated his high hopes for the Center’s increased emphasis on classical ballet, which he said was unexpectedly popular in the 1986-87 season. Still, he called ballet a “high-risk situation” from the standpoint of ticket sales.