Council Denies Grove Theatre Co.’s Subsidy Request

The Garden Grove City Council on Monday night rejected for the first time in eight years a subsidy request from the Grove Theatre Co., which operates the city-owned, downtown cultural arts complex.

Despite the relatively small size of its request--a $53,000 advance on its $83,000 budget request--the Grove has become the focus of a struggle between council members who see it as a cultural boon to the city and those who see it as an unprofitable, highbrow venture.

The vote was 3 to 2 against the request. Voting no were two longtime opponents of the subsidy, Ray Littrell and Robert Dinsen, together with Mayor J. Tilman Williams. Voting for the subsidy were Milton Krieger and Walt Donovan.

“We’ve got to take care of the public safety first,” Littrell said.

Williams added that the Grove “has taken a new direction and become more professional,” a reference to the quality of the theatrical presentations. “And I just don’t believe that that was the original intent.”

Williams also proposed formation of a task force to reassess the direction of the Gem Theatre and mentioned leasing it to a profit-making group. “Instead of free rent, let’s get some dollars back in the coffers for the citizens of Garden Grove.”

Williams called for a joint meeting of the City Council and the Grove board of directors for next Monday to further discuss the subsidy.

Robert C. Dunek, president of the Garden Grove Assn. for the Arts, parent organization of the Grove Theatre Co., told the council that he regretted news accounts about any “strained relations” between the Grove and the City Council and denied that there was any truth to them. However, Littrell pointed out that there had been pickets outside the council chambers denouncing Littrell. Pickets said they worked at the Grove.

The Grove produces six plays a year during a nine-month season at the Gem Theatre. In association with Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana, it also puts on a 12-week outdoor Shakespeare festival every summer at the Festival Amphitheatre. The college contributed $155,000 to the festival last year but has reduced its subsidy to $105,000 for the upcoming festival, which begins Sunday.

The theater company, which projects an operating budget of $562,000 for fiscal 1988-89, draws about 60% of its income from box office receipts. It thus faces an even greater financial crunch than usual. A rule of thumb in the theater industry is that nonprofit theater companies generally require a subsidy to meet their operating expenses.

In an effort to upgrade its image, Garden Grove decided in 1974 to gentrify its downtown area by renovating Main Street and establishing a Village Green area as a showcase for the performing and visual arts, according to city officials. To do that, the city received a $3-million grant in 1975 from the federal Economic Development Administration.

After turning the Mills House into an art gallery at the north end of a park that it had inherited from the county, the city renovated the 178-seat Gem Theatre, a one-time movie house, at the park’s south end in 1978. The total cost for turning the Village Green into a cultural showplace came to about $2 million, of which $1.2 million was spent on the Gem renovation.