Grove Theatre’s Midsummer Nightmare to Last Awhile

The 10th annual Grove Shakespeare Festival remained in danger of closing after the Garden Grove City Council again postponed action Tuesday night on the Grove Theatre Company’s request for $33,000 to complete its summer run. City officials said the council would consider the company’s request again at an as-yet unscheduled meeting during the week of July 11.

The company had sought an advance of $53,000 on its proposed $83,000 subsidy for both the Shakespeare Festival and its regular season at the Gem Theatre. The city administrative staff had recommended that the council grant the full amount, but last week the council gave only $20,000--enough, theater spokesmen said, to keep the festival open through July 14.

Meanwhile, the festival is soliciting donations from individuals and corporations to complete its season, which opened Friday with “Richard II” and is scheduled to continue through September with “The Comedy of Errors,” “King Lear” and “Venus and Adonis.”

Thomas F. Bradac, the Grove’s producing artistic director, said more than $7,000 has been raised in private donations since the council denied the subsidy advance June 20. “We’re optimistic, based on the last five days of fund raising, that we’ll be able to keep going,” Bradac said. “How long we keep going, I don’t know.” He said the company expects to have at least enough funds to complete “Richard II’s” run, which is scheduled to end July 16.

Bradac added that “The Comedy of Errors” could open on time if city money is made available, even as late as the week of July 11.

The council has been bitterly divided over the future of publicly supported theater in the city of 135,000. Two members, Raymond T. Littrell and Robert F. Dinsen, assert that the plays of Shakespeare and other offerings of the Grove are too sophisticated and too expensive for their “hard hat” constituents, while two others, Milton Krieger and Walter E. Donovan, argue that the festival brings attention and class to culture-starved Garden Grove.

Mayor J. Tilman Williams, who is up for reelection in November, is the swing vote and has yet to indicate a firm position on the festival. Williams has proposed, among other suggestions, placing the future of the Shakespeare festival before the city’s voters in the November election.