Council Reverses Itself, Votes $15,000 Grove Subsidy

In a surprising turnaround, the Garden Grove City Council on Monday night voted to give the Grove Theatre Company $15,000, which theater officials said would finance the balance of the 10th annual Grove Shakespeare Festival now under way.

But the council rejected a potpourri of motions--ranging from funding the fall season at the Gem Theatre to phasing out city support entirely over five years--that could have resolved the troupe’s immediate fiscal predicament.

The theater company operates the three-play Shakespeare festival at the outdoor Festival Amphitheatre and a five-play indoor season under a contract with the city. The Grove had asked for an $83,000 subsidy, about 15% of its 1988-89 fiscal budget.

The council had turned down the $15,000 subsidy request at its meeting last Wednesday. But this time, the most outspoken opponent of the subsidy, Councilman Raymond T. Littrell, reversed himself and joined subsidy advocates Councilmen Milton Krieger and Walter E. Donovan in approving the staff-recommended partial subsidy.

The council, however, refused to support Littrell’s quest to place the issue of theater funding on the ballot in November.

Several councilmen had maintained that the plays of William Shakespeare are too sophisticated for their “hard-hat community.” They voted earlier this month to turn the question of subsidizing cultural arts in Garden Grove over to a blue-ribbon advisory panel.

Robert C. Dunek, a spokesman for the Grove, said the theater company’s board of directors was pleased that the council nearly matched the partial $20,000 subsidy granted late last month to enable the Shakespeare festival to open despite the majority’s misgivings.

But he expressed disappointment at not getting a decision from the council that would allow the troupe to solidify previously arranged plans for the fall, and he announced a modification in the Gem season.

“We believe it’s simply untenable not to have a fall season,” Dunek said, referring to an option the theater board had been considering. “Our strategy will be to cancel the first play, ‘No Way to Treat a Lady,’ as originally proposed, and save money by substituting a less-expensive selection.”

Dunek said the theater company would produce “And a Nightingale Sang” by C.P. Taylor. The substitution is expected to save $18,000 in production costs.

The City Council has been caught up in controversy after its decision in June to deny the festival’s funding request for the first time in a decade.

After wrestling with the issue for weeks and grudgingly approving an advance of $20,000 to the festival, the council had voted last week to establish a 15-member panel to examine an appropriate place for cultural arts in Garden Grove.

Mayor J. Tilman Williams proposed Monday night that the council hold off all decisions about the Grove fall season and the Shakespeare Festival until the blue-ribbon panel returns its report. However, that panel has yet to be fully appointed. Krieger and Donovan claimed that Williams’ proposal was merely a “filibuster.”

The festival’s next offering, “The Comedy of Errors,” is to open Friday.