Garden Grove to Phase Out Theater Subsidy

City funding for the Grove Theatre Company will end over the next three years, the Garden Grove City Council decided Monday following an acrimonious debate.

On the same 3-2 vote, however, the council also decided to extend $18,000 to the company, which produces the annual Grove Shakespeare Festival, to allow it to complete its 1988-89 season.

Councilmen Milton Krieger and Walter E. Donovan, staunch supporters of the Grove, went along with Mayor J. Tilman Williams’ two-part motion as the only way to help resolve the theater company’s immediate cash crisis.

Councilman Raymond T. Littrell, who claimed he wanted to support the Grove, voted against the motion because, he said, he still had unanswered questions about the theater company’s finances. Littrell had previously voted to grant the company $35,000. Councilman Robert F. Dinsen, who opposes governmental subsidies for all the arts, joined Littrell. The theater company had previously proposed a five-year phase-out of city support, but the council rejected the idea.

Under Williams’ motion, the city would reduce its subsidy to the Grove by one-third over each of the next three years. No dollar amount for such a subsidy was specified, but the theater company had sought $83,000 for this year.

Since their June vote rejecting the Grove’s subsidy request of $83,000, the five Garden Grove councilmen have been caught up in a fierce debate over the role of cultural arts in their city, with many residents attending council meetings and writing letters in support of subsidizing the theater from Garden Grove’s $47.7-million municipal budget.

Theater company officials report receiving more than $60,000 in private donations since the controversy began, including $30,000 last week from the Garden Grove Strawberry Festival Assn.

The Grove company, now in its 10th season, operates from the city-owned Festival Amphitheatre and Gem Theatre. Its present offering is “The Comedy of Errors.”