$18,000 City Subsidy : Grove Theatre Company Is Relieved but Wary

Thomas F. Bradac, artistic director of the Grove Theatre Company, expressed guarded optimism Tuesday about the Garden Grove City Council’s decision a day earlier to grant the troupe $18,000 with the proviso that all city funding would be phased out over the next three years.

“We’re glad to receive the additional money,” he said. “It certainly improves our financial outlook.”

Bradac added that the theater company’s board of directors is still assessing the impact of the planned phaseout, which could change if the composition of the council is affected by the November elections. The future of city subsidies could also be affected if a 15-member panel already established by this council to determine the city’s role in arts funding comes up with its own proposal.

The 10-year-old theater company operates the three-play Grove Shakespeare Festival at the outdoor Festival Amphitheatre, which is currently presenting “The Comedy of Errors,” and a five-play indoor season at the Gem Theatre that is scheduled to commence with C.P. Taylor’s “And a Nightingale Sang” on Oct. 7.

The Grove had asked for an $83,000 city subsidy, about 15% of its 1988-89 projected budget of $500,000. In June a divided council granted $20,000 to enable the Shakespeare festival to open, then reluctantly granted an additional $15,000 to help keep it open. Monday’s grant brings the city’s total subsidy for the year to $53,000.

Last week, in response to the theater company’s widely publicized call for help, the Garden Grove Strawberry Assn. unexpectedly donated $30,000. The gift not only brought the troupe to the funding level it had sought from the city but also matched the $30,000 raised from curtain pleas at the Shakespeare festival and from emergency corporate donations.

Now, Bradac said, the theater’s board is concerned that the outpouring of support “will lead the public to think we don’t need to raise any more money this year.” In fact, the Grove still must raise about $68,000, or 40% of the $170,000 it projected for contributed income from all sources in its annual budget.

Moreover, because of the extended council battle over the subsidy, the resulting uncertainty of a fall season at the Gem led to a delay in the theater company’s subscription campaign. Bradac said it has fallen “about a month behind” in its marketing effort to sign up season ticket holders.

Grove board president Kathryn McKee told the council Monday that the troupe had budgeted for $190,000 in Gem subscriptions this year and that about $38,000 had come in so far. “Under normal circumstances,” Bradac said, “we’d be at “$50,000.”

Nevertheless, the troupe’s morale has improved considerably since June.

City Hall has been inundated with letters supporting the Shakespeare festival. No issue within memory has brought more letters, according to various city officials.

Additionally, “single ticket sales at the festival are higher than they’ve ever been,” Bradac said. He noted that for “Richard II,” which ran from June 24 through July 16, single ticket sales at the box office nearly doubled what had been projected.

“We expected to sell 1,000 single seats,” he said. “We actually ended up selling 1,800.”

The Shakespeare festival has 1,830 subscribers this year.

In the meantime, “The Comedy of Errors,” which opened on July 22 and runs through Aug. 22, “is doing very well,” Bradac added.

The theater expected to sell 1,500 single tickets through the first weekend. But even before the show opened, there was an unusually large presale from more than 500 walk-ups at the box office. And, he said, another 100 tickets were sold on Tuesday.