County Arts Groups May Get 50% Hike in State Funds

Seventeen Orange County arts groups would receive $324,600 in state subsidies for 1988-89, a 50% boost over last year, under recommendations released Thursday by the California Arts Council.

The recommendations, which are expected to be approved by the arts council at its Aug. 25 meeting, reflect the growing strength of the county’s arts organizations, said Tere Romo, program manager of the agency’s organizational grants. Last year, only 11 county groups received organizational grants from the council.

Several local groups received higher ratings than they did last year from the advisory panels that evaluate the applications, including three that received the highest possible evaluation: the Orange County Philharmonic Society, the St. Joseph Ballet and the South Coast Repertory Theatre.

Arts council awards are determined by complicated formulas based on the budgets of the applying groups and evaluations of both their artistic and organizational strength and their efforts to reach minority communities, Romo said. Under the formulas, South Coast Repertory, which has the largest budget of any county arts group and received the highest rating--a 4--was recommended to receive $106,400 from the council, Romo said.

South Coast Repertory’s jump from a 3+ to a 4 rating helped account for the rise in grant money. Last year, the Costa Mesa theater company received $63,077 from the council.

But some groups did not fare so well. Opera Pacific dropped in ranking from a 4- to a 3 after panel members criticized its offerings and its use of amplification at concerts. The company was recommended to receive $32,630 in 1988-89, but would have received $62,500 if it had maintained its 4- rating.

In an ironic judgment, the panels raised the Grove Theatre Co.’s rating from 3- to 3+, and recommended that funding for the troupe increase to $9,000 from $5,980.

The company, producer of the annual Grove Shakespeare Festival, has been under attack this summer by a majority of the Garden Grove City Council, which contends its offerings are too sophisticated for the residents of that community. After several heated debates, the council voted last month to gradually end the city’s subsidy of the troupe over the next three years.