Several Groups Decide Against Applying for State Arts Grants

A variety of reasons led several Orange County arts groups to decide against applying for California Arts Council grants this year.

“We haven’t spent all the money they already gave us,” said development director Mary Ann Confar, development director of the Laguna Playhouse, which received $15,000 in 1988. That grant was the company’s first, and “we thought it would be smarter to establish a track record before we turn around and ask for more money.”

The theater used the grant to pay two directors and a graphic artist, and it will use the rest to pay actors and a stage manager this fall, Confar said.

Recent administrative and other internal changes led officials at the Severin Wunderman Museum in Irvine to decide against applying. Officials had sought $17,888 last year but were turned down.

“The direction of the museum hasn’t changed, but the various steps toward reaching our goals had to be rethought,” said curatorial administrator John Ahr. “We had no firm concepts as to what we would have used the funds for.”

Don Laffoon, executive director of the Stop Gap theater in Santa Ana, said he decided against applying after “three or four” unsuccessful applications that he attributes to council misunderstanding of what the theater does. The council, Laffoon said, sees the troupe “as therapy and not as theater.” The company uses theater as a therapeutic tool to address problems, Laffoon said, but “we are theater professionals doing that, not psychologists.”

Officials of the Orange County Black Actors Theatre, which received $4,905 last year, and the Dunaj International Dance troupe, which unsuccessfully sought $3,000 last year, could not be reached for comment.