ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Ethnic Balance on the Arts

That the boards of directors of arts groups should have minority representatives is obvious in a community such as Orange County, where more than a fourth of the population is Asian, Latino or other minorities. To fail to include them is to risk skewing the offering of art, theater, opera and other cultural activities in favor of the dominant white society--a loss for everyone. This is true for privately funded arts groups such as the Orange County Performing Arts Center, and even more true for publicly supported groups such as Pacific Symphony and South Coast Repertory.

But the governing boards of arts groups in Orange County are far from ethnically balanced.

The four major arts groups receiving state subsidies average just 7% minorities, according to the California Arts Council, which considers minority representation in deciding annual grants. This year, the council cited SCR’s board composition in cutting its grant request to $81,960, which was 23% less than the $106,000 stipend the previous year.

While we worry that it might be a short step from making such a cut to dictating local artistic decisions, the council’s action does call attention to the need for broader representation on the SCR board.

At present, the Tony Award-winning SCR has three minority members--an Asian/Pacific Islander and two Latinos--on its its 45-person board. First housed in a storefront, SCR operates on a $5.3-million annual budget in its multimillion-dollar, two-theater complex in Costa Mesa.

SCR has shown its commitment to minorities in ways that its board composition does not indicate. It sponsors the nationally recognized Hispanic Playwrights Project, which showcases budding authors. All told, it spends $500,000 on community outreach, some of which benefits the minority community.

SCR leaders say it is hard to find people in the minority community with an avid interest in regional theater. But in reducing SCR’s state grant, one member of the Arts Council contrasted SCR with the Newport Harbor Art Museum, which has five minority members on its 28-person board, drawn from the same community as SCR. South Coast Repertory takes its role in the community seriously. It can show its commitment even more with an ethnically balanced board.