Laguna Theater’s Top Post Goes to Grove’s Stein

The Laguna Playhouse’s national search for a manager to fill a newly created top post of executive director has ended in Garden Grove with a raid on the leadership of the Grove Shakespeare Festival.

The Playhouse announced Wednesday that it has hired Richard A. Stein, the Grove’s managing director, to lead it into the ‘90s. He will oversee all operations of the county’s oldest and second-largest theater company, with special responsibility for fund raising.

“After three seasons here at the Grove, I have a lot of mixed feelings about leaving,” Stein said from his office. “But after much thought and a lot of persuasion by the Laguna people, it seemed that it was really the right move.”

Officials at both theater companies declined to characterize the hiring as a raid, preferring to call it “a career opportunity” for Stein, who said that apart from greater responsibility in a larger theatrical operation, he will be getting a significant increase in salary. The amount was not disclosed. He takes over at the Playhouse on March 5.

“I don’t feel we stole him,” said Pat Kollenda, president of the Playhouse board of directors. “He applied for the job.”

Barbara Hammerman, president-elect of the Grove board of directors, concurred: “The term raid has negative connotations. They tried to find the best person they could, and I can only assume they value local leadership.”

Stein, 37, has shared the management of the Grove with artistic director Thomas F. Bradac since October of 1987 and is credited with organizing the theater’s vigorous growth in contributed income over the past two years. It rose from less than $100,000, of which only $8,500 came from corporations, to $250,000. Corporate donation have grown tenfold to $92,000.

“Obviously, this will create a vacuum for us in the weeks ahead,” Bradac said. “But I wish Rick the best of luck. He has done a great job for us. We’ve got to plug that hole up very fast, which means that our board will have to become more active in fund raising.”

The problem of replacing Stein will be taken up by the Grove board at a planning committee meeting two weeks from now. “He isn’t leaving tomorrow,” Hammerman said. “This can only weaken us if we’re left in the lurch for a long time. We’re not alarmed. Maybe in month we will be.”

Meanwhile, Stein said, he would bow out as the director of the Grove’s production of “The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde, which he was scheduled to stage next season at the Gem Theatre. “I don’t think it would be appropriate. I’m sure there will be other directors available.”

The 70-year-old Playhouse, which runs a five-play amateur season with 8,000 subscribers at the 418-seat Moulton Theatre, has an operating budget of $1.6 million--more than twice the size of the Grove’s projected 1990 budget of $700,000. Last season the Grove had 2,600 subscribers for a seven-play, indoor-outdoor season at the 178-seat Gem Theatre and the 550-seat Festival Amphitheatre.

The Playhouse began looking for an executive director in December after the departure of its development director, Mary Ann Confar, in November. The search was spurred, moreover, by the Playhouse’s artistic director Douglas Rowe, who made it clear he wanted relief from business and fund-raising responsibilities so he could concentrate on establishing a professional troupe.

Rowe had gone so far as to state publicly that he would resign if the Playhouse did not make such a professional troupe one of its priorities by raising the funds needed to purchase and renovate a building for a second theater.

Kollenda asserted that Stein will figure strongly in such plans. “We are going after a $3-million capital campaign,” she said, “and we needed somebody to attack it very vigorously. It will be one of his primary jobs.”

So far the Playhouse has raised $500,000 in a matching grant from the Newport Beach-based Harry and Grace Steele Foundation and $250,000 in a bequest from the late Carl Broderick. But it has been able to raise only $60,000 in other contributions for the capital campaign over the past 12 months. And efforts to purchase a building have been stalled for more than a year.

Kollenda said the Playhouse’s search committee interviewed “about eight” of 35 applicants and chose “three or four” finalists. Rowe said he and business manager Jody Davidson interviewed two of the finalists and agreed to the hiring of Stein.

A Sacramento native, Stein was director of the University of Hartford Lincoln Theater in Connecticut from 1982 to 1987 before coming to the Grove. As the Playhouse’s executive director, he will be answerable only to the board of directors and will be placed managerially above both Rowe and Davidson.

Davidson, who was passed over in the search and was initially miffed at not being invited to apply for the top post, has said she will continue as business manager. She is on vacation and could not be reached for further comment.

“Jody was upset at the beginning,” Rowe confirmed. “But I think she has realized this provides a good chance for her to focus on the Youth Theatre. We have pretty extensive plans for that program and this will free her up.”