OJAI : Council OKs $1,750 for Arts Programs

The Ojai Music Festival and three theater groups have been allocated a total of $1,750 by the Ojai City Council.

Based on recommendations from the city’s Arts Advisory Committee, the council allocated the money Tuesday to four of the six groups that applied for city funds.

The council awarded only one group, Illusions Theatre, the full $600 that it requested. Four actors and two musicians will perform segments of the group’s popular “Chumash Legends” production in six Ojai-area schools.

“They can hardly do it on less,” said Barbara Greene, a member of the Arts Advisory Committee.

The Theatre Branch of the Ojai Center for the Performing Arts was awarded $500 of the $800 that it had requested to offset royalty costs for musical and theatrical scripts.

The Royal Shakespeare Revels asked for $700, but received $300 to hire a professional stage lighting director to teach interns during this summer’s production of “The Merchant of Venice.”

After much discussion, the committee decided to give Ojai Festivals Ltd. $350 of the $1,000 that it had requested to hire Stephen Mosko to direct the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players in a June 2 concert at Libbey Bowl. The concert is designed to introduce children to the world of music.

“The perception is that the arts community in Ojai is so alive and active that it doesn’t need funding, but we do,” Arts Advisory Committee member Glenn Fout said.