O.C. THEATER : Grove Donor Says ‘Anger’ Spurred Gift : Anonymous benefactor tells of her passion for theater and frustration with government.

She is wearing a $14 dress and no jewelry except for a wedding band and a modest watch. The leather handbag she is carrying has a broken clasp. She drives a 6-year-old car, lives in Costa Mesa, and, she adds, “I’ll probably earn less than $20,000 this year.”

She is also the anonymous angel who recently mailed a personal check for $10,000 to the Grove Shakespeare Festival to keep it from closing. She did this one morning after packing her husband off to work and reading that the 12-year-old nonprofit theater would be forced to close unless it got an emergency infusion of cash.

At the Grove they call her “our phantom lady.” She is so reluctant to reveal her identity that theater officials have never met her. Artistic Director Thomas F. Bradac and Executive Vice President Barbara G. Hammerman know her name only because she had to sign her check. Bradac has spoken with her briefly by telephone.

On Oct. 10, two weeks after the woman first contacted Bradac by phone and mailed her check, the Grove Shakespeare Festival announced that the current season was saved by new donations totaling $21,200. Bradac says it could not have been done without her anonymous gift.

The Phantom Lady of the Grove agreed to this interview one day last week, on condition of continued anonymity, to talk about her extraordinary act of arts advocacy and what motivated it. I have not checked the details of her story except to confirm that she is the Grove benefactor.

She is a vivacious brunette who cuts a stylish figure despite the modest cost of her outfit, which was purchased, she says, “on sale.” At 38, she has been married for more than eight years, almost as long as she has lived in Costa Mesa. She has no children.

She is outspoken, articulate and refreshingly candid. Her opinions are visceral, and her gift to the Grove is hardly an abstraction. It was, in fact, an impulsive gesture spurred by “white-hot anger” and “pent-up frustration,” to say nothing of “a driving passion” for theater. The money came to her as a windfall. She had planned to use it toward paying off a home mortgage. Even her husband does not know what she did, she says, which is the one aspect of her philanthropy that gives her qualms. Nonetheless, she regards the gift as the most useful thing she has ever done.

What follows is an edited version of our interview:

Why do you insist on anonymity?

Because I feel what I’ve done is more important than who I am. If I said who I am, I would look like a glory seeker. I want the focus on one thing: the importance of keeping the Grove Shakespeare Festival going. For me anonymity is a statement to let people know there is at least one human being in this county who is giving money because her driving passion is intellectual stimulation through the arts.

But many give millions of dollars.

I know there are people who give donations to get their names up in lights at the Performing Arts Center and rarely set foot inside. I know there are millionaires living in “mansionissimos” in Newport Beach who give $150, or whatever the minimum possible donation is, just to get their names in the programs. That’s what they spend on grooming their dogs in a month.

I hope my gift is a real statement against all these donors who have to get their names on a wall or a plaque or a building, who have to get little prizes and thank-you letters and private dinners and all sorts of deferential treatment.

Why did you choose the Grove?

I was angry. I read an article in The Times that said the Grove would have to close unless they could drum up a relatively small amount of money. When I finished the article, I was burning with this incredible white-hot anger. I felt this pent-up frustration. The possibility that the theater was going to be sent down the toilet for a pathetic $21,000, which the Garden Grove City Council refused to give them, was the final straw.

I don’t know if you’ve been following what’s been going on in city councils all over the county. What happened in Garden Grove was a culmination of all the absurdities and idiocies that have taken place in council meetings for the last two years. It’s such an indictment of local government. I mean, we’re dealing with some real Neanderthals out there.

What did you do?

I picked up the telephone and called Tom Bradac. But I couldn’t reach him. So I left messages for him all over town. At his office. At his home. I was terrified he wouldn’t call me back in time.

What were you afraid of?

I was terrified that I might back off what I wanted to do. I thought I would go crazy waiting for him to call. I was so close to tears by the time he did that I could barely speak.

If I told you how much I earn in a year, you’d laugh. For me, $10,000 is a terrific amount of money. It came to me in a windfall. When you’re more or less poor and living on the line, that kind of money is like a goat passing through a boa constrictor. You can go out and buy a new VCR and some new clothes or what have you. Or you can do something more useful.

I mean, I’ve never seen $10,000 in a lump sum. I was going to put it toward paying off my mortgage. My husband doesn’t know what I’ve done. I think in the long run he would support it, but in the short run it might wound him. He trusts my judgment. But it’s not fair to say, ‘Dear, we had $10,000, and I’ve just decided to give it away to save a cultural institution.’

Do you have qualms about not telling your husband?

Of course.

Was that money the entire windfall?

Yes.

What did you say to Bradac when he called back?

I just said, ‘If I give you money will it buy time?’ I didn’t want to give it if they were going to close anyway. He said, ‘Yes, it would.’ He had no idea who I was. Then I said, ‘Well, who do I make the check out to? And what address do I mail it to?’ I think he was flabbergasted. He said, ‘Why are you doing this?’ I told him how angry I was. And I had to stop talking. I was so close to tears I didn’t want to make a fool of myself.

How did you feel after making the commitment?

It was one of those moments where some people might grab an AK-47 and go out and shoot up the local hamburger joint. For me, giving away that $10,000 was my AK-47. But instead of turning my anger into violence, I did the most useful thing I’ve ever done in my life.

When I hung up the phone, I was shaking. And then I felt as if this tremendous load had been lifted. I felt surrounded by white light. I felt nothing could hurt me. I felt wonderful. It was like the things you read about in magazines, an unbelievable spiritual uplift.

The rest of my day went to hell. All sorts of things went wrong. But nothing could touch me. I knew I had done something that made a significant difference.

Did you accept anything from the Grove in return for your gift?

Well, they offered me free tickets to “The Importance of Being Earnest.” I refused. Because I don’t usually have the wealth to make donations, the only way I can support theater is by paying full price for a ticket. I even drag people who don’t usually go to the theater and ask them to pay full price.

Have you ever been involved in theater?

No. But I think the theater is dependent upon people like me who are mesmerized by how wonderful it is. It’s you and the actors on the stage and the darkness.

What else can you tell me about yourself?

I come from an upper middle-class background where we didn’t have a picture on the walls and there wasn’t a book in the house. I’d say the closest we ever got to culture was when my parents took me to see “Ben-Hur” the week it opened.

I graduated from high school, but I never went to university. I was just your usual philistine until I was taken to the theater in London about 20 years ago and saw a play called “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” by Tom Stoppard. It changed my life.

How so?

It made me realize that no matter how sure I was of the way things were, there was always one more way of looking at them. It taught me what really goes on from the neck up in a human being, and what we should be striving for. And that’s what depresses me about Orange County. There is a lack of intellectual passion here. There’s an aesthetic void.

Have you gone to much theater here?

Absolutely. I go regularly to South Coast Repertory, regularly to the Grove. I go to community theaters. I go everywhere. I’ve even gone down to El Toro High School. They put on a wonderful version of Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit.” Even my husband liked it, and he’s a fusspot.

How would you rate theater in the county?

You see a lot of duds. At the Grove you see some wonderful things. And you also see some that fall flat on their face. But that’s the way of the world. That’s the way of the theater. Sometimes theater doesn’t work. Sometimes business deals don’t work. Sometimes recipes don’t work. But you go, and you keep an open mind.

Any final observation you want to make?

Yes. The problem with so many city councils is that they’re run by know-nothing politicians who pander to ignorance. They’re walking scandals. If I ever win the lottery, I’m going to hire someone to attend the Garden Grove City Council meetings with a trumpet. And every time someone uses an expression that Shakespeare introduced into the language, this person will give a trumpet blast. That would give me a tremendous pleasure.