USIU Announces Cuts in Shows and Degrees During Bankruptcy

Ten off-campus concerts by the International Orchestra of financially strapped United States International University, and one ballet performance by the school’s International Ballet, have been canceled.

Following USIU’s filing for bankruptcy last month in order to draw up a reorganization plan to cover an estimated $14-million debt, the university announced Tuesday that the performances were being cut in an effort to reduce expenses.

Performances of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in March and “The Pirates of Penzance” in May are under review, said to Anne Slavicek, a university spokeswoman.

The School of Performing and Visual Arts will continue to offer classes and a limited number of performances on the USIU campus, which is in Scripps Ranch.

Although bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in theater and musical theater will continue, the programs in art and design, music, and design and technology for the performing arts will be suspended, along with the undergraduate degree in television production and the master’s degree in theater arts management. The bachelor’s and master’s degree majors in dance will be suspended, although dance will continue to be taught as part of the musical theater program, the school said in a press release.

It also noted that “suspension means that no new students will be enrolled in the majors. The school will provide courses in those areas to allow all students scheduled to graduate in June to complete their degrees.”

This semester, about 150 students are enrolled in the theater and musical theater programs.

Among the canceled music performances are two concerts at La Jolla’s Sherwood Auditorium, including a Jan. 18 performance with violinist Eugene Fodor; four programs at San Diego’s College Avenue Baptist Church, and four all-Mozart concerts at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts.

Slavicek said the future of the orchestra itself is uncertain. (Mary Philips, dean of USIU’s School for the Visual and Performing Arts, was not available for comment Tuesday afternoon following the announcement.) Since the orchestra has rehearsed and performed off-campus, Slavicek said, she doubts that adequate on-campus facilities could be found.

The scholarships for orchestra members, however, many of whom are from China, will be honored. Those students will continue to take English courses, even if the orchestra does not rehearse. Undergraduate and master’s courses in music also will continue.

Anyone holding season tickets to the International Orchestra series can exchange them for tickets to on-campus performances, Slavicek said. For example, a Thursday orchestra concert scheduled for the Poway Center for the Performing Arts has been replaced by a chamber concert by the USIU International Chamber players.

Jack Tygett, head of musical theater for USIU, and Andrew Barnicle, head of theater, said they expect the theater season to be completed as scheduled. But they said performances, which were to have been performed at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts, will probably be moved on campus.

The theater programs have experienced a series of financial setbacks in the past year, and if they are to continue they will do so with a significantly streamlined budget of about $200,000, compared to a high of more than $1 million, Barnicle said.

The school recently gave up its longtime venue, the 240-seat Theatre in Old Town, because the cost of maintenance was too high.

The technical staff is gone and only four full-time faculty members remain from what had been a pool of five or six full-time faculty members and 25 adjunct faculty members.

The 38-year-old USIU, which has annually presented a six-play season, has seen its subscription audience dwindle to about 600, due largely to show cancellations and last-minute switches from big-budget musicals to small-scale dramas in the past year.

At its peak--of about 3,800 to 5,200, sources say--that subscription base was competitive with, and in some cases higher than, the bases at local professional theaters, such as the San Diego Repertory Theatre and the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company.

During 1990, the increasingly grim economic picture caused the cancellation of four of USIU’s six scheduled musicals. The university ultimately replaced the shows with small productions at the Old Town theater.

Although subscribers did not ask for refunds, the vast majority failed to renew their subscriptions, Tygett said. And with the uncertainties of the coming season, Barnicle does not see a rebuilding of the base.

“The public is no longer going to be the focus of our program, and that’s sad,” Barnicle said. “We had five years to build a subscription from 500. We were just about starting to look at profits when the bottom fell out. Now I can’t see subscribers coming back again. We’ll probably do more classical theater and more contemporary theater, and we’re going to lose the subscribers who want to see big musicals.”

For Tygett, the move into Chapter 11 came as a relief.

“I am thrilled that they made the move,” he said. “It’s quite a blow to cut back. But from everything that we’ve been able to pick up, from parents and others, it was a good move because it lets everyone know whether we can be solvent or not. The move into Chapter 11 is a positive thing.”

Ironically, the reputation of USIU’s theater and musical theater departments has never been higher. One USIU undergraduate, John Barrowman, landed the leads in the London production of “Anything Goes,” which in turn led to a starring role in “Miss Saigon” this year. Other USIU undergraduates, graduates and faculty members have found steady work in San Diego’s professional and semiprofessional theaters, most notably the San Diego and North Coast repertory theaters.

Still, there is fat worth cutting in the program, according to acting professor Drew Tombrello.

“We spent too much money, and our programs had a lot of fat. I don’t think many of us could last under that decadence,” he said.

Barnicle disagreed.

“My personal view was that it was production-heavy, but to build a subscription base you have to spend money. We were actually competing on a professional level, and that’s no longer going to be the case. We’re going to be a small college theater program. It’s going to be very hard to attract new students.”

Tygett said that while there is room for cuts, some of the trimming will be painful.

“I think we’re going to be at a lower level of activity than we have been at, certainly for the rest of this year. But my feeling is that we are going to go up. And my instincts say it would be wise to keep producing, because we consider performing as part of the curriculum. So we will continue to produce. But how many shows we produce and where we produce is speculative.”