2 Resign Top Posts at O.C. Arts Center

The Orange County Performing Arts Center’s two top administrators, the husband-wife team of Thomas R. Kendrick and Judith O’Dea Morr, surprised the county’s arts community Thursday by announcing that they will resign effective Sept. 30, just a day after the center turns 7 years old.

In a prepared statement, center President Kendrick, 59, and general manager Morr, 51, said they intend “to devote more time to other interests.” They have, however, signed five-year contracts to continue as consultants to the center board.

But one prominent arts official characterized the departure as “a buyout” and said he thinks that their unsuccessful attempt last year to bar ethnic programming from the center was a factor.

A committee to replace Kendrick and Morr is expected to form soon.

Kendrick and Morr brought to Orange County a number of the world’s top ballet companies, including the Kirov and Bolshoi troupes, and an ongoing series of touring Broadway musicals. They also allotted dates for groups such as the Orange County Philharmonic Society and the Pacific Symphony that rent the building and present the bulk of the classical music played there.

Kendrick and Morr’s administration, however, has been marked by its lack of adventuresome new work; there has been almost no modern dance, and only two commissions in seven years, a revival of a 30-year-old Broadway musical and a 10-minute fanfare to mark the opening of the building in 1986.

There has been practically no controversial programming, such as work addressing such topics as AIDS or the Los Angeles riots. Kendrick and Morr also have declined to book pop and rock music performers commonplace at comparable facilities, with the sole exception of Art Garfunkel, who performed there Saturday.

Thomas H. Nielsen, the center’s board chairman, said Thursday that he anticipates no significant shift under a successor from the center’s self-imposed “mission” to host symphonic music, ballet, opera and musical theater.

But Erich A. Vollmer, former executive director of the Orange County Philharmonic Society, sponsors of virtually every major orchestra that has played the center, speculated Thursday that the reluctance of Kendrick and Morr last year to grant dates for a series of ethnically oriented music and dance programs may have played a role in their departure.

“The whole flap raised questions about how the place was being run,” said Vollmer, executive director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. “It wasn’t fair to the community, ultimately. The facility was built by the community. To have those kinds of restrictions put on a group that was trying to present the kinds of things that weren’t being brought in by anybody else . . . I think it raised a question in some people’s minds as to the appropriateness of that management team.”

Center officials acknowledged a subsequent drop in fund raising, but Nielsen said Thursday he thinks “whatever changes in our ability to be successful are largely the result of the essential business climate and recession this county is experiencing.”

Vollmer maintained that the consultants’ contracts given to Kendrick and Morr are “just a ploy” to get them out. Serving as consultants is “not going to mean anything. It’s just a buyout. They might be consultants if whoever succeeds them wants to consult. Who’s going to take that job if they have to consult with their predecessor?”

Nielsen said a new chief operating officer will not be required to coordinate decision-making with Kendrick or Morr. Nor would they be a formal part of the search for their replacements. “We value their opinions,” Nielsen said but added that “they don’t have a vote.”

Kendrick and Morr declined comment beyond the statement issued Thursday.

They are among the highest-paid administrators of multipurpose arts facilities in the country. In 1992, Kendrick received compensation and benefits of $189,697 and Morr was paid $106,844, a center spokesman said. Those figures are higher than what they received in 1989 when a Times survey found that their pay ranked second in the nation only to the two top administrators at New York’s Lincoln Center.

That complex encompasses six theaters, five times the number of employees and an annual budget almost triple that of the Orange County center, which comprises the 2,994-seat Segerstrom Hall and Founders Hall, a 299-seat rehearsal space used occasionally for chamber music and small-scale jazz performances.

Kendrick and Morr have overseen day-to-day operation of the $72.8-million center, which was built and continues to operate entirely with private funds. Its current budget is $18.8 million, of which $13.3 million is projected to be raised through ticket sales, rental fees and other earned income. The rest is budgeted to come from individual and corporate contributions.

Developer Kathryn Thompson, the center’s vice chairman of development, said the center is at 60% of this year’s fund-raising goal of $5 million, even though the fiscal year is only half over.

Kendrick and Morr generally are revered by center board members for keeping the facility in the black and for maintaining average attendance at center-sponsored events at about 85%.

Kendrick was hired in 1985, a little more than a year before the center opened. He previously had worked at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington as director of operations. In that post, he was responsible for building maintenance, personnel and finances, not programming.

In fact, while some, such as opera and stage director Peter Sellars, lauded Kendrick’s political skills during his Kennedy Center tenure, other members of the Washington arts community expressed surprise when he was tapped to run the Orange County center.

“I questioned why he was even hired at the Kennedy Center in the first place. He was a newspaperman . . . and not a particularly distinguished journalist,” Richard L. Coe, the Washington Post’s drama critic emeritus said at the time. Before working at the Kennedy Center, Kendrick had worked at the Post as a reporter and editor for 20 years.

“I was even more baffled when he was signed to this high-paying post at a new performing arts center in Orange County. I can understand the assumption . . . that Mr. Kendrick had a great deal to do with the history and choice of programs. But that is not the case,” Coe said.

Morr had been the Kennedy Center’s general manager of theaters. She and Kendrick were married in 1987.

Shortly after Kendrick arrived in Orange County, he suffered a mild heart attack and underwent an angioplasty. A center spokesman said Kendrick’s health was not a factor in his decision to retire.

Nielsen said Thursday that he does not expect Kendrick and Morr to seek jobs elsewhere as arts administrators. “My understanding is that they are certainly going to stay here” in Orange County, Nielsen said.

A search committee could be in place and begin its search for a new chief operating officer as early as next week, Nielsen added.

Times staff writer Zan Dubin contributed to this report.