Q&A; : New O.C. Arts Leadership : No Quick, Major Changes for Center : Tom Tomlinson takes a wait-and-see attitude on programming, expansion at the Performing Arts Center. Local sentiment will be his guide.

Will Aretha Franklin wail? Will a new symphony hall go up? Will a play about AIDS take center stage? Will sleepy theatergoers finally get some java?

Tom Tomlinson can’t say, exactly. Tomlinson, named Thursday as the new chief of the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, effective Oct. 1, wants to unpack his bags and stay awhile before he starts talking specifics.

Tomlinson, currently president of the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts in Anchorage, gave his general impressions, however, in response to a wide range of questions about himself and how he sees the job he’ll be assuming.

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Question: You come from a multipurpose arts center, with 750- and 350-seat theaters in addition to a main hall. Have you and officials here discussed plans to expand the Orange County center?

Answer: Only in a cursory way. Certainly the fact that I have experience building and opening new centers was one of the factors that was important to the search committee.

Members of the search committee and (outgoing center chief Thomas R.) Kendrick commented it’s always been a plan to expand the center, but with the economy the way it’s been the plans were put on hold. I don’t think there’s any news there.

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Q:The Orange County center has been criticized for its apparent reluctance to support the fight against AIDS, whether by staging benefits affordable to many or programs that would raise awareness. What obligations do you think arts centers have along these lines?

A: There are a variety of issues involved here, and I don’t think it’s possible to make a generalized, sweeping statement that all centers have an obligation (to respond to) social issues. It also becomes a function of economics. This particular Orange County center is heavily booked. The opportunity to use its space for other activities, given the demands of its own programs and regional organizations, are certainly very limited. Also, it’s a private entity, so its mission is somewhat different from a public entity (like the Alaska center). And I haven’t been there yet, so I need to sit back, meet the players and assess the issues, for a number of months.

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Q: Has the Alaska center dealt with social issues?

A: We were pretty heavily involved, in terms of lobbying and community awareness, in the 1990 battle for reauthorization of the National Endowment for the Arts. (The reauthorization “battle” came amid a nationwide furor over NEA funding of what critics called obscene and blasphemous art.) We worked very closely with all of our regional organizations to stuff programs (with notes urging support for reauthorization).

We have not actually held a benefit for any particular cause. As a municipal facility receiving a considerable amount of municipal funds, it would be somewhat inappropriate for us to take any sort of political side or a position that might be different from taxpayers’ because we are taxpayer-supported.

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Q: Are you concerned about the risk of dealing with an essentially conservative audience, not only in terms of issues that might be perceived as political, but in terms of offering challenging, adventuresome new works, something for which the Orange County center has not been known?

A: I’d have to give the same answer. I haven’t been there yet. . . . It’s appropriate for me to come in, assess the situation and look at the (center’s attendance and fund-raising) successes. It has an international reputation in terms of all of that, and I certainly wasn’t hired to jeopardize any of that. So my role is going to be to come in and assess the situation and see that it remains as successful as it has in the past. Whether that might allow some changes in programming is much too early for me to assess.

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Q: Would you hope to commission new works while you are here? What sort of works might you have in mind?

A: Again, I have to give the same answer. I just haven’t been there yet. Every (performing arts) center in this country deals with those questions in a way that’s appropriate for its community and shareholders, if you will. In Orange County, the shareholders are ticket buyers and donors, so you deal with those issues that best relate to the community.

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Q: Generally, do you believe it’s the obligation of any major arts organization to raise the level of a community’s artistic acumen or sophistication--to introduce it to new, cutting-edge work, for instance--rather than merely to respond to its acquired tastes?

A: I’ve never believed a leader is one who figures out the way the crowd is going and then gets in front of it. So yes, I think it is a responsibility for a center to take some sort of leadership role. But again, how it chooses to do that is different in every community, and it would be folly to suggest that the way to do that is to make dramatic changes in programming or mission in any location. If one did that and the financial base (of a center) eroded, there would not be the opportunity to make changes again. The place would close. So the answer is still the same: I can’t tell you how I’d deal with those issues until I get there.

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Q: The Orange County center also has been criticized for its lack of relevance to the county’s ethnic communities. What such obligations do you think arts centers have?

A: I think there’s an obligation to try to be as reflective as one can of one’s community, but one can’t do so in a way that’s going to erode the financial stability or reputation of a center. What (specifically) am I going to do? Give me some time. Talk to me in six months.

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Q: You’ve booked pop acts into the Alaska center. Is there room at the Orange County center for such adult-oriented, critically praised pop acts as Tom Waits, Lou Reed, Aretha Franklin, Randy Newman?

A: I think even the Orange County center has some history in doing some types of adult pop acts. I think your use of the word room is almost the operative word there and maybe harks back to the first question of expansion. If you look at the schedule of the center and the type and number of activities the regional groups want to use the center for and the programming the center does itself, the availability of dates for anything other than what’s going on right now is very limited. Again, it would not be appropriate to abandon the core programming already there and to do something that might not be successful. So I think that perhaps one of the reasons why the board has never abandoned the idea of expansion is so there may be additional opportunities to do such programming.

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Q: What are your own performing arts preferences? If you could go see any three performers, ensembles or shows, what would they be?

A: In terms of how I spend my ticket-buying dollar . . . it’s probably going to be to a dance event. (My tastes are) pretty eclectic. I like modern dance--I’m one of the few people who really loved (avant-garde choreographer) Merce (Cunningham) when he was here last year--and I enjoy classical ballet very much. I’d probably also choose to see chamber music, and my taste there is eclectic, too, from the (more experimental) Kronos Quartet and Turtle Island String Quartet to the (eminent, traditional) Guarneri String Quartet.

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Q: What are the last three books you read?

A: I read a lot for work. “Composing a Life” (by Mary C. Bateson), a series of essays by five women about human issues, the efforts of getting through life. “The Overworked American” by Juliet B. Schor, which talks about the decline of leisure time, which I think has direct relation to my business. Attending the arts is certainly a leisure-time activity, so we need to make sure we are high on the list for the remaining leisure time people have. And I suppose, just like everyone else in the country, I read “Jurassic Park” (by Michael Crichton). I liked the book better than the movie. . . . Yes, I go to the movies once in a while.

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Q: If you had a blank check, how would you spend it while in Orange County to benefit American performing arts at large? Education, community activism, commissioning of new works?

A: I guess it would have to be something that would have really lasting impact. . . . (I’d) write the blank check to build expansion at the Orange County center, which would allow expansion of programming, which would have a 100-year effect, which would expand the programming mix and provide additional stability for the organization.

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Q: Kendrick has refused to allow the sale of certain refreshments at the center for fear that they might stain the rug. Do you think that now, at last, people will be able to get a cup of coffee or a glass of red wine during intermission?

A: Probably not. I think that maintaining a physical asset as valuable as the center is an appropriate thing to do, whatever process is necessary to do that. We have some similar restrictions here. We do (serve) some coffee, but we don’t serve red wine.