Identity Crisis May Be Over, but Troupe Faces Same Ills : Stage: GroveShakespeare will become the Grove Pacific Theatre Co., but it still is bedeviled by old debts and continuing problems.

In an increasingly desperate effort to gain a new lease on life, GroveShakespeare intends to shift the focus of its programming away from Shakespeare and to change its name to the Grove Pacific Theatre Co. But its director concedes that whatever the company does or calls itself, the prospects for a 1994 season appear dimmer than ever.

GroveShakespeare--which by the late ‘80s had become the county’s second largest professional theater company--collapsed financially in June and canceled its 1993 season. The beleaguered company has continued to limp along as a rental agent of sorts for its two city-owned venues, the 178-seat Gem Theatre and the 550-seat outdoor Festival Amphitheatre.

Producing artistic director Kevin Cochrane, hired by the board of trustees in July to devise a rescue plan for the 15-year-old not-for-profit company, says the new name (suggested by longtime county arts advocate Elaine Redfield) will become official Dec. 1, barring discovery of a conflict with any other theater company by that name. “We’re going through the various legal checks now,” he said.

“The main reasoning behind the change is that a new name will give a better indication” of what the company would like to do in terms of programming, he added, emphasizing that it would continue to “sponsor a Grove Shakespeare Festival as a specific project” but not as the central focus of an entire season.

Jerry Margolin, one of only three trustees left on the board since the collapse, agreed. “We want to continue Shakespeare but we feel we don’t want to limit ourselves to that. By calling ourselves GroveShakespeare, we’re telling people that’s all we do.”

Cochrane conceded, however, that whatever the company is dubbed, the prospect of a ’94 subscription season appears to have grown dimmer--contrary to a plan he outlined in July for city officials.

At that time, Cochrane said he and the board hoped to raise $65,000 by mid-November as a prelude to launching a bare-bones ’94 season of five plays to run three weeks each. He even projected a total budget of $472,000.

He now acknowledges that only a small fraction of the initial amount has been raised--$9,000 in contributions, $5,000 in earned income from rentals and $3,000 in pledges--and that there is “no current” cash flow.

“I don’t think we can announce a ’94 subscription season,” he said. “We will be announcing things show by show. But in the near future we won’t be able to say what we’re going to do and when.”

GroveShakespeare still owes several hundred thousand dollars to subscribers and other creditors. No audited figures of the outstanding debt ever have been released.

At various times since the collapse, Tom Moon, who took over as president of the board in July after wholesale resignations by other trustees, has given different estimates of the total monies owed, ranging from less than $200,000 to more than $300,000.

When GroveShakespeare went belly-up, 1,432 subscribers still were owed five plays. Cochrane says only 5% of those season ticket-holders want refunds. Of the rest, he says, roughly 30% have agreed to contribute the value of their subscriptions to the theater, amounting to about $25,000 in forgiven debt. An additional 65% have agreed to hold their subscriptions over until next year, Cochrane says.

How can any new shows be expected to produce revenue if so many season ticket-holders are guaranteed free admission to make good their old subscriptions?

“Single tickets,” Cochrane answered. “GroveShakespeare has always earned a major portion of its income from single tickets. That was considered a weakness in the past, but now it’s a strength.”

Zen Shakespeare, anyone?