O.C. MUSIC : When Acts Bow Out, Center Must Be Quick on Its Feet

When the Joffrey Ballet canceled its April engagement at the Orange County Performing Arts Center last month, center president Tom Tomlinson wasn’t caught entirely off guard.

“The dance world--well, the whole business--is not so huge that those of us who are in it don’t hear rumbles all the time,” Tomlinson said recently in his office.

Besides, “in this business, it’s one of the things you get used to. Cancellations happen all the time, for many varying reasons, and you learn to be quick on your feet in terms of finding replacements.”

He has dealt with the situation many times before, he said. One of the most bizarre happened when Mt. Redoubt erupted in 1991, forcing a postponement of “A Christmas Carol” at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, where Tomlinson worked before taking over the Orange County center in 1993.

The plane containing the sets and costumes couldn’t land because of smoke and debris in the air, but Tomlinson was able to rearrange the performance dates so that the show could go on, after a few days’ delay.

The center has had to face few other cancellations since it opened in 1986, however. None took place on Tomlinson’s watch.

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American Ballet Theatre canceled its world premiere of Kevin McKenzie’s “Nutcracker” in 1991 (ultimately it was staged in 1993) because of company financial problems. The San Francisco Ballet “Nutcracker” was brought in on very short notice to take its place. A production of “My Fair Lady” with Christopher Plummer was canceled in 1992 because of Plummer’s scheduling conflicts. The show was replaced by “Bye Bye, Birdie” with Tommy Tune.

Tomlinson has not made the Joffrey replacement final and didn’t want to mention names but did say there were would be two companies. (The center will announce its 1995-96 dance season on Tuesday ).

The problem Tomlinson faced in the Joffrey case went beyond dance. “It was like all (our) dominoes were pretty much lined up and then this one domino falls over,” he said. “It not only affected dance, but it affected (our) Broadway (series) as well, because Broadway books later than dance. . . .

“It meant not only did we have to offer available dates to companies that were available (then) but probably meant we were going to have to juggle some dates that we were holding for Broadway as well.”

The very first step, however, was coming up with a worthy replacement. “Obviously with our kind of dance background and history, it’s more important what we fill it with than just filling the date with something.

“But it did give us some additional opportunities, and that was the way we really started to look at it.”

Major companies, however, are likely to be booked a year or two in advance and not able to make adjustments in their schedules. “That’s exactly the situation we found,” Tomlinson said.

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Because the center has developed a reputation as one of the West Coast’s major dance presenters, Tomlinson said groups approached are more willing to rearrange their schedules to appear there. “We’ve been fortunate in that respect.”

He said that the field of replacement candidates has been narrowed to two companies that have not played the center and that both are likely to be brought in.

“Obviously that’s more expensive because there’s more rehearsal time and loading and unloading. (But) that’s the way we’d like to go. I think logistically it may be the only way we can go.”

The two are “both classical ballet companies, rather than little groups,” Tomlinson said. “The ‘Stars of . . . ‘ (type of program) isn’t something we’d be interested in doing.”

Funding was not a major concern because “we did not have any sponsor that was strictly tied to the Joffrey. Our two major contributors--the Harry and Grace Steele Foundation (of Newport Beach) and the Leo Freedman Foundation (in Anaheim)--are to tied to the entire season.”

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The two replacements probably will offer a mix of repertory. “One, hopefully, will be able to do a full-length story ballet, which will give us some marketing potential we wouldn’t have had otherwise,” he said. The other will offer more contemporary work.

Center dance audiences want both, he said, a fact borne out during a recent meeting of a focus group.

“Without exception, everybody in the focus group was so excited, having just seen Netherlands (Dance Theater) and said, ‘Don’t go back. Now that you’ve made this kind of commitment to us, don’t just go back and do ‘Swan Lake’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ or ‘Cinderella.’ It was so nice to hear it. After having sat through all the performances of Netherlands myself, it wasn’t a surprise, it was just nice to have my own sense validated.”

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Next year’s season will more strongly reflect that mix of traditional and contemporary, Tomlinson said.

“Next year we’re doing six companies instead of four--two in complete weeks and four in split weeks, and that will give again a little more flexibility in terms of rep and a more contemporary look,” he said. “We’re actually doing more dance next year.”

But costs are on his mind.

“The center’s dance audience declined some this year, certainly,” he said. “Subscriptions were down. I think that has to be in part because we did not have a classical fairy-tale story ballet in the mix. I was disappointed that the Royal didn’t do the kind of business that is has in the past. That was a shock.”

As a result, the center is “taking a different negotiating position” with the companies, Tomlinson said. The change “will involve some sort of sharing of upside and downside potential, which has never been the case in the past.”

Would dance do better if the companies stayed longer rather than the usual six-day runs?

“From an economic standpoint, other than a ‘Nutcracker’ that can be here a bit longer, I don’t see us being able to extend an engagement much beyond that,” Tomlinson said. “Hopefully, though, next season, by having six companies in six weeks as opposed to four in four weeks, we’ve really expanded the marketing time of the presence of dance so that there is that much more we can talk about for that much longer. Hopefully that will have the effect of drawing the time frame out a little bit. That is one of the aims we wanted to do.”