With O.C. Bankrupt, Arts Funding Thrives : Culture: Drama and music groups enjoy a banner year. Why? ‘People want to forget their troubles’

Nine months after Orange County was pounded by the largest municipal bankruptcy in history--and five years into a seemingly endless regional economic drought--the county’s arts leaders have recorded an unexpected banner year.

They say they haven’t seen any impact of the bankruptcy, despite fears that it would bring disaster to their doorsteps by unsettling audiences and limiting spending and donations.

“We’ve just come off our best year,” says David DiChiera, executive director of Opera Pacific, a company in Irvine that produces professional opera at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. In March, when the county announced plans to lay off more than 1,000 workers and to eliminate an additional 563 jobs, Opera Pacific had sold-out houses for Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” and Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.”

Greg Patterson, a spokesman for the center, could offer only the traditional explanation: In bad times, he said, “people want to forget their troubles.”

Indeed. Over the last 10 months, even as corporations in the county were firing thousands of employees and headlines revealed incompetence and alleged fraud in county government, “our season actually built,” DiChiera said. “There were lines of people outside the center waiting for opera tickets, and we couldn’t accommodate them.”

At least as remarkably:

* The center itself, which dwarfs all other arts institutions in the county, earned $18.5 million last year, roughly 30% more than it did five years ago.

* Private donations to the Pacific Symphony, the county’s major orchestra and second-largest arts institution, set a record.

* South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa--the county’s third-largest arts institution and its largest professional theater troupe--mounted the two highest-grossing productions in its 31-year history.

* The Philharmonic Society of Orange County, which presents classical concerts, managed to achieve financial stability after several years on the ropes.

* All these organizations, as well as the Irvine Barclay Theatre and the Laguna Playhouse, report that their annual budgets grew to new heights, bolstering their confidence.

Ironically, county government’s customary lack of support for the arts--a chronic sore point among cultural activists--actually saved the major nonprofit arts institutions from any loss of county funding when the bankruptcy hit.

The weak Southern California economy of the nasty ‘90s still furrows arts leaders’ brows and one day may give them ulcers. Draconian cutbacks in congressional funding of the National Endowment for the Arts, which have already begun, also loom like a potentially devastating migraine.

But in April, when the aptly named “Blithe Spirit” opened at SCR just after former county Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron pleaded guilty to bankruptcy-related felony charges, it promptly became a box-office smash.

“That was by far our largest show for single tickets,” said John Mouledoux, who for 16 years was SCR marketing director until leaving in August. Mouledoux was referring to walk-up sales and non-subscription purchases by telephone. With an added week of performances to accommodate demand, it broke the company’s overall box-office record--which had been set in October by “A Streetcar Named Desire,” roughly three months before the public learned of the county’s fiscal collapse.

The Philharmonic Society ended the fiscal year in June with a 20% budget surplus. Paid attendance was up 17% and fund-raising exceeded projections by 30% in private donations. “It was a phenomenal year,” said board chairman Richard Reinsch. “Everything worked.”

If further proof were needed of the bankruptcy’s minimal impact on wealthy arts philanthropists, William J. Gillespie offered it in May when he announced a $6.6-million donation to several institutions.

The Laguna Playhouse in Laguna Beach was not among the recipients. But it still raised 30% more money this year over last from private donors who contributed $250,000 to its annual operating fund.

Doubly striking, playhouse executive director Richard Stein points out, is that the company also has been conducting a successful $1.5-million capital campaign for a 225-seat Second Stage venue to supplement its 419-seat Moulton Theatre.

A rule of thumb among fund-raisers is that contributions to annual funds decline when organizations are in capital campaigns. “But we’re doing gangbusters in both areas,” Stein said. “We do have one potential donor who was about to sign a pledge when the bankruptcy occurred. This person told me he was heavily invested in Orange County municipal bonds and had to put his pledge on hold. But that’s the only instance I know of directly where there’s been an impact.”

Despite these signs of growth and what appears to be a reservoir of strength, arts leaders still take a customarily guarded view of the future. They believe the arts in general and the performing arts in particular are notoriously underfunded not only in Orange County but throughout California and the rest of the country.

Performing Arts Center president Tom Tomlinson, who has a 1995 operating budget of $21.5 million, warns that it’s “still too early to tell” what impact the bankruptcy will have on the arts. He speaks of “a climate of uncertainty,” “a malaise” that he perceives to have settled on the Southland.

When some prestigious events drew small audiences, arts leaders cited the economic shock and psychological dismay of the county’s catastrophe as probable factors. But they now say that unavoidable marketing errors and risky programming decisions were the primary causes.

For example, the New York Metropolitan Opera’s orchestra and star conductor James Levine drew stunningly low attendance at the 3,000-seat center in March--only 38% of capacity. But the much-sought booking had not been signed until the deadline had passed for making it a subscription offering. Consequently, the center did not have its usual base of subscriber support for the two-night engagement. If it had, attendance more than likely would have doubled.

“We just couldn’t get a firm commitment from the Met in time,” Tomlinson said. He said the booking had been worth the risk, however, because the orchestra tours so rarely.

While the center took a sizable bath from the poor turnout (the amount has not been disclosed), a related three-way benefit party arranged with the Pacific Symphony and the Philharmonic Society netted more than $100,000 in private and corporate contributions.

“That exceeded expectations,” Tomlinson said.

At the Pacific Symphony, private donations topped $2 million, a record that does not include the $1.2 million received from philanthropist Gillespie. In addition, ticket revenues for the orchestra’s classical concerts rose last season.

Attendance declined at the Pops concerts. But the orchestra’s executive director, Louis G. Spisto, blames the programming rather than any detectable fallout from the bankruptcy.

“I think the biggest issue was that people were not attracted to the lineup of artists we had,” he said. “The community was very specifically responding to what they thought was a less than acceptable [Pops] season. We heard that loud and clear. They wanted bigger names.

“So this coming season we’re providing bigger names. We’ve increased our Pops budget by $100,000 and we’ve already seen a direct result. We’re more than $100,000 ahead in sales than we were at this point last year.”

Shifts in the economy have been felt in some ways. When the orchestra analyzed its mailing lists, which cover about 80,000 people, a higher-than-average attrition rate was discovered. Through a follow-up marketing survey, Spisto said, “we discovered why. About 20% of the subscribers simply were not there anymore. They had gone, left the community.” The orchestra had to take 5,000 names off the lists.

“This was before the bankruptcy,” Spisto added, “so we don’t think that has anything to do with it. We think it has to do with the California recession generally.”

A more recent Laguna Playhouse telephone survey showed a small but steady decline in its subscription base for the past several years--more than compensated for by a rise in single-ticket sales, which is reflective of changing attendance patterns throughout the country demographically: Subscribers tend to be older and to have more conservative lifestyles--thus, more time and often more money for theatergoing--than single-ticket buyers who generally are younger, busier and less well-heeled.

About a third of the people who didn’t renew their subscriptions to the playhouse cited artistic reasons, Stein said. “They didn’t like the old season, or they weren’t interested in the new season, or there were too many four-letter words, or the playhouse has changed from what they were used to.

“But two-thirds said it was because of economics and lifestyle. There was a new baby in the family and it was hard to get a baby-sitter. They were so busy working that they had no time to go. They couldn’t afford to buy season tickets. They needed flexibility. They wanted to try new things.”

In large measure, all those factors help account for the growing phenomenon of “the late buy”--last-minute purchases of single tickets--which keeps producers on tenterhooks. The inherent volatility of a late-buying market means less predictable cash flow and budget projections, and therefore less leeway to take chances on shows without name stars or tried-and-true material.

But if people want to spend money, they do.

When the musical “Jekyll & Hyde” played the Performing Arts Center last month (pulling in $852,431 for eight performances), the lobby was crowded with fans standing four abreast and 10 deep to buy souvenirs. One woman dropped $30 for a CD, $15 for a T-shirt and $20 for a book of sheet music.

Orange County’s bankruptcy, she said, was the last thing on her mind.