Entertaining Ambitious Ideas

As he pauses at his institution’s 10-year mark, Mark Johnson, chairman of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, speaks of its future in sweeps of enthusiasm. But when it comes to speaking of actual steps to be taken, caution is his watchword.

One big vision, long held by center officials, is of expansion. They say the center’s 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall is fully booked, a clogged artery that needs to be unblocked. A second (and perhaps third) theater would make possible a freer, deeper and more diverse stream of performances.

Another vision of Johnson’s: filling the vacant position of center president, the building’s top management job, with a charismatic leader who would become a prominent, widely recognized lightning rod for the arts in Orange County.

During a recent interview in a center conference room, Johnson--an entrepreneur who has made a fortune in the pharmaceutical industry--set the figurative timpani a-thundering and the brass a-trumpeting as he described the way he hopes this suburban arts hub will be perceived upon its 20th anniversary:

“Not just a world-class [concert hall], which it already is, but a greater, world-class destination, more like Lincoln Center and others around the world.”

Ask for the particulars of how and when these dreams are to be made real, and Johnson changes the swelling tune. The kinetic bursts of Romanticism are replaced by the circumspect, sparsely detailed statements of the modern minimalist composer.

Instead of using the 10th anniversary to announce bold action to be taken, the 50-year-old, trim-bearded former Army medic spoke mainly of careful processes to be followed, and broad consensuses to be forged, before an expanded center can be built or a star-quality leader chosen.

Sounding like Eisenhower marshaling the forces before D-Day, Johnson said he wants to ensure that the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, Pacific Symphony, Opera Pacific, the Pacific Chorale, the William Hall Master Chorale and any others that stage performances at the center are enlisted as willing allies.

Any enlargement the center attempts, he said, should be undertaken by forging firm bonds within the local arts community before decisions are made as to what should be done, when and for how much.

He points to the ongoing turmoil over the Laguna Beach and Newport Harbor art museums merger as an example of what can happen if change goes forward without broad agreement. He hopes to create a bigger performing arts omelet without breaking eggs or bruising feelings among the county’s independent arts organizations and their donors.

“We really don’t know at this point how the expansion is going to unfold. What we are trying to do very quietly and cautiously and prudently is . . . build a consensus among the different constituencies” about what to build and what to present, he said.

One framework for expansion is a consultant’s report the center made public in January. It proposed a 2,000-seat concert hall and a 750-seat theater for plays, to be built at an estimated cost of $90 million to $105 million on an empty lot across Town Center Drive from the current building. The property belongs to the Segerstrom family, the Costa Mesa landowners and developers whose donations of land and money were crucial to the creation of the existing $73-million hall.

“The [consulting work] has been helpful, but it has not yet concluded anything,” Johnson said, declining to give any timetable for expansion. “It has given us options. It’s still a work in progress.”

But, he added, the need is clear: “I would be very disappointed if, 10 years from now, I was sitting here and the center had not significantly expanded. We know through our studies that the community wants, desires and needs far more of the arts than we present.”

The study, conducted for the center by AMS Research in Hartford, Conn., shows that Orange County has fewer seats per capita (1.13 per 1,000) in large multipurpose venues for cultural events than such comparable markets as Seattle (3.73), Minneapolis-St. Paul (3.19) and Baltimore (1.67).

In 1995 at Segerstrom Hall, there were 299 performances (the center also has a 299-seat theater, Founders Hall). Factoring in additional days needed for rehearsals and setups, its managers consider it to be operating well beyond normal capacity for a performance hall.

As a result, the center’s programming staff and local performing and presenting groups have scant room to grow. It takes months of lobbying for the groups to secure dates.

That “was always the worst sort of Chinese-puzzle nightmare,” recalled Erich Vollmer, who was executive director of the Philharmonic Society from 1984 to 1993 and who now heads the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival in New Mexico.

The Pacific Chorale put in its requests for next season in November 1995 and found out in May when its performances would be. “We were given different dates than we asked for,” said Julie Bussell, the chorale’s executive director. “But we were able to get [much-preferred] Saturday dates. They really did their best for us.”

Pacific Symphony, which stages more than 50 performances a year at the center, would be a leading tenant of any new concert hall.

“If we could have a little more breathing room, it would be ideal,” said Louis Spisto, the orchestra’s executive director. He cited more pops concerts, more chamber orchestra presentations, more educational programming and a Baroque music series as just some of the things his group can’t offer now.

The orchestra would also be able to play more often on prime weekend nights and to rehearse full-time instead of only half the time on the same stage where it performs--an important factor in fine-tuning its sound.

But, Spisto added, expansion is “not mandatory” given the symphony’s current needs, and he agrees with the center’s cautious approach toward adding a hall.

“It’s a big step, and it all has to be studied,” Spisto said, noting that the orchestra and other local groups would be faced with the need to expand their own budgets--and step up their fund-raising--to put on expanded programming in a multiple-hall center.

Spisto said that from Pacific Symphony’s point of view, the center “absolutely” has been living up to its pledge to involve other arts organizations in the expansion planning.

“In the past year, we’ve met with their consultants on a regular basis” to study possible programming for a second hall and the projected level of audience support for an expanded menu of offerings. “I have every confidence that we’re going to be involved every step of the way.”

The Philharmonic Society, which brings touring classical and world-music artists to the center, has a greater sense of urgency about expanding.

“We would need it as soon as possible,” current director Dean Corey said from Salzburg, Austria, where he was scouting performers. “The availability of concert dates for us gets more limited each year, and we have more things we would like to do. So the sooner, the better.

“We occasionally miss [out on] some large, important orchestras because we cannot target the dates. For example, we had to pass on the Israel Philharmonic.”

But, like Spisto, Corey gives center officials good marks for keeping their pledge to consult closely with local groups as expansion plans proceed.

Johnson said fund-raising for an expansion won’t begin until an operating plan for an enlarged center is complete and center officials can offer to potential large donors a fully formed pitch stating precisely what is to be built and why.

Planning and fund-raising can’t go forward simultaneously, he said.

“We--and I don’t mean ‘we, the center’ but ‘we, the collaborative arts community’--need to present a coherent plan and vision of what the expansion should include. Until we can present an exciting and enthusiastic vision, I wouldn’t think of going to major donors.”

Earlier this year, Johnson said, the founders who gave the money to build the center were honored at a dinner. No more than several dozen were in the room, he said, and they represented $71 million of the $73 million that had been raised. (The center was built exclusively with private funds.)

This time, Johnson expects a broader base of major donors--not only for expansion but also for the annual fund-raising the center must do to fill the gap between ticket income and operating expenses. (In the expensive world of symphonic music, opera and ballet, even sold-out performances are not expected to break even.)

In its first decade, according to center figures, donations have ranged from $4 million to $5 million annually.

“We are optimistic we will be far more successful in the second 10 years,” Johnson said. “We were blessed with an incredible core of primary supporters the first several years, but a lot of the developers have fallen on times that don’t give them the opportunity [to match past giving].

“There are companies and foundations we have yet to build bridges with and share our message. I view that as being a positive [opportunity].”

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Jan Herman.