Arts groups pool ideas for survival

Having witnessed the funding collapse that doomed Opera Pacific, leaders of 13 nonprofit Orange County arts organizations decided this week that it was time to get together and figure out how to survive the financial meltdown.

Richard Stein, the former Laguna Playhouse executive director who now heads Arts Orange County, said there hadn’t been such a summit in at least 10 years.

“There was not an organization in that room that isn’t experiencing weak ticket sales, weak donations, and isn’t very concerned about the future,” he said. “There was an urgency felt by everybody to talk about ways we could help each other.”

Besides sharing ideas on marketing and other strategies, Stein said, the 14 top executives who participated agreed that they need to join forces to raise the profile of local arts programs and venues as a whole.

“The arts community needs to do a better job of communicating its value,” Stein said. “There is a select number of usual suspects in every community who are the most generous and passionate” about donating to the arts. Many others, he said, don’t even know that museums and performing groups rely on donations.

To that end, Stein said he’ll be “out on the hustings” at chamber of commerce meetings and such, trying to make the case that the arts are vital to community life and “really changes lives for the better.”

Arts Orange County has launched a website, www.sparkoc.com, to help residents and visitors navigate cultural offerings. And beginning Jan. 7, Stein will host a five-minute arts and culture segment Wednesdays on “Real Orange,” the daily public affairs program of KOCE, the county’s public television station.

Meanwhile, the participating arts groups -- which include the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Irvine Barclay Theatre, Orange County Museum of Art, Laguna Art Museum, Muzeo, Bowers Museum, Pacific Symphony, Pacific Chorale, Philharmonic Society of Orange County, Saint Joseph Ballet, South Coast Repertory and Laguna Playhouse -- plan to stay in close touch.

Stein said he suggested they meet again in three to six months. “The response was, ‘Sooner!’ ” he said. “People feel the need to get together and share ideas and strategies” to help the arts community get through these troubled times.

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mike.boehm@latimes.com