Money for arts, shorter holiday show

If you’re already sick of summer and have started counting the days till L.A. County’s free Holiday Celebration, we have some news for you: This year’s musical extravaganza will be shaving three hours off the usual six-hour running time.

In other words, a little less “Nicholas Nickleby,” a little more “Muppet Christmas Carol.”

The show will go on—albeit in reduced form—for other arts programs, too, thanks to an infusion of $731,000 from the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. The board acted to restore funds previously cut from the Arts Commission budget. In addition to providing funding toward the Holiday Celebration, an array of local arts institutions will see their county grants cut only 7%, instead of 13%, because of the additional funds, said Arts Commission Executive Director Laura Zucker. And a chunk of the money is going toward summer arts internships, allowing the program to continue next summer on the same limited basis as this year.

“It’s good news,” Zucker said, “but I don’t want to give the impression that the arts are escaping their fair share of reductions…This [funding infusion] mitigated steeper cuts.”

Zucker noted that 90 of the 166 organizations receiving grants will be using the money to directly support jobs.

“Anything that we can do to soften the blow to these nonprofits is important,” she said.

As for the Holiday Celebration, the shorter running time means that only 22 or 23 performing groups—instead of last year’s 45—will be able to take the stage at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. And the show will be televised only locally, not nationally. The production, founded 50 years ago by the late County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, traditionally showcases a wide variety of musical and dance groups, from barbershop quartets to klezmer and mariachi performers.

The cost to put it on last year was $979,000; $829,000 is budgeted for this year’s production. Zucker noted that there’s a precedent for a trimmed-down Holiday Celebration; in the early ’90s, tight finances also forced shorter show times.

And Zucker said she still has hopes of putting on a six-hour, nationally televised show if she can find a partner, such as Univision, to cover the $150,000 shortfall that remains, even after the supervisors’ action.

The supervisors voted 3-2 to tap county reserves to provide the one-time funding. The action was proposed by Supervisors Michael D. Antonovich and Mark Ridley-Thomas as an amendment to a measure authorizing $3.8 million in annual arts grants. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky joined Antonovich and Ridley-Thomas in voting for the funding, while Supervisors Gloria Molina and Don Knabe voted against it. Knabe said he supported additional funds for the Holiday Celebration and the internships but did not want to provide extra money for the arts organization grants. Molina said that in this economic climate it was more important to find money to reverse library cutbacks.

Posted 7/8/10