UCLA Performing Arts Director David Sefton takes a while on the
phone before he can talk.
He wishes he were at the South by Southwest Festival in Texas at
the moment, but he’s stuck in his office looking at his
budget for the 2003-2004 season. That’s why he’s on the
phone for so long with an arts director colleague ““
there’s much to commiserate about.
“All of us are suffering through a lot,” Sefton
said. “We’ve all got the double whammy of the economy
and state cuts. It’s part of the job, but it’s a pretty
brutal one.”
Brutality usually means not signing certain risky acts, but a
few months ago it meant canceling Steve Reich’s new video
opera’s L.A. premiere, because the costs went through the
roof. Sefton maintains that the cancelation was not because of the
economy, but certainly that didn’t help. Reich will return to
campus in a more modest concert next January, but he’s
actually sympathetic to Sefton’s plight.
“(My opera) “˜Three Tales’ involves a large
screen, multiple video projectors (needed for backup), 10
musicians, five singers, a conductor and seven technicians,”
Reich said. “It does represent a sizable
investment.”
Sefton didn’t get Reich, but he got the majority of what
he set out to do, approximately 240 shows on a budget of $9.2
million. Most of these shows are signed on about a year in advance,
and in the case of Reich’s piece, Sefton signed it the year
before the piece even existed in complete form. Now at the final
stages of putting together the 2003-2004 roster, Sefton is already
starting talks for 2004-2005.
It’s a gambling profession; Sefton puts his program
together on “spec,” meaning verbal contracts that have
yet to be approved by an unforgiving budget. To top that off, his
budget consists mostly of estimated box office receipts, a phantom
resource that could mean losses if concerts, such as the
poorly-selling classical performances, undersell. Though it’s
been a record year for ticket sales (90,000), there’s also
been more events than ever, which evens out percentages when
factored in.
Sefton depends on individual Royce Center Circle donors, federal
funding, but most of all, the state budget, which is making a
series of cuts to deal with economic woes. A direct casualty are
student tickets, which are reduced because funds are lacking to
subsidize them. The situation is a stark contrast to similar
European entities that have dependable government support.
“There’s more money in the city of Cologne for music
than there was in the National Endowment for the Arts in the good
old days (when the economy was better),” Reich said.
This explains why Reich has performed his “Three
Tales” around Europe numerous times, in such countries as
Italy, France, Germany and England, but performances in the United
States are sparse. Reich is in talks to get the opera done in
northern California next year, but Nigel Redden, art director of
the Spoleto Festival where Reich’s piece made its American
premiere, sympathizes with Sefton.
“You can’t just lay waste your entire program in
order to do one thing,” Redden said. “If you can do 200
events or one, chances are you’ll do 200.”