Performing Arts Center Cuts Events Schedule : Economy: Because of the recession, ‘there are simply too few quality attractions’ to fill the house, its officials say.

COSTA MESA — The lingering recession has created a “quiet crisis” in the performing arts that is prompting the Orange County Performing Arts Center to cut the number of events it presents by at least 20% and scale back its budget slightly for 1992, Center officials announced Thursday.

The economic slump has caused arts organizations nationwide to cancel tours, postpone or scuttle new works or fold entirely, thereby diminishing the range and number of productions available, Center president Thomas R. Kendrick said at the organization’s annual meeting.

“There are simply too few quality attractions to offer a reasonable hope of filling a 3,000-seat house,” Kendrick said. The Center will be dark about eight weeks this summer, and performances of touring Broadway musicals will drop by 26 to a total of 53 this year, he said. Such shows, along with the Center’s annual ballet series, constitute the vast majority of performances presented by the Center itself. (Other groups that use the Center--such as the Pacific Symphony, Orange County Philharmonic Society and Opera Pacific--rent the facility and assume all financial risk for their own presentations.)

“The reservoir of identifiable future attractions is swiftly running dry,” Kendrick said. “That means the toughest programming challenges may well be ahead--not behind.” By 1993 and 1994, however, he said, touring Broadway revivals--as opposed to new shows--may be somewhat more plentiful. (The Center is already scheduled as a tour stop for national productions of “Will Rogers Follies” in 1993 and “Phantom of the Opera” in 1994.) Kendrick said the Center will go ahead this year with its annual jazz series, American popular song performances and chamber-music programs.

Reflecting its cautious outlook on the immediate future, the Center’s board Thursday approved a revised 1992 budget that shows reductions in projections for expenses and box-office revenue. The revised figures call for the same levels of contributed income the Center received in 1991. Fund-raising efforts will continue to emphasize individual and foundation gifts, since corporate profits--and thus corporate charitable contributions--have been declining, Kendrick said.

Projected expenses for 1992 at the Center have been reduced by $1.5 million to $17.4 million, and revenues are expected to drop by $3.7 million to $11.9 million, Kendrick said. That will leave a gap between expenses and revenue of nearly $5.6 million, but Center officials set aside $800,000 from a 1991 fund-raising surplus to reduce the 1992 gap, now projected at $5.2 million (which includes about $400,000 in capital costs). The transfer of funds helped officials “hold the line” on the amount of private donations--$5.2 million, the same amount raised in 1991--that will be needed this year, Kendrick said.

Ticket sales are meeting projections so far, and ticket prices will not be raised in 1992, Kendrick said. A hiring freeze, begun in 1990 shortly before the recession began, has recently been lifted, he said.

Center officials also reported that in 1991 they paid off a $13-million construction bank loan taken to build the facility, which was completed in 1986.