GRANT, THEATER : ACTORS GET DONATIONS IN TWO ACTS

The Orange County Black Actors Theatre is starting 1987 with a big boost from two prominent organizations, the South Coast Repertory Theatre and James Irvine Foundation.

The small 6-year-old troupe, which has no permanent performing or rehearsal hall, will have rent-free use of SCR’s Second Stage playhouse this summer for a possible one-week engagement, according to David Emmes, SCR’s producing artistic director.

The troupe’s founding director, Adleane Hunter, also announced that the troupe has received a $25,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation, a leading cultural patron based in San Francisco and Newport Beach. The grant, the largest received by the troupe, will be used mostly for administrative and other organizational expenses.

Hunter said her troupe is seeking funds for staging the proposed summer production at SCR. Her troupe has applied for a $2,000 grant from the California Arts Council, under the state agency’s new multicultural programs category.

The troupe’s projected summer production at SCR is “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf.” Hunter is to be part of the seven-member cast under the direction of a Black Actors Theatre associate, Richard Gordon, a former SCR actor.

If “For Colored Girls . . . “ is staged at the 171-seat Second Stage playhouse in June or July as planned, it will be the first such collaboration by SCR with another local theatrical organization.

Although Emmes said SCR will not be a fiscal or producing partner of this or any other Black Actors Theatre production, SCR will provide non-fiscal assistance to the troupe, including access to SCR technical, staging and conservatory specialists.

Emmes and Hunter said their venture is the outgrowth of contacts made between SCR and the troupe in the early 1980s, when SCR was doing research among ethnic minority groups for SCR’s “Second Lives” immigration experience project.

In 1984, the troupe performed numbers from “Movin’ On,” the troupe’s revue on famed black entertainers, at the first annual Arts on the Green festival held on grounds next to SCR. The 1984 festival was produced by SCR.

“It’s a natural extension of everything SCR has been doing in community outreach and, in this case, in the multicultural fields,” Emmes said. “We also see the chance to provide a young, growing theatrical group with all the assistance and expertise we can.”

Known as the Inter-Cultural Committee for the Performing Arts when it was formed in 1981, the Orange County Black Actors Theatre has 23 adult and 30 children members.

Still the only Orange County program aimed at establishing a black-oriented resident acting company, the troupe’s operating budget is about $90,000 a year. The troupe offers performances for schools as well as a series of productions, including those featuring well-known black performers, at community halls in Santa Ana and other cities.

The company’s adult members will appear on Jan. 30 in “Six Pieces of Black Theater” at the Curtis Theatre in Brea’s Civic Cultural Center. This production will consist of excerpts from noted black dramas and musicals.

The troupe’s children members will perform on Feb. 14 in “Back to Being Black” at the Santa Ana City Hall Annex Auditorium. This production will be supervised by Corliss Taylor-Dunne.