It's been a topsy turvy season.

Next on Our Place Our Time, we'll chart the ups and the downs of the arts season in Hampton Roads.

We'll look at a controversial theater renovation plan and we'll tell you about a touring theater for children that has thrived on controversy.

It's been a season of ups and downs in the arts in Hampton Roads.

Hello and welcome to Our Place Our Time.

I'm Vian Webb.

I guess in reviewing the season in the arts, we'd have to talk about money.

First, there was the general state of the economy, which was in a recession.

That meant fewer discretionary funds and declining ticket sales at arts events.

And then the budget of the state of Virginia receded and promised grants to arts organizations were cut and then they were cut again.

That's the bad news.

But there has been some good news.

Tim Morton pulls it all together for us, the good and the bad, as he looks at the situation with the professional arts and the arts in schools.

It sits on a hill, but the State House in Richmond this year has been a dale of tears for the arts.

We are faced with nearly a $2 billion shortfall.

The largest in our state's history.

Governor Wilder was talking about the overall state budget and the shortfall resulted in unprecedented cuts.

For the Virginia Commission of the Arts, one of the smallest state agencies, the cuts in the opinion of some were more like wounds.

Know that the arts are going to have to and probably should take a more proportionate cut than social service agencies education, mental health Medicare, Medicaid.

But the cut that the governor has proposed is a stake through the heart.

It's 80% cut from where we were last fiscal year.

The commission's executive director detailed the effects of the cuts.

But a number of our other programs will be going out the window.

Project grants for organizations, our prizes for individual artists, salary assistance for arts organizations.

In effect, what this means is that any startup ventures will just not be receiving any funding from the commission in the future.

We'll be lucky to keep the arts organizations we have in the state going.

For Norfolk's Virginia Stage Company, the cuts contributed to immediate problems.

We based all of our income projections this year on exactly what we were able to bring in last year.

So to be told of cuts once we're already into the season, it's very difficult for us to handle.

Those cuts cuts coming on top of a decrease in corporate individual gifts really painting a very ugly picture for us this year.

Michael Ticnis, executive director of the Virginia Symphony, called on voters to help the arts cause.

We are in very perilous times.

If we sit back and do noth, the music, the opera, the theater will stop.

So we need you to make some calls.

Some legislators offered to help.

And so we're going to try our very best to restore as much as we can of the art funds, not to the fullest extent, but perhaps relieve the disparity a little bit.

The commission did get from the legislature a million and a half dollars, a half million more than the governor proposed.

But whether it will finally get 71% less than it got last year remains to be seen.

Governor Wilder could still cut it more by exercising his line item veto power.

From the slew of financial despond, we turn to some artistic peaks of the past season.

The Chrysler Museum brought together for the first time a body of works by an artist heretofore better known as a teacher of great artists.

In the exhibit of paintings by Hans Hoffman, you followed the turnings of modern art through six decades from pointless self-portraits to compositions which make a visual music.

The exhibit showed that Hoffman is one of the century's masterful colorists.

Meanwhile, the art and sculpture in the annual juried show of the Peninsula Fine Arts Center looked inward, sometimes with anger.

This year is much more psychological.

It's a really fierce show.

There's a lot of sort of seized moment in some of these and this is, this is an example of that.

The poor shortening and the perspective of that are sort of a seized moment of unfamiliarity.

Virginia Opera opened its season with a production that critics called one of the best in the company's 15 years.

Conducted by Peter Mark, the production re-imagined Rickard Strauss's Ariadna Afnoxos in a roaring 1920s setting near the time of the opera's composition.

There were twin peaks in the season of the Virginia Stage Company.

In December came a revival of the 1954 Broadway hit The Rainmaker.

A great big Rain.

And in January came a fresh look at Samuel Beckett's waiting for Godot.

Th's enough.

I'm tired.

Yes.

We're out of shape.

While many Navy residents of Hampton Roads were preparing to fight a war in the Persian Gulf, the Old Dominion University Ballet entertained their dependence with its annual Christmas Nutcracker.

I like it.

I like the music and I like people dancing.

The Virginia Symphony introduced a season of ballet, including visits by the Pittsburgh and Miami Ballets.

With the Chrysler Museum on May 11th, the symphony will bring the Bolshoi Ballet in a special gala.

The ballet season was the brainchild of symphony board member Mrs.

Clay Barr.

So I've been pushing for it for quite a few years and I'm delighted to say that it has been the great success story of this season.

That not only were all three original performances sold out, we did a second performance of Swan Lake, which also was sold out with the Pittsburgh Ballet.

And ticket sales for next year are going very well.

We had over 1100 subscribers this year in our initial season and we expect to far exceed that having had sold out houses that those people know what wonderful companies we're bringing here.

At Colonial Williamsburg, the DeWitt Wallace Gallery for only the second time in its history mounted an exhibit from a private collection.

The 18th and 19th century antiques, many examples of the best of their kind, are from the collection of Mr.

And Mrs.

Joseph Hennige.

The exhibit continues through May 19.

Colonial Williamsburg will open on June 1st, one of the year's major restorations, 1770 courthouse.

Craftsmen used 18th century tools reproducing the way the courthouse was built originally in accomplishing the $1.7 million restoration.

The Jamestown Foundation rebuilt the Susan Constant, one of the three ships that brought the first English settlers to America in 1607.

The replica built at $2.1 million was commissioned last week.

In downtown Norfolk, a modern nautical adventure got underway.

On the old banana pier, preliminary work began on Nauticus, the $53 million National Maritime Center the city hopes will become a tourist bonanza.

Phases one and 1A include dredging and building a bulkhead around the waterfront perimeter.

The goal for opening Nauticus is the spring of 1993.

The city of Norfolk also began seriously considering the restoration of the old Atux Theater, once a cultural center for black people.

One problem is the restoration needs to occur soon.

The building is deteriorating.

The question now is, can the city afford it?

The question of affordability is certainly a pertinent one.

And these are difficult financial times.

But Regardless of the economy, this building is suffering damage.

So if you want to maintain a historical landmark, you have to attend to it right away.

In six months from now, we all hope that the economy's going to be in a much more positive mode than it is today.

The economy and the state's budget cuts are also affecting arts programs in area public schools.

With so many different school systems, it's difficult to generalize except to say that arts programs operate on small budgets and these now are either shrinking or holding on.

Betty Owen is a professional artist who works in the Norfolk schools this year.

I was asked to come back next year, which I was real excited about.

But unfortunately with all of the budget cuts my job was next.

You're not going to be back next year.

How do you feel about that?

Well, I could cry.

I really could because the kids love it so much.

And the art teachers too.

The whole school gets into it.

You know?

I have Blair Middle School that's there was an article in the paper on me that the art teacher got laminated and she took photographs of me working with the kids so she can expose the parents to what I did with them.

I mean, it's just another, another way of motivating the children, of encouraging them.

In Hampton, while some students at the Taylor Arts Center were hanging up their art, we talked with art supervisor Ron Minetry.

I don't know my materials budget yet at all.

So I can't comment on that.

Whether we'll have the kinds of materials available that we've had in the past is just, it's hard to say.

We've lost an art resource teacher who's been invaluable in terms of coordination and development of curriculum working with teachers.

And that'll hurt, that'll hurt my office particularly.

She'll be back in the classroom working with kids, so kids are going to benefit greatly.

But structuring will be a little more difficult and we'll just have to kind of pull together as an organization, as a department to fill that void.

She was one of six, but the only woman who was a candidate to become the music director of the Virginia Symphony.

This past season for the symphony was a happy one.

It set a record for season tickets sold and one of searching for a new maestro.

Or would it be a maestra?

Last week we learned.

And I can't imagine a more auspicious beginning for a conductor.

A superb musical ensemble and a community that truly cherishes that ensemble.

We have to end our review back on the subject of money.

In March, the Virginia Stage Company was thinking it might have to close its doors.

What we need first and foremost is for 8,500 people within Hampton Roads to step forward and to subscribe to the wonderful theater that has been on this stage for 12 years.

That was March.

Earlier this week we asked Don Chapman, President of Virginia Stage for the latest news.

Well, Tim, the great news is that in just a little over 60 days, the citizens of Hampton Roads have come forward in record numbers to keep theater alive here in this community.

As of yesterday, Monday, April 29th, there were over 7,400 subscriptions in - house and the numbers growing daily.

We're convinced now that with just a little more time, we're going to be able to get close enough to the number that we'll keep it alive and through the summer and fall selling season we'll make 8,500 and I think we'll even surpass it.

Saving Virginia Stage also meant saving one of Hampton Road's great old theaters onwards and upwards with the arts.

Another news event of this past season was the announcement by the Virginia Opera and the city of Norfolk of plans to renovate the 50-year-old Center Theater and the adjoining arena gymnasium.

The buildings belong to the city, but the Virginia Opera has announced a $10 million renovation plan that includes both buildings.

So far the Virginia Opera's plans have had pretty smooth sailing, but Tim Morton found that the plan still has its critics.

People who are questioning who will benefit from that renovation.

They are two buildings with adjoining stages.

The Center Theater, best known as the home of the Virginia Opera.

And on the other side, the arena wants the major sports facility in Norfolk.

Virginia Opera's plans include both.

The president of the opera is Mrs.

Joyce Stralitz.

This is a 50-year-old facility and not an awful lot has been done to update it in that length of time.

It's a wonderful facility though and it has a very proud and happy history.

It's meant a real, a lot to this community.

And so what we're going to do is to make it a livable home for not only the opera, which will be its main tenant, but the some 44 other performing groups and educational groups as well as performing groups that are users.

What the opera wants to do with $5 million it is raising privately and $5 million from the city is wrapped three sides of the center theater in a new facade.

The front will have the look of a 19th century Italian opera house.

Inside, there will be a new foyer, more lobby space and stage wing space.

The plan includes enlarging the orchestra pit, new heating and lighting equipment, and modernizing the theater's antiquated rigging system.

A special room for the opera's benefactors will be on the balcony level.

What the renovation doesn't include is enlarging the theater's 29-foot deep stage.

This stage wasn't built for operas.

There are many operas you can't do here.

Verde's Aida is one and the other late Verde Operas.

Fogner's Operas.

Puccini's Turandat would be difficult.

Critics for years have commented on Virginia Opera productions and how they look cramped.

There are no plans in the renovation to enlarge this stage and therefore increase the Virginia Opera's capacity to perform more operas and in better productions.

Ken Freeman, the opera's business manager, said the opera wanted originally to deepen the stage, but then it began figuring the costs.

The larger the stage space, of course, the more the, the higher your production costs to fill that space.

And our first pass at it indicated a 15% increase in, in our production costs, which was something that we didn't feel that was really too realistic for, for this community.

And similarly with the other groups, they felt that to fill that space would be beyond their, their financial capacity.

The compromise that we've, we've reached is to increase the wing space, nearly doubling it, which provides for greater use of unit sets, more space for chorus off stage that can then be brought on stage.

It's, it's a good middle position.

It might have been preferable from the opera's point of view to be able to have a stage on which we could perform some of the vagnarian operas and some of the larger operas, which probably we won't be able to do.

But that in turn would have meant we'd have to compromise somewhere else.

Another frequent user of the Center Theater is the Norfolk Savoyards.

Tony Newing is the director.

I would like to have seen the priority on the stage.

There's a, there's the, the auditorium, of course, is, is very important.

And of course it did, it is in bad need of renovation.

And we all know that.

And the facilities aren't very good there.

But there seems to have been a, a priority on this, this rather new opening facade of the theater and so on, which I would've liked to have seen.

And this is of course purely a stage director's point of view.

A little more emphasis on, on getting that back walled out.

I talked with two other directors of performing arts groups which regularly appear in the center theater.

They also said Virginia Opera is making a mistake not enlarging the stage.

Both refused to appear in front of our cameras and asked that I not identify them.

They said they would fear reprisals from the Virginia Opera.

Although the Center Theater stage does adjoin the stage on the arena side, there is a complicating factor.

The arena stage is four feet higher and the wall between them is a bearing wall.

To knock out even a small hole in that would require completely new underpinnings.

And the, the cost of it was estimated being up to $5 million simply to remove that wall.

We felt that the money would be much better spent in terms of other production capacity.

Once upon a time, the center theater glistening white and its companion, the arena, were handsome examples of the art deco style prominent from the 1920s till the 40s.

The years have dirtied the limestone.

But beneath are buildings that Robert Woitovich, an architectural historian at Old Dominion University, thinks ought to be preserved.

The building is a local variation on the full-fledged art deco style, which flourished mainly in New York City and Miami.

We have a few examples here in town and I think this is probably the best of them.

I would rather see it preserved intact than to be tarted up with some historical decoration that ends up looking like a pastiche, much like the apartment buildings around here.

The building behind it would remain much the same it seems according to the scheme.

And it will not really significantly alter the quality of performance here.

In a sense, it is pure decoration.

A place for people to admire one another and to be admired.

And certainly that is one aspect of going to the opera.

But at the expense of such a fine building, I think it is foolish.

You like this front?

Do I like it personally?

Yeah.

It has a nostalgic charm.

But I think I'm being caught.

No.

Well, You go cover it up.

Oh, oh, you're not going to... Oh, that's coming down.

As a matter of fact, we had to shore up the marquee, the present marquee because it was truly a safety hazard.

That's one of the little emergency tasks that we perform.

The city sees the Chrysler Museum and renovated Center Theater forming a cultural corridor.

The opera wants to begin the renovation next spring.

Theater four is a touring theater group for children that has thrived on the production of original plays with controversial subjects.

A few years ago, the company produced a play about the sexual abuse of children, which provoked hundreds of children to step forward and tell of their own abuse experiences.

Holly O'Neill tells us about this Richmond-based company, which has become one of the largest children's theater touring groups in the nation.

Earth is one of nine planets in the solar system that orbit the sun.

Don't say the earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old.

This is the heart and soul of Theater four performing for school children.

This Richmond-based touring company made up of six to eight traveling casts will perform about 1500 times this year.

The nonprofit company has won numerous awards and their audience has grown since the theater's inception in 1975 to a half a million students.

That's quite a change from its first tour traveling about Virginia and one bus and a truck.

Theater four was developed to fill a void.

Its founders Bruce Miller and Phil Whiteway discovered in Theater for Children.

And we all must learn to take care of our Earth.

Are you ready to learn how you can help?

This play, Wonderful World, debuting here at Western Branch Primary School in Chesapeake is the latest edition to Theater 4's repertoire.

It is an environmental show designed to educate younger students about practical ways to help protect our environment and teach them that they as individuals can make a difference.

Denise O'Connor has been teaching at the school for six years and says that Theater four is a welcome activity for students to break up the routine of a classroom.

This was an entertaining way, a light way to bring forth the same information and probably make a more lasting impression.

This environmental show is only one component in Theater Four's four types of children's plays.

The company also produces historical dramas.

It began by and continues to present contemporary adaptations of classic childhood tales as well as holiday shows.

But the development of shows like Wonderful World came from the theater's community outreach program.

Bruce Miller is the artistic director and writes most of the plays.

And one of which we are particularly proud is our community outreach.

Through that division of our work, we try to educate and inspire young people and their parents really about issues which are vitally important to all of our community, but particularly to children.

Miller didn't write Wonderful World, but in 1983 he did write Hugs and Kisses, a play addressing child sexual abuse, which has made quite an impact in the communities it's entered.

I think the most gratifying aspect of doing the shows that deal with the social issues comes from seeing the faces of the children, sometimes five and six year olds who come up after the performance to talk with the actors and their children who because of their personal circumstances have a very special concern regarding this social issue.

While some areas initially rejected Miller's play, it has nonetheless become a social service.

Over the years they average two disclosures of abuse instances from children after a performance.

About a third of the cases investigated are found to be valid and this has led to family counseling and in some cases court convictions and prison terms.

Treating such sensitive issues is handled with great importance by Theater four.

They say that thorough research before clearing a script is the most important part of their work.

Beyond the place for children, the company produces adult theater as well.

Mostly family classics such as its production of Wizard of Oz, which will open in the company's new home, the Empire Theater in Richmond.

Like most nonprofit theater groups, Theater four has been homeless for many, many years.

And the Empire Theater and the complex here in Richmond was became available on the market in 1986.

And the board of directors of Theater four decided it was time that we had a full-time home.

The Empire is Virginia's oldest theater and will provide theater for its future in producing larger shows, focusing more on a full family playhouse.

And an adult season with scripts drawn from Broadway plays.

I'm here.

Billy Bob, you do it.

You start us off again.

Here in rehearsal for The Wizard of Oz is Dorothy and 27 Munchkins from the famed Follow the Yellow Brick Road scene.

Dorothy, played by Deborah Wagner, has been with the touring company for four years.

People take it for granted that children aren't as bright an audience, and that's just completely not true.

And I think the way our shows are done, they're done in a way that they're, the children aren't talked down to in any way are made to feel insignificant or smaller or inferior intellectually or anything, any of those things.

Writing those plays for children's theater has made Bruce Miller finally feel comfortable calling himself a playwright.

Although he admits he's a different type of writer who enjoys working from research to bring his plays to life.

And in real life, that takes its toll on him.

The process is still a nerve-wracking one.

I read somewhere that someone who I can't remember now had said that the joy of writing is having written.

And that is certainly true with me because during the process of writing, I always want to smash my head against the wall and go, "Why am I doing this? "

You know?

And then when it's over, when it's on the boards and the play's done, it feels great and you go, "I wrote that. "

You know, you have that tremendous sense of pride.

A sense of pride also comes from successfully meshing education and entertainment in their plays.

That they say is their biggest challenge.

Energy and What?

In a way, I'm kind of preparing the adult audiences of tomorrow.

You would be surprised some places we go to are so remote and I mean, I've had children, you know, come up after the show and say, "We enjoyed your movie."

They think it's television or they think it's the movie and they don't understand the concept of live theater.

And I think it's something that everybody should be exposed to.

And the best time is when you're a child.

With this program, we come to the end of the fourth season of Our Place, Our Time.

And as always, we welcome your comments and your suggestions.

It's been our goal to entertain you and to inform you about the arts and the cultural life in this beautiful area that we live.

I ask you to pay close attention to the names of the people that follow because they are the ones that do the fine work.

For Our Place Our Time, I'm Vian Webb.

Partial funding for Our Place, Our Times made possible by grants from the Arts Commissions of the Cities of Virginia Beach and Chesapeake from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and from the Arts Commissions of the Cities of Newport News, Norfolk, Hampton and Williamsburg.