Shakespeare Orange County gets bumped from Garden Grove Amphitheater for reggae and rock concerts

“Thus with a kiss I die.” And alas, the curtains fall on “Romeo and Juliet.”

It looks as though Shakespeare Orange County also has reached its final act – at least at the Garden Grove Amphitheater, its host for almost 30 years.

The city has inked an agreement with concert promoter LFA Group to operate the open-air arena in Village Green Park for the next decade. That deal replaces a less formal arrangement Shakespeare O.C. enjoyed with Garden Grove to maintain the amphitheater while providing entertainment there.

“Originally, the city said, ‘We’re bringing in this promotion company, but we always want to keep Shakespeare during the summer,’” said John Walcutt, Shakespeare O.C. artistic director. “We agreed to shrink our season from five months to two months.”

But then, Walcutt said, LFA promised only a couple of weekends – a limited offer that would not be worth the time required for preparation.

“Plays aren’t like concerts,” he said. “You need to rehearse a lot – and you need a stage to rehearse on.”

Already, Shakespeare O.C. was squeezed out of the amphitheater this past summer, Walcutt said. Still, he hoped the city would throw a lifeline for next summer until he learned otherwise in a recent meeting with officials.

The amphitheater’s Shakespeare tradition began in 1980 under artistic director Thomas Bradac. In the 1990s, Bradac took Shakespeare O.C. to Chapman University, where he still teachers. It returned to the amphitheater in the early 2000s.

Director of the acting conservatory at Orange County High School of the Arts, Walcutt took the reins five years ago. The plays attracted thousands of people throughout each season.

Walcutt aims his frustration more at the city than at LFA, he said: “I totally understand. LFA is a business, and the amphitheater is a great concert venue. Our disappointment is that the city never really engaged with us. They put fertilizer on the grass right before the opening night of ‘Hamlet’ one summer – stuff like that. They just weren’t into it.”

From Garden Grove’s standpoint, however, the deal with LFA was too good to pass up. Built in the 1970s, the 540-seat amphitheater is in desperate need of a face-lift.

Parks and Recreations Director John Montanchez said the agreement makes LFA responsible for $225,000 in upgrades over the next 10 years.

“We don’t have those funds,” he noted.

The company will spend a lot more than that, said LFA managing partner Viet Tran, who sold his partnership in the three-restaurant chain Dos Chinos to found LFA.

“Just adding a kitchen will cost $150,000,” he said. LFA also plans to repaint and upgrade the lighting and sound systems.

Tran said his goal is to make the underused amphitheater a year-round destination for concertgoers. Dubbed Garden Amp, the venue so far has featured a variety of music, from reggae to country to ska to rock to punk.

“I graduated from Garden Grove High and I never knew this thing existed,” Tran said. “I was taking a tour of parks in the city last year, looking to do a music festival, and I stumbled across the amphitheater. From the outside, you can’t even tell it’s there. It’s a beautiful venue, surrounded by trees and grass and the open sky.”

This year, LFA has produced about 30 events, and has another 15 booked. Tickets range from free to $30. “We usually fill the place,” Tran said.

Walcutt ran some dates by him that are already booked, Tran said. “We are certainly open to Shakespeare performances at the amphitheater, but John hasn’t reached out to us again.”

The amphitheater will help to revitalize Historic Main Street, Montanchez said: “It will bring life to the area.”

Other cities have contacted Walcutt about transferring the Shakespeare productions to their parks, he said.

“In the end, the amphitheater belongs to Garden Grove and they can do as they wish with it,” Walcutt conceded. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get them behind us. They’re all good people, but Shakespeare was like medicine to them.”

Then, with a little Shakespearean wit, he added, “They didn’t think of us as culture, they thought of us as mold.”