Community Commentary -- Sylvia Impert, Alex Golson and Cynthia

Corley

We are writing in response to the June 17 article on the front page

that carried the large headline “No more drama at Orange Coast College,”

and the editorial cartoon that followed it titled “OCC Drama Department

Response to Swap Meet Cutbacks” (June 23).

Your article concerned the season of entertainment in the R.B. Moore

Theatre at OCC offered by the Community Education Program. This program

is not part of the OCC Theatre Arts Department or the Fine Arts Division.

OCC Community Education offers dance, music, variety, magic shows and

other nondramatic entertainment; they do not produce any plays. These

shows in the R.B. Moore Theatre may be ended if the OCC swap meet cannot

continue to provide funding.

What is not affected in any perceivable way by these cutbacks is the

full season of drama produced by the students and faculty of the OCC

Theatre Arts Department and the critically acclaimed OCC Repertory.

We are here, we are still hard at work and are, in fact, in the middle

of a busy summer season of classes and plays. In addition, your own

theater writer, Tom Titus, wrote a lengthy column on June 22 describing

the full slate of plays we are producing for the 2002-03 season (“OCC

readies another ambitious season”).

Why did you print such an inaccurate and damaging headline? Do you

read your own articles? Why print the cartoon to further mislead the

local community? The OCC Drama Department is providing and will continue

to provide our full roster of courses and a wide array of plays to the

local community.

We value our students and our patrons highly, and the confusion and

prospective damage from such blaring inaccuracies needs to be addressed.

Please clarify the difference between OCC Community Education and the OCC

Theatre Arts Department, which is very much a vital educational and

theatrical resource for Orange County.

* SYLVIA IMPERT is the dean of Fine Arts; ALEX GOLSON is the current

Theatre Arts Department chair; and CYNTHIA CORLEY will be the Theatre

Arts Department chair.