LACKING STAR, ARTS CENTER CANCELS SHOW

The Orange County Performing Arts Center has canceled its first anniversary “Encore” gala scheduled for Oct. 3, citing an inability to replace headline performer Bernadette Peters, who bowed out of the concert to accept a leading role in a Broadway musical.

Refunds are being mailed to approximately 1,000 patrons who bought tickets costing up to $500 for the benefit performance, Center officials said Wednesday.

The event, a combination concert and “backstage party,” was to have raised $100,000 for the nonprofit, 3,000-seat Center. Also scheduled to perform were the New American Orchestra playing an original orchestral work, New York City Ballet principals Heather Watts and Jock Soto and two American opera singers.

But Center officials, who counted on Peters as their top draw, said they conducted a fruitless national search for a star of similar appeal after she took a part in the new Stephen Sondheim musical “Into the Woods.”

“During the past two weeks, we have searched the country for an appropriate replacement,” Center President Thomas R. Kendrick said in a prepared statement. “Ms. Peters stands in the front rank of the musical theater world. With little lead time, we have been unable to find a suitable alternate.”

In an interview Wednesday, Kendrick said that “one of many factors that was weighed” in the decision to cancel the anniversary gala was the controversy prompted when the Center scheduled it for the evening that concludes the Yom Kippur period, the holiest of Jewish holidays.

“It is accurate that we care about the Jewish community, and we regret that some members of the Jewish community felt there was a conflict,” Kendrick said.

“The impetus to change the concept was the cancellation of Bernadette Peters, because we could not deliver what ticket purchasers had paid for. I think that the Center has made it clear that we certainly regret that some members of the Jewish community considered (that) the performance would have conflicted with traditional festivities” that conclude Yom Kippur.

Carol Wilken, chairman of the anniversary gala and the Center’s chairman of special events, said stars considered to replace Peters included Bill Cosby, Sandy Duncan, Sammy Davis Jr. and Liza Minnelli.

“Cosby turned us down because he had other commitments,” she said. “Sandy Duncan was taking over for Valerie Harper, and her television taping wouldn’t allow an appearance. Sammy Davis Jr. was simply not available. And Minnelli--whom we’d considered originally, along with Peters--was going to be in Italy.

“I do feel it was the right thing to do--better to cancel than give our audience a performance that was substandard,” Wilken added. “We just wanted to make everyone feel a part of the Center and celebrate the wonderful year we’ve had.”

To celebrate its anniversary, the Center has instead recast a previously organized series of events called “Informances,” packaged by Affiliate Artists group. The Center is renaming the performances the “Thank You Orange County Celebration Series.”

Affiliate Artists is a nonprofit organization based in New York that weaves together the needs of corporate sponsors of the arts, performers and local presenting organizations by dispatching specially trained artists to various sites in a community. In an Informance, a concept devised by Affiliated Artists, the artist talks about his specialty and performs.

The Center signed contracts with Affiliated Artists before the Bernadette Peters cancellation to bring three young artists--dancer Clarence Teeters, 33, harpist Catherine White, 33 and pianist William Wolfram, 31, bronze medal winner in the 1986 Tchaikovsky Competition--to Orange County for 20 performances each. From Oct. 12, 1987, to March 18, 1988, the artists will each spend more than a week in the county, traveling to hospitals, schools and corporate facilities.

Lynne Stoops, who manages the so-called “residencies” for Affiliated Artists said that the artists performances in Orange County are being underwritten by the Metropolitan Life Foundation, a foundation of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., while the Center will pay for advertising and putting up the artists during their stays.

“We provide the artists and package the events with the help of the Center,” Stoops said. “We had been talking to them for a long time, and they called us about a week ago to talk about changing the concept to suit the anniversary.”