PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS HERE!
PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS HERE!
Call 310-458-7737 for details
Call 310-458-7737 for details
Yes, in this very spot! EVERYDAY
Yes, in this very spot! EVERYDAY
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2009
Visit us online at smdp.com
Volume 7 Issue 76
Santa Monica Daily Press TREE PLAN CLIPPED SEE PAGE 4
Since 2001: A news odyssey
THE VISIT OUR NEW WEB SITE ISSUE
Artists feel the squeeze
COMMUNITYPROFILES JONA FRANK
BY TEDDY LESHNICK Special to the Daily Press
The glitch occurred between 9:30 a.m. EST and 10:25 a.m. EST, Google Inc. said in an explanation on its company blog. Anyone who did a Google search during
DOWNTOWN For most local artists, actors, and musicians the slumping economy isn’t an abstraction. As art patrons and collectors are seeing their assets dwindle away, they are more reluctant to spend money on shows and pieces. This leaves artists struggling for a way to keep their studios and stages open through these tough times. “The pressure is a little greater, but it’s the same landscape,” Chris DeCarlo, co-artistic director of the Santa Monica Playhouse, said. “It’s always a touch-and-go, hand-tomouth situation.” Keeping the playhouse open isn’t easy. With $40,000 per month in overhead, money is especially tight. “It’s a big nut to crack,” DeCarlo said. The Santa Monica Playhouse is designed like a European theater company, DeCarlo said. Therefore every member acts, teaches, performs maintenance, and administrative work. Despite all this work, members only get paid for 1/2 to 3/4 of their time, DeCarlo said. Part of the administrative duties are writing lots of grant proposals. Over the last 10 years, the playhouse has focused on getting grants from the city and state, DeCarlo said. These grants help subsidize ticket costs. The playhouse charges $25 per ticket when it would really take $50 to cover all the overhead. “No small theater can charge $50 a seat,” DeCarlo said. Recently, DeCarlo spent 100 hours filling out grant proposals for the possibility of $7,000. It would take a professional accountant 40 hours, but rearranging financial figures for each individual grant is difficult for an actor, DeCarlo said. This time spent for little monetary gain pays off in other ways. When an organization is publicly funded, private donors are more willing to plunk down hard earned cash. “It’s all about building up credibility over time,” DeCarlo said.
SEE GOOGLE PAGE 7
SEE ARTISTS PAGE 7
Byron Kennerly news@smdp.com
THE F-STOPS HERE: Photographer Jona Frank stands along with her latest exhibition, ‘Church & State,’ at the Sherry Frumkin Gallery.
Examining another world through the lens BY MELODY HANATANI Daily Press Staff Writer
VIRGINIA Jona Frank was walking across a campus parking lot, en route to cover another assignment, when a startling sight forced a sudden stop. Parked before her was a late model Geo Metro, covered in bumper stickers supportive of conservative causes, including a cen-
trally placed, “Bush Cheney ‘04.” But it was one in particular that awoke the storyteller and photographer in Frank, causing her to grab her camera and begin snapping away, capturing the most telling shot of a sticker that read, “Smile! You could have been aborted.” It was the perfect way to visually communicate the prevailing pro-life view at Patrick Henry College, a small evangelical
school in Virginia where the Santa Monica resident spent approximately four semesters examining the student body in the conservative educational community, publishing photographic works in her new book “RIGHT: Portraits from the Evangelical Ivy League.” “They are pro-life and it says it in one SEE CP PAGE 8
Google users get bogus warning on site searches THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MOUNTAIN VIEW Computer users doing Google searches during a nearly one-hour period Saturday morning were greeted with disturbing but erroneous messages that every
site turned up in the results might be harmful. The company, which has a large presence in Santa Monica, blamed the mistake on human error and apologized for any inconvenience caused to users and site owners whose pages were incorrectly labeled.
Gary Limjap
platinum
(310) 586-0339
ALL FORMS, ALL TYPES, ALL STATES
BACK TAXES • BOOKKEEPING • SMALL BUSINESS
In today’s real estate climate ...
Experience counts! garylimjap@earthlink.net
TAXES SAMUEL B. MOSES, CPA
331 Wilshire Blvd. Santa Monica 2 Hours Free Parking (Behind Store) Monday-Saturday 10am-6pm • 310.451.1349
• www.readersjewelers.com
(310) 395-9922 100 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1800 Santa Monica 90401