James Irvine Foundation

South Coast Repertory has been awarded a three-year, $550,000 grant in a major new initiative to support exemplary California arts organizations and to strengthen the state's arts community, officials announced Monday. The James Irvine Foundation will give SCR $150,000 annually for the next three seasons, plus $100,000 for a computer upgrade as part of its Cornerstone Arts Organizations program, foundation officials said.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art's new role as conservator of the Watts Towers has brought an almost immediate payoff: a $500,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation, announced Wednesday, to help fund repair and preservation of the landmark folk-art masterpiece. "We're thrilled," said Olga Garay, executive director of the city's Department of Cultural Affairs, which manages the towers and recently struck a trial one-year agreement with LACMA for conservation and help with promoting the towers to prospective visitors and funders.

The Pacific Asia Museum has been given a $30,000 challenge grant by the James Irvine Foundation. The matching grant will be used to develop the museum's cross-cultural programs.

Some time next year, a seeing-eye dog may guide visitors -- even those with no vision problems -- through the galleries of the Hammer Museum in Westwood to a pre-selected painting. In San Francisco, young actors in training may be found rounding up an audience for a play staged in a bar or in the rec room of a juvenile detention facility.

New Lewitzky Manager: Ruth L. Elielhas become managing director of the Lewitzky Dance Company, brought in under a new three-year $175,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation to expand development of the 25-year-old company. Eliel, 38, was previously a senior manager at Deloitte & Touche accounting firm.

The James Irvine Foundation has given $100,000 to the Orange County Council of the Boy Scouts of America for outreach programs targeted at Orange County's Latino community. The grant will fund six additional program aide positions in the council's Latino outreach program. The aides will work within the Latino community to organize new Cub Scout and Boy Scout troops.

Claremont Graduate School has received a $750,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation to recruit minority faculty and students. The grant will pay for up to 35 fellowships of $10,000 each. The balance will be spent on recruiting, seminars, workshops, conferences and faculty research projects. Claremont also plans to offer new courses, such as ethnic studies, within existing departments, a spokesman said.

The Orange County Master Chorale has received a $50,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation. The grant, which extends over three years, will provide the group with money to develop a professional management staff. "With this funding as a significant beginning, we will be able to embark on a new era of professional business management and free our musicians to focus on more ambitious heights for all our audiences," said Maurice Allard, music director of the 115-member chorale.

The Orange County Performing Arts Center on Monday announced it has received a $3-million grant from the James Irvine Foundation. Half the money will be used for the construction of the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall and Samueli Theater. The remainder will go toward the establishment of an endowment fund supporting the center's new education center, officials said. "With the opening of our expanded facilities in 2006," board Chairman Paul F.

Broadway bound: It's official: "Curtains," the Kander & Ebb musical that had a successful run at the Ahmanson Theatre in L.A. this summer, will open on Broadway in March, with David Hyde Pierce and Debra Monk reprising the roles they played here. Theater grant: The Laguna Playhouse has received a $400,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation to help build its audience.

THE good news for big-city arts organizations statewide is that the James Irvine Foundation is handing out $5.2 million in a campaign to boost innovation at arts institutions, including $2.4 million to three Los Angeles museums. The bad news is, that's only about half as much money as the foundation handed out the last time it did this.

The Orange County Performing Arts Center on Monday announced it has received a $3-million grant from the James Irvine Foundation. Half the money will be used for the construction of the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall and Samueli Theater. The remainder will go toward the establishment of an endowment fund supporting the center's new education center, officials said. "With the opening of our expanded facilities in 2006," board Chairman Paul F.

The James Irvine Foundation, long one of the state's leading donors to social causes and the arts, is trimming its staff from 42 positions to 35 in the wake of hefty stock-market losses and plans a strategic shift that will reduce its arts philanthropy. The first move in that shift: the termination of program director Melanie Beene, the most senior of the foundation's three arts staffers, who will leave her position at the end of the month.

The James Irvine Foundation recently awarded $5 million in grants to California colleges and universities to increase diversity. The grants, made to USC and Occidental College in Los Angeles, Claremont Graduate University, Dominican University of California in San Rafael, and others, are part of the foundation's Campus Diversity Initiative, designed to open the opportunities of a college education to people of all ethnic and economic backgrounds.

The cash-strapped Pasadena YMCA, which closed its doors three months ago amid mounting debts and a state attorney general's investigation, is selling its shuttered facility to a foundation for use as a community center. The San Francisco-based James Irvine Foundation will buy the New York Drive building for $530,000 so it can be reopened, with city help, as a home for children's programs, Pasadena officials said.

The James Irvine Foundation recently awarded $5 million in grants to California colleges and universities to increase diversity. The grants, made to USC and Occidental College in Los Angeles, Claremont Graduate University, Dominican University of California in San Rafael, and others, are part of the foundation's Campus Diversity Initiative, designed to open the opportunities of a college education to people of all ethnic and economic backgrounds.

Broadway bound: It's official: "Curtains," the Kander & Ebb musical that had a successful run at the Ahmanson Theatre in L.A. this summer, will open on Broadway in March, with David Hyde Pierce and Debra Monk reprising the roles they played here. Theater grant: The Laguna Playhouse has received a $400,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation to help build its audience.

South Coast Repertory has been awarded a three-year, $550,000 grant in a major new initiative to support exemplary California arts organizations and to strengthen the state's arts community, officials announced Monday. The James Irvine Foundation will give SCR $150,000 annually for the next three seasons, plus $100,000 for a computer upgrade as part of its Cornerstone Arts Organizations program, foundation officials said.

A nonprofit group devoted to women entrepreneurs will expand its Orange County operations with a recently awarded three-year grant of $175,000 from the James Irvine Foundation. Designed specifically to help women entrepreneurs in Orange County, the grant will beef up programs offered by the California AWED--American Woman's Economic Development Corp., an organization that has trained more than 4,000 women since forming in Los Angeles County in 1991. "It's wonderful.