Actress Mona Golabek begins a brief run in “The Pianist” at Laguna Playhouse on May 29.

In 1938 the Nazis annexed Austria and its Jewish population found itself in immediate peril.

While countless Austrian Jews joined the 6 million murdered between 1939 and 1945, Lisa Jura, an aspiring concert pianist of 14, survived the Holocaust. Though the invasion dashed her ambition to perform at the storied Vienna Musikverein concert hall, the Kindertransport, a rescue operation that ferried Jewish children to safety in England, spared her life. Her parents were left behind.

The story of Lisa’s resilience in a British children’s hostel and beyond, an unwavering devotion to music and the kindness of others forms the core of “The Pianist of Willesden Lane,” a one-woman play opening at the Laguna Playhouse for a two-week run between May 29 and June 9.

It features Jura’s daughter, Mona Golabek, a concert pianist, actress and co-author with Lee Cohen of “The Children of Willesden Lane: Beyond the Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love and Survival,” the book upon which the play is based.

She tells the story from memories her mother retold during piano lessons, set against a background of easily recognizable classical music, Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A-minor most prominent among them. “It is the music with which my mother dreamed of making her debut in Vienna,” she said.

Writing the story, Golabek was also driven by a desire to impart history and also instill a love for classical music into younger generations. To that end, she established the Hold on to Your Music Foundation (www.holdontoyourmusic.org). The book has been converted into teaching materials for more than 200,000 school children, she said.

“History is blurring and Holocaust survivors are dying. I asked myself whether their fates would become a footnote in history,” said Golabek. “My challenge was to tell a story that took place 60 years ago and to enter the hearts and souls of people through music.”

The theme of a young girl who holds on to her dream through the darkest of times is universal, she says. There’s also a love story when Lisa chose between a boy at the hostel and an intriguing Jewish French resistance fighter.

The play is based on the life of the actress’s mother, Lisa Jura.

Golabek began the book 18 years ago. Before being published, it underwent several metamorphoses, she recalled. Actor Hershey Felder, well-known for writing and performing in biographical plays about composers, adapted Golabek’s work. It was performed at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles last year and earned her a nomination as best solo performer by the Los Angeles Drama Critic Circle.

Felder will direct her at the Playhouse. “Mona tells this heart-rending and ultimately uplifting story the way no one else can. Besides being a remarkable pianist of the highest order and a wonderful storyteller, so is the result of what happens in that story: a mother choses to send her child away ultimately to freedom, giving the child the ability to survive and then prosper,” wrote Felder via e-mail.

Golabek and Felder brought “The Pianist” to the Playhouse two years ago and presented it to an audience of 50 invited guests as a work in progress, said Ann E. Wareham, the Playhouse’s artistic director. “You forget how powerful this story is but when Mona starts playing, it’s pretty breathtaking,” she said.

Though the story possesses personal resonance for her, Golabek sums up the book and play as a creative vehicle that allows her to deploy her many artistic gifts. “I am simply a conduit to what is a very inspirational story,” she said.

Designer Jeanine Veldhuis in the room she worked on.

The Philharmonic Society of Orange County this year selected a sprawling Tuscan-style villa in Coto de Caza where local interior designers could showcase their talents and help support the society’s youth music education programs, which serve 150,000 students a year.

Five bedrooms, a wine cellar, the entry, a lounge, living and dining areas, a library kitchen and baths now reflect the designers’ vision as well as complementing the architecture of the house and its surroundings. The showcase’s final day is Sunday, May 19.

Among the 12 designers, four with previous Design House credentials are based in Laguna Beach: Jeanine Veldhuis, Veldhuis Interior Design; Gary Finley, Gary Finley Interior Design; John Wallace Benecke, John Wallace Benecke Interiors, and the late Steve Stein, SLS Designs,Inc. Stein died shortly after finishing the Design House project, a living area he had dubbed “the lounge.”

John Wallace Benecke

Educated at Cal Poly San Louis Obispo, Veldhuis chose the master bedroom and bath, which she transformed into a casually elegant retreat reflecting imaginary owners who traveled, bringing back eclectic mementos.

“I used a fairly neutral color palette with accents of earthy colors like brown, terra cotta, cream and gold and added lots of plants,” she explained. “With a master bedroom you don’t get too inventive but follow a recipe and add spice.”

To Veldhuis, spice arises from a variety of textures and an eclectic mix of materials and artifacts, such as an iron canopy bed, a leather chest, antique iron sconces and Moroccan embroidered bedding as well as contemporary acrylic pedestals.

Veldhuis pulled her entire project together in 10 weeks. “Normally it takes 12 to 14 weeks just to get the furnishings,” she said.

Designers are not granted unfettered creative freedom, but must adhere to some rules, such as retaining the color of the walls and plaster in keeping with the Mediterranean look. And since the home is for sale, designers weigh the project’s cost as well as its effectiveness as a marketing tool.

For example, furnishings and artifacts not lent by distributors or manufacturers must be selected with future settings in mind. Items paid for by firms or individuals will be re-purposed for other showcases or sold. Then again, designers order draperies and upholstery, custom made for the space and absorb the cost.

Finley’s forte is putting art into unconventional settings. A large abstract painting by Luc Leestemaker dominates the sitting room-library, here named Biblioteca, accompanied by 17th and 18th century antique furniture and eye-catching accessories. Laguna gallerists Dawson Cole and Joanne Artman as well as a La Jolla gallery lent works for the project.

Gary Finley

“I wanted the public to know that large works of art need not be imposing, even in smaller spaces,” he said. An adjoining narrow, 30 foot-long hallway proved a challenge that he met by placing two Italian chests of drawers, known as commodes, works of wall art and assorted plants, effecting an airy illusion of width. “I love offering the unexpected,” he said. Practicing since 1987, he said that one of the aspects that attracted him to design was his ability to give his client’s abstract ideas physical form.

Wallace Benecke chose what he considers a home’s focal point, the large entrance foyer and powder room. “The entrance sets the tone for the house,” he said.

He explained that he aimed for an old world house with a youthful sensibility.

His biggest challenge came when he changed out the heavy iron chandeliers suspended from a 36-foot ceiling and put up three drum-shaded fixtures. The new setting needed rewiring but he said the effect was worth it.

Wallace Beneke grew up steeped in classical music as his mother hails from Vienna, he said. He also is a Philharmonic Society board member and chairs a committee dedicated to bringing youth into concert halls.

He advises clients and others to avoid a decorator look and says: “Pay attention to individual collectibles, put them in the right place and don’t overdo it.”

Walls filled with art reflect both the house and the owner’s sensibility, he said, reminding owners that objects need not stay in the same place forever. “Art can be moved, and then don’t forget to put something good into the bathrooms either,” he said. He summed up his philosophy saying: With art and interior design there is really no wrong way of doing it. It’s all a matter of perception, a different approach.”

DESIGN HOURS:

Sat: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sun: Noon to 5 p.m. Park at Trabuco Presbyterian Church,

31802 Las Amigas Drive, Trabuco Canyon, CA 92679.

Call (714) 840-7542 or email Madeline@PhilharmonicSociety.org

www.philharmonicsociety.org/HOD

Teri Ralson and Van Rae Wood in Laguna Playhouse’s “Steel Magnolias,” through May 26.

“I’m a complete moron when it comes to doing hair but I have to look as if I know what I am doing,” confessed Stephanie Zimbalist rehearsing for “Steel Magnolias,” currently at the Laguna Playhouse. Zimbalist, adding to her skill sets, embodies Truvy, the irrepressible owner of a beauty salon located in Chinquapin Parish, La.

None of the cast had ever tried their hand at hairdressing before but evidently rose to the occasion with the help of rehearsals involving real life equipment, not stand-in props, said Jenny Sullivan, the play’s director.

“It’s a bit of a bluff but great fun,” said Zimbalist, daughter of actor Efrem Zimbalist Jr. She and co-worker Joanna Strapp managed to mimic the beauty business with aplomb by opening night.

“The play is a universal story of what friendship brings,” said Sullivan, who is working at the Playhouse for the first time. “We are an all-female cast and the bonding process is fantastic,” she said.

There was a time when getting their hair washed, set and teased was a weekly ritual, a chance for women to relax among like-minded friends, and in some places it still is.  “Big hair is still big in the South and it’s work-intensive,” remarked Sullivan.

Robert Harling wrote the play in the wake of the untimely death of his younger sister. True to life, the play contains poignant references to a woman’s passing, friends bonding through grief, and ultimately, the birth of new life. Its title refers to “ideal” Southern women who are still supposed to appear as delicate as magnolia blossoms on the outside but, forged by the vicissitudes of life, are tough as steel on the inside.

Zimbalist noted that, after having gone to school in Virginia and having friends all over the South, acquiring a Southern accent was not difficult but a precise process nonetheless. “Our location is in the northwest part of Louisiana and we needed to be specific. We don’t do a generic fake Southern accent like they do in parodies,” she said.

First produced off-Broadway in 1987 and on Broadway in 2005, the play served as the platform for a movie starring Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis, Julia Roberts, Sally Field and Daryl Hannah. The film features visible male characters that in the play are only alluded to.

Here, Elyse Mirto plays M’Lynn, Alyson Lindsay is Shelby, Joanna Strapp is Annelle, Von Rae Wood is Clairee and Teri Ralston plays Ouiser, the show’s lovable curmudgeon embodied in the film by MacLaine.

For Ralston, who was born in Colorado but grew up in Laguna Beach, performing at the Playhouse is a sentimental home coming, she said. After college in San Francisco, New York beckoned and her career rose meteorically after being cast in “Company” and “A Little Night Music” and working with Stephen Sondheim.

On May 20, she will revisit those early days and perform “Songs I’ve Grown Into,” from Roy Rogers to Sondheim at Laguna Beach’s No Square Theatre.

“The show is made up of songs that I am re-interpreting with a different understanding from the vantage point of a mature woman and performer,” she said.

Ralston also worked in Los Angeles and appeared in television shows such as “Married With Children” and “The Bold and the Beautiful.”  Taking a page from Tony Bennett, she said that she found that her heart remained in New York City and also in teaching. “When I teach I learn so much as an actress,” she said.

At the Playhouse, Ralston is reprising Ouizer (pronounced weezer), a character often described as a curmudgeon, but whom Ralston interprets as merely impatient. “I don’t think of myself as a curmudgeon but rather as profoundly lacking patience,” she said. “Sometimes now when I snap at someone during rehearsals or outside, I just say that Ouizer is coming out.”

As they laugh, gossip, fight, cajole and comfort each other in grief, the cast takes their audience onto a narrative and emotional roller coaster ride.

“The idea that everything takes place in such a small setting makes for a special intimacy and yet it’s never the same thing twice. It’s an adventure,” said Sullivan.

Photo by Jim Collins
Newly opened senior studios bear the name of college supporter Suzanne Chonette, who, along with other board members, got their first look inside last Saturday.

With the end of the term just weeks away, Laguna College of Art and Design seniors didn’t need all that much prodding to show up on a weekend to work on unfinished year-end projects in newly finished studios and workspaces.

Though student animators, painters, designers, gamers and illustrators settled in with light tables, easels and computers beginning in March, last Saturday they demonstrated how the newly acquired and renovated space was put to good use.

Christened the Suzanne Chonette Senior Studios, students occupy a 5,400 square foot former gym opposite the main campus, acquired by the college for $3 million and renovated for another $500,000, with more remodeling work still needed. It features light-filled, well-ventilated spaces designed for myriad needs, including room for collaborative efforts.

The studio’s was named for Suzanne Chonette, of Newport Beach, who with her husband David, a former executive of Edwards Lifesciences Corp. and a venture capitalist, contributed more that $500,000 to the project.

“This is the most generous gift the college has ever received,” said LCAD president Jonathan Burke, who also thanked an array of other donors whose support contributed bringing the student studios to fruition.

Serendipity brought Chonette back into the college community. Art and music aficionadas Chonette and Betty Shelton met during a culture sojourn through Munich, Germany, in 2006. They discovered a common connection to the former Southern California Institute of Art, now LCAD, and a friendship took root.

Chonette was one of the school’s first graduates in 1990, earning a bachelor of fine arts. (The school earned accreditation from the National Assn. of Schools of Art and Design in 1985.)

Shelton, a faculty member since 1995, teaches portraiture and painting and chairs LCAD’s post-baccalaureate department.

Chonette did more than take up Shelton’s invitation to visit. She enrolled in a life drawing class, immersed herself among faculty and students, and last year joined LCAD’s board of trustees. “Suzanne came back to the school and has been giving back since,” said Shelton.

Giving back comes naturally to Chonette, who served as a board member for the American Heart Association, Santa Ana’s Bowers Museum and Children’s Hospital of Orange County among other organizations. An oboe player during her youth, she is a life member of the Pacific Symphony’s board and also a supporter of Costa Mesa’s South Coast Repertory.

Even before Burke began negotiations with owners of the building previously occupied by the Sports Performance Institute, Chonette supported his plan to transform it into long-needed studio spaces for seniors.

The project initially met resistance. Some perceived LCAD’s multiple locations in Laguna Canyon as a threat to other tenants and some residents were unhappy about losing the area’s only gym, operated by Eric Parizek, Silvio Delligatta, Mike Catanzaro and John Thomas.

LCAD acquired the property last August and Burke aimed to ready it for student use by the spring semester.

“We listened to discussions about the importance of acquiring the property and when it became available everyone wanted to step up,” said Chonette, who never anticipated the building would bear her name.

“This is a complete surprise,” she said. Neither she nor her husband asked for naming rights; their aim was to provide students with a room of their own to work.

Chonette spent most of her adult life raising five children. Now that they are adults with children and grandchildren of their own, she returns to her training. She uses chalk pastels in a style that she describes as true to life, à la Mary Cassatt, and shows work at Palm Springs’s Desert Art Center.

Last Saturday afternoon, the studios buzzed with creativity, with nearly every studio or workstation filled.

Benjamin Gibson, an aspiring painter, appreciates his new quarters. He is working on two paintings, smaller than his usual work, due to space constraints, he explained. But, at least he finally has a space, if only for one semester. “Last year, I did not have a place to paint at all. I used an overflow room so this is a huge improvement,” he said. “The best part is that the school does not put us out right after graduation. We can use the studios over the summer,” he said.

Maggie Hempen

Maggie Carter’s boss was “in the oil business.” He relentlessly harassed her, a situation she could not tolerate for long. Perhaps it was her own naiveté as a 20-year-old, or her own sense of self-worth. But she did what was unheard of in 1972 and reported him to his superiors.

For her courage, Carter, now Maggie Hempen, was fired. “For years I wondered if I was at fault, whether I provoked him, whether my clothes were too tight, whether he felt encouraged,” she recalls.

Clearly, the episode still pains her. “Forty years later today, women are still blamed for their own abuse, that they somehow bring it onto themselves,” she noted.

Scroll forward to 2011 in Hawaii. There, at the Soroptimist International convention, Hempen and fellow Laguna Beach delegate Connie Burlin took in a screening of “Miss Represented,” a documentary about the myriad ways women’s self-perception is perverted by sexism masquerading as popular culture.

In one scene, a panel of men debate the merits of a woman in the White House. A mediator bellows, “What’s the downside, beside PMS and mood swings?”

With other footage of commentators denigrating Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, the film raises questions about women’s continuing battle for respect and opportunities.

For Hempen and Burlin, the film proved an epiphany. They vowed to see it distributed on the mainland to the widest possible audience of young women still in their formative years.

Their vision will take form for the first time with the Healthy Girl Festival on Saturday, April 27, starting at 10 a.m. on the Festival of Arts grounds.

“We started building the Festival around the film, offering healthy and self-affirming choices for women. We need women to make decisions on behalf of the work, to be smart instead of (just) cute,” said Burlin.

Hempen blames fashion magazines and television ads for pushing young, vulnerable women onto paths of poor choices. “Images we see every day in magazines and everywhere else are simply unrealistic, Photo-Shopped pictures that women, consciously or not, buy into, often warping their own body images irreversibly,” she said. “We are being sold a bill of goods and the film shows how insidious the problem is.”

Even she chides herself for a few extra pounds, even though she has built a solid reputation as a business woman, as former owner of a limousine service and more recently as an event planner and caterer. At age 62, she is happily married, a mother, grandmother and devoted to community service as communications director for Soroptimist.

Hempen grew up in Downey, but always dreamed of living in Laguna Beach. On her 21st birthday, she drove down and never looked back.

A passionate cook, she teaches an after-school culinary class at Top of the World Elementary, serves as chief chef at the Friendship Shelter and, accompanied by Soroptimist sisters, helps feed the homeless occupants of the city’s shelter in Laguna Canyon.

She helped organize the recent A La Carte Uncorked food and wine-tasting event and Susi Q Senior Center’s Legacy Ball. Her hand guided other Laguna Art Museum and Laguna Playhouse events as well.

In 2008, she tried to retire but grew depressed doing nothing. The 40-member Soroptimists, with their global outlook and dedication to community service, re-engaged her talents with new purpose.

“Maggie treats the festival as if it were her daughter’s wedding; she has a phenomenal heart,” Burlin said.

Nancy Lindsay, who has traveled widely through Europe and Asia as a Soroptimist delegate, praises Hempen as someone who takes a logical and practical approach to any task.

“I firmly believe that when women get their stuff together, they can save the world,” Hempen said. “But we have to start supporting each other and stop beating each other up, educate the men as well and realize that we can’t have or do it all, at least not all at the same time. We need to make the right choices.”

Healthy Girl Festival, Festival of Arts Grounds, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Tickets $5 www.silagunabeach.org  groups: Connie@silagunabeach.org  PayPal: bring receipt.

MC: local musician/singer Shaena Stabler.

Music: Yours Truly

Food: The Lime Truck

10:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m., Screening “Miss Representation” and discussion with Caroline Heldman,  Occidental College professor

Heldman specializes in the presidency, media, gender and race in America. She is the co-author of “Rethinking Madame President: Are We Ready for a Woman in the White House.”

“Miss Representation” includes commentary from Rosario Dawson, Nancy Pelosy, Devanshi Patel, Rachel Maddow, Carol Jenkins, Geena Davis, Katie Couric, Margaret Cho and Jane Fonda. Introduced first at the Sundance Film Festival and broadcast on “Opra,” it is written and directed by Jennifer Siebel-Newsom.

Exhibitors: James Pibram-Eco Warrior; Ellison Sisters; Sarah Vanderveen-Author, Once by the Pacific;  Malea Anderson-Zumba Instructor;  Eat Cleaner Chef-  interactive cooking demo;  Hobie;  Standup Paddle Company;  Health in Balance;  doTerra Essential Oils;  Bubbles;  Roots Beauty Underground;  Om Meditation Studio;  United Studios of Self Defense;  Yoga Works;  and Smart Girls Who Surf.

Under state mandates to create streets accessible to bicyclists, pedestrians and autos, Laguna is moving towards designating bike routes through town and have added painted “sharrows”, indicating shared lanes, on some streets.

Transition Laguna Beach members took advantage of last Saturday’s Earth Day celebration to circulate a petition requesting the Arts Commission consider commissioning artists to design functional as well as artistic bike racks.

Six people spoke at the meeting and others sent support by email, according to advocate Billy Fried.

“Since the item was not on the agenda, the commission could not consider it but we listened,” said Arts Commissioner Nick Hernandez, who intends to officially bring the matter to the commission, though no date has been selected.

“I am a strong advocate of replacing regular bike racks with artist designed ones and to add more,” said Hernandez.

Band director Ed Peterson starts a collaboration with LCAD animation students.

Ed Peterson knows now how he expects to spend his summer.

A concept by the Laguna Concert Band’s music director-conductor to collaborate on an animated film received the green-light last week. The proposal earned Peterson the $5,000 Seven-Degrees Inspiration Grant at this year’s Art Stars Awards gala.

The work will be produced this summer with students of an animation masterclass at the Laguna College of Art and Design.

While acclaimed animator Stephen Chiodo will oversee all visual aspects, Peterson will be in charge of music. “I will select a composer and arrange and conduct music performed by the Concert Band while it’s being recorded for the film,” he explained.

Upon completion in August, the collaborators expect to submit their film to a dozen film festivals, said Peterson, a 30-year resident and a tuba player.

Last year, he and LCAD animation students collaborated on a series of short films wedded to live music passages of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” which was shown at the Laguna Playhouse.

“We were thrilled when Ed contacted us to work on the summer project since the first animated clips were so well received,” said Dave Pruiksma, co-chair of LCAD’s animation department. “Having a full orchestra scoring and recording music for the film is an honor that should set it apart on the festival circuit.”

Local audiences can hear the group’s talents for themselves on Sunday, April 21, when the Concert Band returns to the Playhouse for a 3 p.m. show with a program of mixed cultural music traditions.

Titled “Matadors and Leprechauns,” the program is partly comprised of Latin American-Spanish music (Habanera and the Toreador Song from Bizet’s “Carmen”) and features guest guitarist Jeff Cogan. The Irish contingent contains a mix of popular Irish tunes including the ever-present “Danny Boy.”

In an altogether different vein, “Blue Shades” will be a salute to jazz/blues and composer Frank Ticheli.

The quirky title was inspired by the concert falling between St. Patrick’s Day and Cinco de Mayo, said Peterson. “We try to surprise people a little bit, to kick things up another notch, be creative and connect with a wide audience. It’s not the same old band concert,” he said.

The home-grown group led by Peterson, Pete Fournier and Bill Nichols evolved from eight members in 1996 to about 65 now. With gigs throughout Orange County, they also split off into smaller ensembles, such as most recently The Laguna Flutes.

And while Peterson’s award may attract even more musicians to the stage, the grant makers have even broader expectations.

Though Mark Orgill and Dora Wexell, owners of Seven-Degrees, have put up the Inspiration Grant money for the last three years, Art Stars winners are selected by a seven-member committee of local arts organizations chaired by Wayne Baglin.  “All selections are collective decisions. The reason we like Ed is that his project is a collaboration with the college,” said Wexell. “If the film does well on the festival circuit, it will also bring a lot of new life to the community.”

The film will be screened at next year’s Art Stars event, along with a video illustrating how it was made.

Laguna Beach Concert Band, April 21, 3 p.m. Tickets: $15/10 reserved seats only. Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Rd. www.lagunaplayhouse.com 949-497-2787

Photo by Edgar Obrand

Despite that the $100,000 competition was open to artists region wide, Laguna artists with proven public art credentials were chosen: Marlo Bartels, Scott and Naomi Schoenherr, Terry Thornsley and the artist team of Mike Tauber and Michele Taylor,

“I feel honored and humbled by being selected,” said Bartels, a former lifeguard himself, who has yet to develop a design plan.

The commission, one of the city’s largest ever awards, attracted 26 candidates wanting to execute the two works: $40,000 was budgeted for the mural and $60,000 for the sculpture.

Artists could apply for either project, which must reflect the marine environment and the role of lifeguards, separately or for both. Artists were not asked for specific proposals, but to submit expressions of interest in a letter of intent and to provide proof of expertise with public art commissions.

The commission earlier postponed the deadline until April 1 because many of the 26 applicants had failed to fulfill the requirements. Even though requirements prohibited painted elements, for example, several submitted painted mural samples and thus placed themselves out of contention.

Lorene Auger, a spokeswoman for San Diego’s Windward Design and entrant William Watts, found requirements difficult to interpret. “We do large public projects and had planned a complete interactive project for the site including tide pools with sea creatures and a bronze sculpture at the end of a wave pool,” said Auger. “We kept asking where we fall short since we submitted plans for an amazing art piece,” she added.

Watts, an architect and artists, disappointed at no longer being able to compete for the entire project, said he might re-enter the sculpture portion when it becomes re-instated. He recognized that terrain can change during construction.

Mural finalists will tour the site on April 15 with a sub-committee comprised of Arts Commission members Ken Auster, Suzi Chauvel and Donna Ballard.

A change of topography caused by ongoing construction, as well as complaints about requirements being difficult to interpret caused the commission to table the sculpture portion. “Requirements evolved while our eye of what should go into that space has matured. We need to take time to discuss and re-think the project and then re-write requirements to create the perfect opportunity,” said Auster. “We might open the sculpture part to an even a wider geographical area. A revision will also give artists a fresh chance to go through their portfolios and find more suitable submissions for the site,” he added.

Original specifics called for a low-profile sculpture 25 feet long and a mural of weather proof material and no wooden elements.

Auger, a Laguna resident, called for greater transparency in the public art selection process. “The Arts Commission should publish all submissions and especially those whom they selected as finalists so that we can study where we fall short,” she said. “Public art choices should be open to public scrutiny.”

Visiting bands, duos and soloists fill stages across Laguna Beach, joining established local performers in what is becoming more of a year ‘round scene.

The latest attraction is Jammin’, a smooth jazz series that is a collaboration between Laguna Playhouse and Mozambique restaurant, whose owner Ivan Spiers keeps the music turned up.

Hiroshima, a jazz fusion band, begins the series Monday, April 15 with a fundraising performance benefiting the Playhouse’s education programs.

Named after the Japanese city Hiroshima, the band founded in 1974 features a mix of American jazz and Japanese music comprised of traditional and contemporary sounds.

Spiers, who is defraying all production costs, said he wants to enhance Laguna’s music scene with well-known, contemporary talent. As a donor and subscriber to the Playhouse, it made sense to him to pursue a partnership helping a non-profit arts venue that opened its house to other musical performances to bolster its revenue.

Spiers joined forces with Joe Hanauer, a Playhouse and Laguna Beach Live board member, who enlisted support from the Playhouse’s top administrators.

“The Playhouse used to do strictly theater but dark nights left possibilities for other entertainment,” said Hanauer, noting that non-drama performances, from dance to big bands, have shown the Playhouse suitable for larger scale musical events. The Playhouse holds non-theatrical bookings up to 2015, he said.

“It’s a win for the Playhouse and a win for the community,” said Playhouse Executive Director Karen Wood.

Some of Laguna’s well-established music presenters expressed enthusiasm at the music scene’s growth and increasing diversity.

“I am all excited about the variety of music coming to Laguna,” said Susan Davis, the Festival of Arts’ director of special events, who books a jazz series during the summer festival.

Laguna Beach Live’s success with its midweek jazz series helped demonstrate local audiences’ appetite for the genre, president Cindy Prewitt said.

“More and more our concerts are selling out and that says to me we can use more music in town. I welcome jazz at the Playhouse for the variety that it will bring and more opportunity to hear good music. Laguna Beach Live! is all about making Laguna a music town and it is happening,” said Prewitt.

Hiroshima, April 15, 7:30 p.m. Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Rd. Tickets: $35-$75 http://www.lagunaplayhouse.com/onstage/special/

Jonathan Burke exults over an arts leadership award.

Laguna Concert Band Director Ed Peterson won this year’s Seven-Degrees of Inspiration Grant, a $5,000 prize for his proposal to produce an original score for an animated student film, while Heisler Park sculpture garden creators Scott and Naomi Schoenherr were declared artists of the year during Laguna Beach’s annual Art Stars awards on Sunday.

More than 230 guests enjoyed an evening at the event center Seven Degrees headlined by comedienne Rita Rudner, who regaled her audience with comparisons between British, as embodied by her husband, and American males and salient differences in communication and perceptions between women and men.

With event chair Wayne Baglin acting as master of ceremonies, the evening moved along swiftly, beginning with Mark Orgill and Dora Wexell’s introduction of Peterson, followed by last year’s Inspiration Grant winner, glass blower John Barber. He created a 22-foot high glass sculpture titled “Feeding Frenzy,” which dazzled visitors in the venue’s foyer.

Rebecca and John Barber and the work that resulted from last year’s Seven Degrees of Inspiration Grant.

Altogether, the 20 members of the Laguna Beach Alliance for the Arts nominated three individuals or organizations in seven categories that shaped the town’s arts culture in the previous year. Winners received a “Louis,” the statuette designed and fabricated by sculptor Louis Longi. “I’ve done them now for seven years and each and everyone is different,” said Longi.

Festival of Arts events director Susan Davis collected the best new arts program award for her music program “Summer Entertainment of the Green,” edging out Jason Feddy’s Shakespeare’s Fool and Laguna Outreach for Community Arts’ botanicals  programs.  “I won’t take him home but perhaps I’ll get to keep ‘Louis’ in my office,” quipped Davis.

LCAD trustee, Laguna Beach Library volunteer and self-described busiest retiree Terry Smith was recognized as individual arts patron of the year. “My greatest pleasure lies in making a difference in as many ways as I can,” he said during the event’s reception.

Yvonne Boseker, who defrays art restoration costs at the Laguna Art Museum, and arts supporters Arn and Nancy Youngman had also been nominated.

Wells Fargo Bank earned the corporate arts patron of the year award for its Community Art Project, an ongoing series of art exhibitions at its Broadway branch administered by Pat Sparkuhl, also a nominee for this year’s arts leadership award.

The latter went to Jonathan Burke, LCAD’s president. “Jonathan presided over the largest freshman class in the history of LCAD this year,” said Baglin. Arts activist and Arts Commission member Mary Ferguson had also been nominated.

Designer Nelson Coates and Sawdust exhibitor Larry Gill had also been nominated for artist of the year.

Outstanding collaboration went to “Orange County: Destination Art & Culture,” an exhibition program at John Wayne Airport that involved Laguna Beach’s visitors bureau, its three art festivals, theater and museum.

After some suspense, Baglin announced Jacquie Moffett as the recipient of the lifetime achievement award.

Besides being an award-winning watercolor painter, actress and volunteer at several local arts organizations, Moffett is celebrating her 46th year at the Festival of Arts. No other exhibitor has exhibited for as long. Her parents had farmed on what became FoA grounds. Once the Pageant of the Masters was established, family members volunteered as cast members. As an actress, she performed in the 1969 Laguna Playhouse production “I Never Sang for My Father.”

“She’s a true Renaissance woman, a Jacquie of all trades,” quipped Baglin.

Photo by Xun Chi

Rita Rudner receives an Art Star trophy. Photo by Xun Chi.

Laguna Concert Band Director Ed Peterson won a $5,000 Inspiration grant for his proposal to produce an original score for an animated student film while Heisler Park sculpture garden creators Scott and Naomi Schoenherr were declared artists of the year during Laguna Beach’s annual Art Stars awards ceremony Sunday, April 7.

More than 230 guests enjoyed an evening at the Laguna Canyon event center Seven Degrees. Comedienne Rita Rudner regaled her audience with comparisons between American men and those British-born, as embodied by her husband, and salient differences in communication and perceptions between women and men.

With event chair Wayne Baglin acting as master of ceremonies, the evening moved along swiftly, beginning with Mark Orgill and Dora Wexell’s introduction of last year’s Seven-Degrees of Inspiration Grant winner, glass blower John Barber. He created a 22-foot high glass sculpture titled “Feeding Frenzy,” which dazzled visitors in the venue’s foyer.

The results of the previous year’s grant, John Barber’s glass sculpture.

Altogether, the 20 members of the Laguna Beach Alliance for the Arts nominated three individuals or organizations in seven categories that shaped the town’s arts culture in the previous year. Winners received a “Louis,” the statuette designed and fabricated by sculptor Louis Longi. “I’ve done them now for seven years and each and everyone is different,” said Longi.

Festival of Arts events director Susan Davis collected the best new arts program award for her music program “Summer Entertainment of the Green,” edging out Jason Feddy’s Shakespeare’s Fool and Laguna Outreach for Community Arts’ botanicals  programs.  “I won’t take him home but perhaps I’ll get to keep ‘Louis’ in my office,” quipped Davis.

LCAD trustee, Laguna Beach Library volunteer and self-described busiest retiree Terry Smith was recognized as individual arts patron of the year. “My greatest pleasure lies in making a difference in as many ways as I can,” he said during the event’s reception.

Yvonne Boseker, who defrays art restoration costs at the Laguna Art Museum, and arts supporters Arn and Nancy Youngman had also been nominated.

Jonathan Burke

Wells Fargo Bank earned the corporate arts patron of the year award for its Community Art Project, an ongoing series of art exhibitions at its Broadway branch administered by Pat Sparkuhl, also a nominee for this year’s arts leadership award.

The latter went to Jonathan Burke, LCAD’s president. “Jonathan presided over the largest freshman class in the history of LCAD this year,” said Baglin. Arts activist and Arts Commission member Mary Ferguson had also been nominated.

Designer Nelson Coates and Sawdust exhibitor Larry Gill had also been nominated for artist of the year.

Outstanding collaboration went to “Orange County: Destination Art & Culture,” an exhibition program at John Wayne Airport that involved Laguna Beach’s visitors bureau, its three art festivals, theater and museum.

After some suspense, Baglin announced Jacquie Moffett as the recipient of the lifetime achievement award.

Besides being an award-winning watercolor painter, actress and volunteer at several local arts organizations, Moffett is celebrating her 46th year at the Festival of Arts. No other exhibitor has exhibited for as long. Her parents had farmed on what became FoA grounds. Once the Pageant of the Masters was established, family members volunteered as cast members. As an actress, she performed in the 1969 Laguna Playhouse production “I Never Sang for My Father.”

“She’s a true Renaissance woman, a Jacquie of all trades,” quipped Baglin.

On Friday and Saturday, April 5 and 6, Laguna-based actors Ava Burton and Mark Miller will reprise the play in Laguna’s BC Space Gallery.

Their initial performance served as a fundraiser for the Friendship Shelter last month.

Seated at a table, Burton and Miller read from letters, cards and notes, showing how little moves heartstrings more than reminiscences of a relationship once perhaps romantic, ripened and mellowed over time into friendship.

Even in an age delineated by Tweets and texts, the notion of affection delivered in a stamped, hand-addressed envelope retains its appeal since the play opened on Broadway 24 years ago. The work garnered a Pulitzer Prize nomination, adaptation to television, performances in Europe, Russia and Pakistan and translation into Urdu. The rendition by Elizabeth Taylor and James Earl Jones at an AIDS fundraiser reportedly lured 500 people and $1.5 million.

“The first show was quite overwhelming, funny with laughter and tears,” said Burton who admits to bouts of homesickness for London and Leeds, her birthplace. “I have friends that I have been in touch with since childhood,” said Burton, whose husband, musician-song writer Jason Feddy, accompanied the show.

Burton’s co-star, Miller, is also better known in the community for another role, that of assistant executive director of Friendship Shelter.

They had been casting about for a theatrical vehicle and a chance to collaborate, he said. “We worked organically, rehearsing in Ava’s living room setting up transitions of time and mood.” Since actors sit at a table reading the missives, there is no memorizing of lines. “It’s a very well written piece, simple and sweet,” added Burton, a classically trained actress with Shakespearian chops.

For the weekend performances, vocalist April Walsh and pianist Pam Wicks will fill in the silences.

Many will recognize Walsh (no relation to this writer) as the busker whose melodious French chansons and American classics drift across Forest Avenue. “I love the corridor between Forest and the alley behind it since it has the best acoustics, but on weekends the competition for that spot is fierce,” said Walsh, 32, who has been entertaining passersby thereabouts for the last three years.  “I like surprise. People can hear me before they see me,” she said.

Walsh’s material includes “The Best is Yet to Come,” segueing into “Fly Me to the Moon” and ending with “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.”

Feddy, who was unable to keep the weekend commitment, heard Walsh singing and had an epiphany. “We all picked the songs at our first get-together and it sounds as if we have transitioned from an indie romance to a more Nora Ephron-inspired romp,” she said.

Although she has performed at parties, weddings and during Laguna’s annual Fête de la Musique, she prefers busking. “I like being part of the downtown scene,” she said.

The Friendship Shelter’s mission of guiding the homeless towards shelter and self-sufficiency includes an Artists Collective, founded by Miller and Karen Redding, a local psychoanalyst and clinical social worker turned artist. “We conquer discouragement and find ways to hold on to artistic vision,” Redding explained.

Redding, the group’s facilitator, and Miller, along with shelter graduates and collective members Cat Saxon and Darryl Gober, will exhibit their art at BC Space both days.

BC Space is best known for its shows of social and politically motivated art and has produced similarly inspired performances such as “8,” illuminating obstacles facing legalization of gay marriage.

Meanwhile, Burton and Miller are keeping an eye out for their next project. “We want to build an audience and establish our voice,” said Miller.

Come summer, Burton and Feddy will again star in their “Shakespeare in the Park” shows.  They have also collaborated with poet-actor John Gardiner in the production of “Shakespeare’s Fool,” Shakespearian lines set to music by Feddy.

Love Letters. 7 p.m. Friday, April 5. 2 p.m. Saturday, April 6. BC Space Gallery, 285 Forest Ave. 949-497-1880

Photos by Edgar Obrand

Commissioners determined that none of the 26 applicants, artists based in Laguna Beach and elsewhere in Southern California, fully met the project requirements at their meeting on March 11.

The project consists of a sculpture and mural, budgeted at $103,000. Located at 175 N. Coast Highway, the site is at the west end of Main Beach, near rising cliffs that support Heisler Park.

Artists who have already submitted their qualifications may make changes in accordance with commission requirements, with finalists to be chosen during the April 1 meeting.

Artists may apply online at http://lagunabeachcity.slideroom.com.

Flute conductor Cynthia Ellis

It’s hard to imagine Sergei Prokofiev’s beloved “Peter and the Wolf” without the flute impersonating a bird. Those twittering sounds coaxed from a slender tubular instrument have been known to turn young children into future flutists.

Concert goers world-wide take for granted that a symphony orchestra features at least one or two flutes, and a piccolo tweeting “Stars and Stripes Forever” is part of the stock repertoire of any respectable marching band. Then again, Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte” alludes to the flute’s ancient roots and its place in the realm of the magical.

Ubiquitous as the instrument may seem, the idea of a musical group consisting exclusively of 20 flutes, ranging from the high pitched piccolo to a deep throated bass flute, might still challenge the imagination of those musically inclined.

But considering that the Laguna Concert Band includes at least 21 flutists, it’s no real surprise that the section splits off as the Laguna Flutes, a separate flute chorus led by flutist and section leader Betsy Foster.

Conducted by Cynthia Ellis, first piccolo of the Pacific Symphony, this chorus will make their Laguna Beach debut in a concert at the Universalist Unitarian Church on Saturday, March 30. It is a fundraiser for the church and the Laguna Concert Band.

On April 7, the Flutes will also enliven the cocktail hour preceding this year’s Art Stars Award ceremony at Seven-Degrees.

Flute section leader Betsy Foster

Laguna Hills resident Betty Everett, a writer and flutist who had abandoned the instrument in favor of vocals, returned to what is called a standard C flute and learned to play an alto flute as well. “I need music in my life and I was not that good a singer,” she recalled.

Having retired the old flute of her youth, she mentioned that a high end flute is made of either sterling silver or 10-14 karat gold and can cost between $8,000 and $25,000 and up.

The 65-member Laguna Concert Band under the direction of Edward Peterson consists of several separate ensembles including the Flutes, the Swing Set big band and The Third Street Strutters.

Flutes members run the gamut from amateurs toiling as executives, health workers, teachers, professional flutists and retirees embracing music. Regardless of age, the group is allied with the Irvine Valley College under its emeritus programs where students are taught at a more gentle, age-appropriate pace. All pay the $30 semester fee with classes and rehearsals held monthly at Foster’s Tustin home with Ellis acting as instructor/coach.

Foster, the product of a musical family, received an undergraduate music degree from West Chester University in Pennsylvania. She has taught flute and piano, worked for a time as a fashion buyer and personal shopper and, now retired, devotes herself to her flute.  “I’ve played the same flute since college,” she said.

Suzanne Garrison Hench grew up in Laguna and first fell in love with flute music as a student at now closed Aliso Elementary School. Even though her father pushed for piano and violin lessons, flute and kid stuck together at Thurston Middle School and Laguna Beach High School where she fell in love with a fellow “bando,” trumpet player Barry Hinch.

The couple married and now lives in San Clemente. Hench, a French teacher, now returns regularly to the LBHS music room for rehearsals. “I like to reminisce about us here and during the Patriots Parade,” she said.

When she joined Laguna Flutes, she noticed the lack of a bass flute and filled the void. “It’s an important addition to lower the pitch of the music and it’s very relaxing to play,” she said of the bent contraption taking here the place of an orchestral tuba or string bass player. “It’s fun to have diversity in the music ranging from classical to Latin to modern, to take instruments into a different direction.”

Music in Saturday’s program includes the Symphony No. 4 by William Boycee (1710-1779), the Little Fugue by J.S Bach and Christopher Caliendo’s (b. 1960) La Milonga.  Gustav Holst’s “The Planets,” accompanied by video images, will form the show’s highlight.

“It is a joy to conduct a group of musicians who share a real passion for playing the flute, especially since my life as a musician usually takes place on the other side of the podium,” Ellis said.

Nancy Lawrence in a 2006 speech at LCAD. A vintage photo from a ‘60s Color it Orange exhibition.

Last Saturday, Laguna Beach resident Nancy Lawrence pitched in readying this year’s Color it Orange show, filling two galleries at the Laguna College of Art and Design. It’s a sure sign of spring, when Orange County students from K-12 get to show off their best works, selected by their teachers for the art competition founded in 1973.

In a change this year, 500 works by high school students including painting, drawing, ceramics, photography and multi-media will be displayed for a week through March 23. Masterpieces by younger children will get their turn later as part of the countywide “Imagination Celebration.” Here, participating artists will receive certificates of recognition and 14 standouts earn scholarships to a pre-college summer class of their choice at LCAD.

As red-shirted volunteers juggled levels, pencils and hammers, Lawrence, who chairs the exhibition, also calmly lent a hand alongside Tracy Hartman and Avery Endow of LCAD’s office of development and alumni relations. The red-shirts, ranging here from newbies to fourth-time vets, are Fluor Corp. employees who participate in a plethora of community projects, said company spokeswoman Waheeda Yousofzoy.

Lawrence thrives on volunteering. A 40-year resident, she has spent the majority of those years in service to youth, education and the arts, which earned her recognition as an outstanding contributor to education by the Orange County Board of Education on March 13.

Lawrence was honored for her commitment to guiding a project, seeing it through and watching it grow through the years, said Phyllis Berenbeim, a consultant of visual and performing arts for the county Education Department. “By valuing creativity, by celebrating the work of children and honoring their teachers, Color it Orange has been instrumental in strengthening the arts in Orange County,” she said.

Laguna Beach High School instructor Somer Selway has submitted works from her advanced placement and level three ceramics classes and praised Lawrence for her passion and positive guidance during the entire process of coordinating Color it Orange. “Teachers know that for her it’s all about the kids,” she said.

LBHS photography instructor Kerry Pellow too has submitted student work to CiO for 14 years, with students placing on a regular basis. “It has been exciting to see Color it Orange take new forms and change with their addition of scholarships,” she said. “The students and I take it as a compliment to be recognized by outside judges and receive scholarships based on work.”

Pellow revealed photography student Audrey Pillsbury as one of this year’s winners.

Lawrence, a former elementary school teacher, is also a member of the Laguna College of Art and Design’s board and president of its support group, Designing Women.

“I am delighted to have received the award since I’ve spent nearly four decades promoting art as education for the whole brain,” said Lawrence. Her advocacy for education extends to membership in the Laguna branch of the American Association of University Women, where she currently chairs the funds committee. The branch annually awards several scholarships to LBHS girls.

Earlier, Lawrence’s contributions received recognition in 2002 with the American Red Cross’s 10th annual Clara Barton Spectrum Award.

Involvement in the Laguna Beach Garden Club nurtures Lawrence’s own creativity, centered on crafts that she passes on to others. “I am more interested in the process of making something than the finished product which I just as soon give away,” she said.

She celebrates her 50th year married to Harry Lawrence, 80, a retired geological engineer. Her passion for arts rubbed off on daughter Elizabeth, 44, who obtained a degree in architecture from Princeton University, and son Ian, 45, reflects his mother’s activism and father’s scientific bent as captain of a Scripps Institute of Oceanography ship.

Lawrence, 75, summed up her mission saying, “Volunteering keeps me going. It’s a privilege associating with dedicated people of like mind and being able to chose your surroundings.”