A star-studded year

Young Chang

Having just spent the morning skimming my stories from the past year,

I’m reminded of how songstress Eartha Kitt told me, back in June, to pot

my tomato seeds after spitting them out.

Author Malachy McCourt advised that no matter what I do, to never,

ever, show my fiction to my family.

Academy Award-winning screenwriter David Ward, of “The Sting,” obliged

me a heartfelt moment at a bustling Newport Beach Film Festival party to

share that after years and years of writing alone in a room, it really

does feel good when others acknowledge your work.

And vocalist Dionne Warwick admitted that, yes, she did love the

musical number in the movie “My Best Friend’s Wedding” -- the scene where

everybody goes from lunching to singing her hit song “I Say a Little

Prayer.”

In one word, how I feel at the tail end of 2001 is grateful -- for a

job that feels more like play sometimes and for a pair of cities that

attracts so many entertainers that two of its biggest venues (the Orange

County Performing Arts Center and South Coast Repertory) are going to

expand.

Through the Center, SCR, the Newport Beach Film Festival, the Eclectic

Orange Festival, the annual Taste of Newport, the Newport Beach Central

Library, the Philharmonic Society, the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Opera

Pacific, Orange Coast College and the Orange County Fair, both

yesterday’s stars (Mickey Rooney, Frankie Avalon) and today’s headliners

(Sugar Ray, Broadway-man Davis Gaines) have bookmarked 2001 as a

star-studded year for Newport-Mesa.

But I’m also made somber by the sad fact that two notable arts figures

passed on this year -- Jeanette Segerstrom, an avid supporter of opera,

musicals and symphonies who lived in Newport Beach, and Naomi Vine, the

late director of the Orange County Museum of Art who lost a battle with

cancer on Monday.

Both helped bring quality to Newport-Mesa’s art culture -- a culture

whose 2001 climate was as diverse as it was entertaining.

Musicians including mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, vibraphonist Stefon

Harris, actress and vocalist Eartha Kitt, celebrated guitarist Pepe

Romero, and Broadway performer Davis Gaines, who has played the Phantom

more than 2,000 times for “Phantom of the Opera,” graced both the

Segerstrom Hall and Founders Hall stages at the Center.

The National Ballet of Cuba also brought Alicia Alonso’s “La Magia de

Alonso” to life at the Center during the fall, while ballets including

“Giselle” and “Carmen” were danced in the summer and a Broadway version

of “Saturday Night Fever” brought disco and glitz to the same stage in

July.

Karen Han, a virtuoso erhu player, introduced even older sounds to her

Southern California audience when she performed in a world premiere

program of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Concerto for Erhu and Chamber

Orchestra” at the Irvine Barclay Theatre during the Eclectic Orange

Festival in October.

Also showcased as part of the festival was noted filmmaker Hal

Hartley’s dance-theater piece “Soon,” which received its U.S. premiere at

the Center in October.

The next month, Opera Pacific’s modern-day production of Giuseppi

Verdi’s “Rigoletto” opened on the Segerstrom stage with a version

resembling more Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” than a story

from the 15th century.

The 13th annual Taste of Newport also offered visitors a travel

through time as showcased musical acts included the Bangles, Toto and KC

and the Sunshine Band reviving ‘80s chart-toppers for a crowd intent on

feasting on both music and food.

In the world of visual arts, the Orange County Museum of Art offered

its share of big exhibits with collections presented by the Metropolitan

Museum of Art (“American Modern”) and an enormous sound sculpture titled

“Conloninpurple,” by an artist known simply as Trimpin, during the

Eclectic Orange Festival.

An exhibit almost as large -- titled “The Predator” by Argentine

painter Fabian Marcaccio and architect Greg Lynn -- moved into UC

Irvine’s Beall Center for Art and Technology in September.

In an adjacent gallery, Grahame Weinbren’s interactive cinema work

“Frames,” which explored such issues as psychoanalysis, photos and

perception, opened weeks after.

At the Irvine Barclay Theatre, Ballet Pacifica opened its 2001-02

season with a medley of ballet moves in a program including Robert Sund’s

“Liaisons,” a dance titled “Aquilarco” and one titled “Sunflowers.”

South Coast Repertory’s dramatic calendar included everything from the

newly commissioned “Hold Please” by Annie Weisman to a newly interpreted

production of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” in the spring.

Somerset Maugham’s play “The Circle” opened on the Mainstage in

September, and a portion of the annual Pacific Playwright’s Festival,

titled “California Scenarios,” cast yet more attention on Isamu Noguchi’s

California Scenario sculpture garden in Costa Mesa.

Orange Coast College also boasted some big-name performers -- Mickey

Rooney and Diahann Carroll to name a few -- while the Orange County Fair

just down the street brought in Chubby Checker to kick off the fair and

female sensation En Vogue during the summer fest’s run.

Earlier in the year, the Newport Beach Film Festival invited

big-screen celebrities such as screenwriters David Ward and David

McKenna, in addition to presenting more than 55 feature-length films and

100-plus short films.

On a quieter note, the Newport Beach Central Library hosted a fair

number of stars from the writing world, as both Malachy McCourt and Ray

Bradbury gave talks to a literary audience.

It’s definitely been a year-ful, to put it mildly. But the really

mind-spinning part is, most everyone’s 2002 season has already begun.

A couple of the Center’s highlights next year will include soprano

Renee Fleming in March and the Australian Chamber Orchestra with Stephen

Hough in April.

South Coast Repertory is scheduled to stage a world premiere of Horton

Foote’s “Getting Frankie Married -- And Afterwards” in March, Richard

Greenberg’s “The Dazzle” also in March and a world premiere of Joe

Hortua’s “Making It” in January.

The Eclectic Orange Festival already has next year’s centerpiece

planned -- a show with a gypsy-like team of horses, horsemen, actors and

dancers called “Triptyk.”

And future headliners for OCC include Irish step-dancers in a show

titled “Dancing on Common Ground” in March and a production of “Swan

Lake” by the Festival Ballet Theatre in April.

Whew.

We’ll pause to catch our breath.

I remember my editor came across a woman this past year who contested

whether Newport-Mesa offered enough of an arts and entertainment culture.

As my fingers need a good rest and as I’m sure your eyes do too (if

you’ve made it this far), I can assure you, Costa Mesa does deserve the

name “City of the Arts” and Newport Beach does offer more than just the

harbor.