Arts commission honors city for efforts

OUR LAGUNA

Arts Commissioner Nancy Beverage recently presented the City

Council with a new addition to its trophy case. The trophy was

presented at the annual Arts Orange County luncheon.

“Jan Sattler, Linda Dietrich and I had the pleasure of seeing Sian

Poeschl accept the award to the city as the outstanding arts patron

of 2002,” Nancy said.

Poeschl is the city’s arts coordinator. Sattler and Dietrich sit

on the arts commission with Beverage. Festival of Arts exhibitor

Michael Graham designed the trophy.

“Arts Orange County promotes art in the county and honors

outstanding achievements,” Poeschl said.

The award recognized the city for a variety of art programs

including the Arts Alliance, Art in Public Places, the Artists

Directory, Artist-designed benches, the Cultural Arts Calendar,

cultural arts funding, First Thursday Art Walk, the extended Music in

the Park Concert Series, Passport to Laguna’s

one-ticket-to-multiple-art-events and the Senior Art Exhibit, to be

held in the October.

Playwright honors 9/11 heroes

Edward Jesse Hegel has lived in Laguna Beach since 1985, but he

was born in Brooklyn. His family still lives in Long Island. His

brother, Jeffrey, works in Manhattan.

Imagine his horror when he turned on the TV set Sept. 11.

“It was just unbelievable,” Hegel said. “My brother’s birthday is

Sept. 11. He had the day off to celebrate, but my sister Lori was

badly affected. She lost two members from her wedding party, a

firefighter and a police officer. Her husband, Chris, lost a

brother-in-law who worked in the towers.”

Helpless to help the people in his hometown, Hegel wrote

“America-A Heroes Tribute,” a three act play that deals with the

heroics of ordinary people that dreadful day, the grievous loss of

loved ones and life in the hereafter. This was his first play,

although he has written three feature films, as yet unsold.

The play will be performed at 8 p.m., Sept. 6, 7, 13 and 14 and at 2 p.m., Sept 8 and 15 at the Artists Theatre on the Laguna Beach High

School campus.

Hegel’s whole family is coming from New York to see the play.

“They will all be here: my mother, Frances, and father, Edward; my

sister Lori and her husband and their two children, Alex and Kyle; my

brother and his wife, Dori, and their son Nicholas, my older sister

Rosalie and her husband, Howard Singer,” Hegel said.

Hegel, a practicing attorney since 1982, will play “Johnny” in the

production. He has been taking acting lessons and performing for the

last 3 1/2years.

“Many times, I think if something ever happened to you or to me, I

don’t want to go through life wishing I had told you,” Johnny tells

Yvonne the morning of Sept. 10.

That night Yvonne arranges an evening alone for them without their

two children. They talk. They touch.

The next morning, Johnny and Yvonne go off to work at their

separate jobs. When her cell phone rings, she doesn’t stop to answer.

It’s Johnny calling from his office in the World Trade Center. His

message will be the last time she hears his voice.

But not the last time the audience hears it. Johnny’s shade isn’t

ready to abandon his family. Nor is the shade of Bobby, a brave

firefighter, whose wife, Kim, is pregnant. Other stories are woven

into the framework of these four characters.

The play was published by Oro Leaf Books in Laguna Beach and

produced by Reel Live Productions. Tickets are available for $20 at

TICKETMASTER, including all Robinsons-May, Tower Records/Video, Ritmo

Latino stores and select Wherehouse Music and Tu Musica stores, or

visit ticketmaster.com.To charge by telephone, call (714) 740-2000.

Candidates social

Village Laguna has invited the City Council and School Board

candidates to a party tonight, where they can chat with voters.

Council candidates Steven Dicterow, Toni Iseman and Melissa O’Neal

will attend. Elizabeth Pearson will be out of town and declined.

Incumbent school board member K Turner has also accepted.

The casual get-together was suggested by Village Laguna board

member Michael Hoag.

“This is a party to acquaint Village Laguna members and the public

with the candidates,” Hoag said.

There will be no speeches or programs.

The free event will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Community Room

on the third floor of Wells Fargo Bank, 260 Ocean Ave. Wine and

nibbles will be served.

We hear you

Friendship Shelter’s invitations to their annual non-event have

been mailed. The clever fund-raising ploy has become itself become an

event.

A telecommunications company’s ad campaign, “Can you hear me now?”

inspired this year’s theme.

The invitation to participate reads:

“But we couldn’t have called

As our phones are all stalled.

Our communications system is shot

Voice mail, fax, internet, we’re not.

Our cords are all frayed

The buttons are splayed

No personal invites are sent

To this year’s non-event

So don’t bother to call

Just send in your all.”

Despite the shelter’s telecommunications problems it manages to

connect with more than 300 homeless men and women each year, giving

them a lifeline, not to mention a telephone line, meals and a roof

over their heads when they get back on their feet.

Donations are wholly tax-deductible. You don’t get thing for your

money, but the satisfaction of knowing you have helped keep open the

lines of communication with people who have come to expect every door

to be closed in their faces.

A $25 donation will “recycle cans and replace string.” To

“untangle job line,” send $50. A $75 donation will help “reconnect

with family and friends.” Donations of $100 will “hook up housing hot

line.” Anything higher will install DSL (Do Something Loving).

Anything smaller is also welcome.

Donations may be mailed to Friendship Shelter, P.O. Box 4252,

Laguna Beach, 92652.

A little traveling music

A grant from the Jackson Pollack-Lee Krasner Foundation in New

York City has made it possible for Laguna Beach artist Fitz Maurice

to participate in an international juried show in Paris this fall, as

well as a one-artist exhibition at the Don O’Melveny Gallery in Los

Angeles.

Fitz will represent the United States in the Paris International

Juried Exhibition, Sept. 15-Oct. 12, at the Grande Arche Monument.

She is one of 150 artists accepted from five continents. The jury

based the invitation to Fitz on oil paintings members saw at the

Florence Bienale in December.

Fitz has a studio in Laguna Canyon. She is known locally not only

as an artist, but as a vociferous advocate of keeping the Laguna Art

Museum in town, when a board of directors proposed gutting the oldest

on-going cultural institution in Orange County. She was an outspoken

lieutenant of Vern Spitaleri, who headed up a group that battled the

take-over.

Fitz will preview “The Tree Series,” of oils at the Los Angeles

gallery in November.

* OUR LAGUNA is a regular feature of the Laguna Beach Coastline

Pilot. Contributions are welcomed. Write to Barbara Diamond, P.O. Box

248, Laguna Beach, 92652, hand-deliver to 384 Forest Ave., Suite 22;

call 494-4321 or fax 494-8979.