By DAILY PRESS
The California Heritage Museum, located at 2612 Main St., will celebrate its 30th anniversary tonight with a fiesta-style heritage Dinner honoring its major supporters from over the years. More than 20 honorees will help attendees look back at the museum’s achievements in sharing California’s cultural riches.
During its three decades, the museum has presented ground-breaking exhibitions on little known aspects of California life. The museum that “celebrates where we’re from and where we’re going” was incorporated in 1977 — at the time of the removal of the 1894 house to its current home at Heritage Plaza on Main Street. Following extensive restoration, the California Heritage Museum opened to the public and has since become a Santa Monica landmark.
Awards will be presented by Santa Monica Mayor Richard Bloom, SMPD Chief Timothy Jackman, museum Executive Director Tobi Smith and George Stern of George Stern Fine Arts.
The gala fundraising dinner has a fiesta theme and guests will enjoy Mexican-inspired cuisine. A silent auction featuring hotel accommodations, restaurant dining, fine art, wines, merchandise and services, opens at 6 p.m., and there will be traditional mariachi entertainment throughout the evening.
Tickets to the gala event are $300 per couple and $200 per single ticket. For additional information, contact the museum at (310) 392-8537.
DAILY PRESS
Playing with puppets (w/#2)
Tony Award-winner for best musical, best score and best book in 2004, Ahmanson Theatre's 41st season opener “Avenue Q” is an irreverent musical that should appeal to kids of all ages.
When the optimistic but financially challenged Princeton comes to New York with big dreams, the only neighborhood he can afford is “Avenue Q,” where the neighbors include kindergarten teaching assistant Kate Monster, Nicky and his Asian fiancee Christmas Eve, as well as Internet addict Trekkie Monster. Together, they embark on the Generation X-ers' struggle to find jobs, dates and the elusive purpose of life. For ticket information visit www.centertheatregroup.org.
MONA DAY
Feeling Italian? (w/#4)
The Italian Trade Commission will host a month-long cultural extravaganza from Oct. 4 through Oct. 29 at the South Coast Plaza. A celebration of Italian arts, culture, manufacturing, design, along with food and wine thrown in for good measure, it will feature exhibits on fashion, textiles, leather and costume design. Many of the displayed items were worn by stars in memorable movie scenes.
The Plaza's Jewel Court will be transformed into an Italian piazza with traditional product demos and vehicles from Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati and Vespa.
The over 30 Italian boutiques and other Plaza retailers carrying “Made-in-Italy” products will host special events, fashion previews and trunk shows throughout the month. The Plaza’s Italian restaurants will offer special regional menus and wines.
Launching the expo will be a stunning giant traditional Italian infiorata — an outdoor mosaic made of thousands of petals and other organic materials — depicting Michaelangelo's fresco “The Creation of Adam.” Designed by a team of Sicilian masters and executed by local community and arts organizations, it will be on display Oct. 4-5.
The expo will be open to the public, free of charge.
Colette the coquette (w/#7)
Ever feel like just dancing? I mean get on the dance floor and just shake your money maker to the beat kind of dancing. If so, this in-store performance and album signing at the always frenetic Amoeba Music in Hollywood should be next on your dance card. Colette, the former choirgirl-cum-Chicago-house-siren will be making a stop at the venerated music shop tonight at 7 p.m. Admission is free. Amoeba Music is located at 6400 Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. Dancing is optional.
582,DANIEL ARCHULETA
Just for the Puck of it (w/#3)
Wolfgang Puck and Barbara Lazaroff's American Wine and Food Festival will celebrate its 25th anniversary on Saturday, September 29 at 6 p.m. on the Universal Studios' back lot.
The event will feature a line-up of about 40 celebrity chefs and 70 wine and spirit purveyors. New this year will be The Moët and Chandon Lounge with entertainment by acrobats and aerialists, live blues music for dancing, and of course, Moët & Chandon champagnes paired with desserts by an assortment of pastry chefs.
Auction items include an African safari, a vacation getaway in Bora Bora, hotel stays in Paris, London, New York, Thailand and Hawaii, rare, vintage wines, restaurant dinners, and high-end jewelry and entertainment.
Since its inception in 1982, the Wine & Food Festival has raised over $13 million for the Los Angeles chapters of Meals on Wheels — the organization that serves thousands of meals daily to homebound senior and disabled citizens.
The festival is open to the public, and over 2,000 guests are expected to attend. Given Puck's post Oscar party connections, there should be plenty of celebrities.
For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.awff.org.
‘Jenùfa’ for the ages (w/#5)
Leos Janáèek’s “Jenùfa,” which premiered on Jan. 21, 1904, is verismo drama, based on a shocking headline grabbing plot: the murder of an infant.
Its social criticism of a rural society dominated by social and religious prejudice, gender and class inequality and the self-righteousness of an elder; but the criticism is redeemed by the maturity, forgiveness, compassion of the victim heroine.
The opera, which took 10 years for Janáèek to write, broke new ground and was the turning point in his career. For example, previous opera had used the language of the courts and aristocracy — German and Italian, but Janáèek used the Czech vernacular. Similarly, earlier composers like Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven had used folk music mainly for amusing diversionary relief in the complex sophisticated art form of opera, but Janáèek uses Moravian folk music as its core. Also innovative is the use of the xylophone in the orchestra to represent the turning of the mill wheel.
2E8,A production of the Metropolitan Opera, “Jenùfa” is sung in Czech with English supertitles. Karita Mattila is cast in the title role.
“Jenùfa” plays at the Music Center from Sept. 27 to Oct. 13. For tickets and more information, call (213) 972-8001 or visit www.LAOpera.com.
Abbot Kinney goes green — for a day (w/#8)
Green this, green that... the whole world seems to be going green these days. In keeping with the trend, the 23rd Annual Abbot Kinney Street Festival has decided to... well... go green for this year’s event. Festival organizers have included a Green Living Tent in this year’s slate of features. Speakers, seminars and vendors will all be stumping for the green movement under the tent during this day-long event.
Aside from the green theme, the festival also boasts a broad spectrum of activities and performances for the whole family — that includes your eccentric uncle who refuses to reuse, reduce or recycle his refuse. Activities include three musical stages, hundreds of arts and crafts vendors, plenty of food booths and — of course — a beer garden. As of press time, there is no word yet on the inclusion of the fabled green beer in this event.
The festival will take place on Abbot Kinney, between Main Street and Venice Boulevard. It will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is free, but rides will cost you. Rides and games range in price from $1 to $5. Group discounts are available. For more information, contact www.abbotkinney.org.
An afternoon with Alice Walker
Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Alice Walker, visits the Santa Monica Main Library to read and sign her latest children's book, “Why War Is Never A Good Idea.” The event takes place Saturday at 2 p.m. in the MLK Jr. Auditorium. Seating is limited. Tickets will be available one hour prior to program.
Lucida Grande 40, 4 0 400 0¬ 1 0 40, Minion 40, 4 0 231A 0¬ 1 0
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 28, 2007. Read the original PDF.