Drawn to Arts : Fourth Annual Day on Green Brings Out Grass-Roots Talent

Perched on a shady hillock next to South Coast Repertory Theatre, Joe Goldstein was the picture of contentment Sunday as he listened to the Rams game on the radio with one ear and a live wind ensemble nearby with the other.

“When the game gets dull, I listen to the music,” said the 72-year-old Laguna Hills man. “And when the music gets dull, I listen to the game.”

Goldstein was one of an estimated 5,500 to 8,000 people drawn to Arts on the Green ‘87, Orange County’s fourth annual arts fair, a panoply of 38 different performances on six stages in and around the Orange County Performing Arts Center in the Costa Mesa.

People sprawled on lawns and filled the brickwork maze in front of the Center, eating ice cream and hot dogs, mingling, and playing with their children.

The free one-day event, sponsored by the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce and local businesses, also gave local arts organizations a chance to market themselves from small booths lined up outside South Coast Repertory.

“We have 500 to 600 people who stopped by and signed up to be on our mailing list,” said Erich Vollmer, executive director of the Orange County Philharmonic Society. “It’s been a very good day for us.”

Performing groups, none of which were on stage for more than 30 minutes, included Japanese drummers, Indian dancers, square dancers, actors, and jazz and light pops musicians. The Bowers Museum of Santa Ana also dispatched its Mobile Museum, a trailer converted into an exhibition hall full of artifacts from around the world.

“We wanted to get out the word on the arts to people in this county, and I think they’re paying attention,” said Dwight R. Odle, a stage designer at SCR and the festival’s producer and director. “We wanted people to be able to experience all the different artistic possibilities.”

People could wander from the festival’s five outdoor stages into the Center’s 300-seat Founders Hall to watch the tragic urban drama “A Raisin in the Sun,” by Lorraine Hansberry.

It was just one scene, part of a sampler presented by the Orange County Black Actors Theater, but the audience responded with a loud ovation. “We’re hoping that this will get people interested in coming to see us perform during the year,” said Adleane Hunter, the group’s producing artistic director.

Outside, beneath the Center’s massive arch, 10 members of the Orange County Buddhist Church’s Taiko Percussion Ensemble were beating sonorous but tightly controlled rhythms on drums.

When the playing stopped, Steve Stultz, 36, of Tustin, approached the group’s 27-year-old musical director, Greg Matsuura, and peppered him with questions: What were the drums made of? (“Oak,” replied Matsuura.) Was the music linked to religious ideas? (“Yes,” he said.)

There were many such encounters Sunday between performers and members of the audiences gathered around the many stages at the festival.

Three-year-old Molly Gutman, attending the festival with her parents, Jack and Marcia Gutman of Yorba Linda, couldn’t get any answers from an African mask inside the Bowers Mobile Museum. But she stared and stared, looking every bit as if she wanted to ask a question.

It was just the sort of encounter that Barney Malesky, the Bowers curator of education, said he hoped for when he brought the Mobile Museum to Arts on the Green.

Odle said the event came off with a minimum of problems. Three dancers scheduled to perform dances from Bangladesh were in a car accident--but not seriously hurt--on the way to the festival. They were replaced by some poets from Laguna Beach. Otherwise, things went smoothly, he said.

“We started (the festival) . . . with 15 acts on three stages and it lasted four hours,” Odle said. “I would say that 2,200 to 3,000 people came to that first one. Look at it now. To tell you the truth, I don’t think we can grow much beyond this.”