Orange County Performing Arts Center 5th Anniversary : Star Bright Celebration : Gala: The Center’s glitzy fifth-anniversary party puts guests on cloud nine with a silver lining. Among party-goers is Gov. Wilson.

Everyone got into the act Wednesday when the Orange County Performing Arts Center celebrated its fifth anniversary--Gov. Pete Wilson, singer Ann Jillian, dancer Ben Vereen and the local arts buffs who helped stage “Starlight Expressions,” the $10,000-to-$25,000 per-table soiree at Segerstrom Hall.

But William Lyon stole the show. Armed with a stack of index cards, the chairman of the Center’s board of trustees took the stage, pretending he would give a dissertation.

Then, with a smug smile, he let the cards flutter to the floor.

This wasn’t a night for canned speeches, he told the black-tie crowd. This was the time for one from the heart.

“Obviously, we’re delighted with this fifth-anniversary celebration,” said Lyon, Southern California’s largest home builder. “And we’re delighted to have the governor here--the mother of all tax increases.” (Wild laughter and applause.)

“You’re sitting in a very special place . . . a theater of unmatched standards, a theater that has stayed in the black five years in a row.” (Wilder applause).

Then, Barry Cole’s orchestra struck up the theme from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Starlight Express.”

It was the second time the dramatic piece had been played.

Guests first heard it when they were ushered into Segerstrom Hall after an al fresco wine reception in the Center’s arrival gardens.

“All passengers!” urged the voice of a would-be train conductor. “All passengers aboard Starlight Express!”

Before the guests, stood a smoky, starlit cabaret (six miles of twinkle-lights dangled like diamond necklaces from the ceiling) bathed in a rainbow of indigo and amethyst light.

Everywhere they looked guests saw silver accents: silver-lame skirted tables set with silver platters, silver-rimmed china, silver napkins.

The bamboo dining chairs were even silver. (They had been gold, explained Hyatt Regency catering director, Katharyn Sherman. But gala chairwoman Kathryn Thompson wanted silver. After the gala, they would be sprayed gold again, Sherman said.)

As guests took their seats on the multilevel stage built over theater seats, they dug into a repast that included Chesapeake blue crab crowned with shrimp, scallops and mussels; roast loin of veal stuffed with mushrooms, and “The Center at 5” dessert, an edible-gold embellished cappuccino torte shaped like the Center’s grand portal.

Party-goers oohed and aahed over “the Thompson touch,” details-that-make-the-difference such as sweet butter shaped like long-stem roses, quality keepsakes (opera glasses) and a grand procession of waiters wending through the crowd carrying silver-plumed swan ice-carvings (a prelude to dessert).

After Thompson addressed the crowd--saying the Center was “the county’s best-known 5-year-old” and recognizing the Segerstrom family for its support--she introduced her co-chairman, Rick Muth, as “the best co-chairman anyone could ask for.”

Muth said the Center’s next five years “wouldn’t just imitate what we’ve done the first five--we’ll do even better,” he promised.

Also among guests were Thompson’s husband, Gus Owen; Nancy Muth; Center president Thomas Kendrick (“This is the first time you’ve heard me say, ‘This is going to be a great show before it happens,’ ” Kendrick piped during the reception); with his wife, Center manager Judy O’Dea Morr; Renee Segerstrom (wearing gold lame by Yves Saint Laurent with husband Henry; Hal and Jeanette Segerstrom; Roger and Janice Johnson (she’s co-chair with Les McCraw of the weeklong fifth-anniversary festivities); Willa Dean Lyon (in a gold-splashed nude-tone sheath by Bob Mackie); Judie Argyros (stylish in a gold-sequin-on-black-lace cat suit with silk taffeta skirt) escorted by George Argyros Jr.; Jean Moriarty; Richard Moriarty; Jim and Nancy Baldwin (in the turquoise mermaid gown she wore to the Center’s opening) and Ed and Floss Schumacher (chairwoman of the Center’s 1986 opening gala).

Also attending were Dick and Jolene Engel; Deeann (sporting drop-dead emeralds) and Al Baldwin; Lillian Fluor with sons Peter and Bob; Zee Allred; Candice and Roger Schnapp; Don and Claudette Shaw; Elaine and Bill Redfield; Tina and Matt Schafnitz; Carl and Margaret Karcher; Pilar Wayne; Mary Roosevelt; Michelle Rohe; Kent and Carol Wilken; David DiChiera; Susan and Tim Strader; Dotti and Glenn Stillwell; Carol and Larry Hoffman; Joan and Don Beall, and Georgia Spooner (founder of the Center’s Guilds support groups.)