GOINGS ON : From ‘Love Letters’ to Opera to a Mozart Salute : Stargazers will get a chance for an up-close view of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune at the Museum of Natural History.

The evolving 50-year relationship between a man and a woman is the basis of the play “Love Letters,” which will be presented by the PCPA Theaterfest company tonight through Sept. 5 at Severson Theatre at Santa Maria’s Allan Hancock College.

The play follows the intense friendship between the two upper-class New Englanders through the letters they write to one another--from the childhood Valentines to the mature letters touching on middle age and marital status.

Tickets for this evening’s 8 p.m. preview show are $12. Admission is $13 for matinees and weeknight performances, and $16 for Friday and Saturday night presentations. Call 922-8313 or (800) 549-PCPA. The college is located at 800 S. College Drive.

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Santa Barbara’s Music Academy of the West’s Summer Festival will continue Saturday night with the “Opera Gala,” at the Granada Theatre.

Guest conductor Randall Behr, resident conductor of the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, will lead the Festival Orchestra and students from the Academy’s Voice Program, in this third annual presentation. The concert will include pieces from Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and “Cosi fan tutti,” Puccini’s “La Boheme,” Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale,” and Bizet’s “Carmen.” The concert will begin at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15. Call 966-2324. The Granada is located at 1216 State St.

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How far will you travel to pay tribute to Wolfgang Amadeus?

Well, the 23rd annual San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival will conclude this week with concerts tonight through Sunday.

The Turtle Island String Quartet will offer up a varied (though not very Mozartian) performance, Thursday, with some rock, jazz, Indian classical, and American fiddle sounds. The show will begin at 8:15 p.m. at the Maison Deutz Winery in Arroyo Grande. Tickets are $35.

On Friday, there’s a choice of the Mozart opera “Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)” at 7:30 p.m. at the Church of the Nazarene in Pismo Beach (tickets $20), or an all-Mozart “Fortepiano Recital” at the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Theatre, at 8:15 p.m. Tickets are $20 and $15. Saturday, there will be a “Chamber Concert” at the Cal Poly Theatre at 3 p.m. (tickets $15). At 8:15 p.m. the Arioso Wind Qunitet will take the theater stage. Tickets are $20 and $15.

And on Sunday, piano soloist Jeffrey Kahane will be featured playing music of Haydn, Ravel, and Mozart, in the “Final Orchestra Concert,” beginning at 3 p.m. at the Cal Poly Theatre. Tickets are $28 and $22. For all ticket information, call 781-3010.

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Playwright and lyricist Jerome Lawrence, whose work includes “Auntie Mame,” “Inherit the Wind,” and “The Gang’s All Here,” will be the guest speaker at the San Ysidro Ranch Literary Club’s lunch, Monday at noon. Lawrence, co-founder of the American Playwrights Theatre, will autograph copies of his recently released debut book, “A Golden Circle: A Tale of the Stage and Screen and Music of Yesterday and Now and Tomorrow and Maybe the Day After Tomorrow.” Admission is $35, which includes lunch and the book. For reservations call 969-5046.

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Santa Barbara’s Museum of Natural History will put its 39-inch Shipman telescope to work Tuesday night, for public viewing of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and stars, stars and more stars. Weather permitting, stargazers will gather at the museum’s Palmer Observatory from 9 to 10 p.m. Admission is $1. The museum is located at 2559 Puesta del Sol Road. Call 682-3224 for more information.