L.A. Arts Sampler : The third L.A. County-Wide Arts Open House includes Music Center groups for the first time.

More than 100 arts organizations in Los Angeles County, from the L.A. Opera and the cast of the musical “Rent” to the Agua-Luna Dance Co. and the Los Angeles Zither Orchestra, will present free performances, exhibitions, tours and other events Saturday for the third annual L.A. County-Wide Arts Open House.

The day’s schedule is as rife with varied choices as a Chinese take-out menu. But that’s part of the fun. Activities include a downtown walking tour of storefront windows highlighting the history of L.A.’s garment workers by a group called Common Threads Artists; a demonstration of something called Raku ceramics at Cal State L.A.; a guided tour of artwork in the Metro system; and a performance by the Master Chorale at the Music Center.

There will be seven centers of activity where the public can park and easily walk between events: Cal State L.A. in East Los Angeles, Casa de la Cultura in Long Beach, the 18th Street Arts Complex in Santa Monica, the Lankershim Arts Center in North Hollywood, Museum Row on mid-Wilshire, the Pasadena Artspace and the L.A. County Music Center.

This is the first year the Music Center has joined in the act. With members from all the center’s constituent groups--the L.A. Philharmonic, the L.A. Opera, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Center Theatre Group and the Thelonius Monk Jazz Ensemble--all giving free performances, this is one day when high ticket prices can’t be used as an excuse for not attending an arts performance.

In addition, the doors to all three theaters will be open so patrons can “try out” available seats for a new “Sampler Subscription Package” of five performances, one for each one of the resident companies, ($219.20-$140.30). There will also be food booths from downtown restaurants offering samples in the $1 range.

“We really wanted to re-create the atmosphere of the whole downtown area and give people the message that if they haven’t been down here lately they should really come down and take a look,” Barbara Haig, Special Projects Coordinator for the Music Center, said of the setup.

The stretch of Wilshire Boulevard known as Museum Row will be closed to traffic and lined with outdoor stages presenting dance, music and theater performances. There will be free admission all day to the Carole & Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures, the Craft and Folk Art Museum, the George C. Page Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Petersen Automotive Museum.

“If a typical family of four tried to explore four to five museums in one day under normal circumstances, it could add up to hundreds of dollars,” said Laura Zucker, L.A. County Arts Commission Executive Director. “What’s great about this is you can get a taste of the Japanese Pavilion at LACMA, take in a few teapots at the Craft and Folk Art Museum and a few vintage cars at the Petersen. You can get a taste of each museum without feeling you have to spend a full day there.”

But as much as the day is about free access to high-end arts attractions, it’s also about giving increased exposure to smaller organizations.

For the 18th Street Arts Complex, located on a dead-end street half a block north of 18th Street and Olympic Boulevard, serving as Santa Monica’s open house hub is an advantage simply because it shows people how to find the location.

“Some people who live close by in the community don’t even know we’re here,” said Cindy DeSantis, the 18th Street Arts Complex’s administrative assistant and project coordinator for Arts Open House. “But people come to the festival and see what we do here and afterward we always end up having people volunteer, join workshops and studios, go to Highways and become part of our wild extended family.”

Glynss Reed, a junior at Occidental College, went to last year’s open house at the 18th Street Complex because she was looking to find a sense of an arts community in L.A. “I was surprised because there were visual arts and performance arts and it was a really friendly atmosphere that a lot of people might not know about.”

“It showed me what tremendous diversity we have in the arts world in L.A., and it was really fun,” said Hamp Simmons, who works for the Santa Monica Cultural Affairs Department and attended last year’s open house.

“I really enjoyed an altar-making workshop I attended. I love the whole concept of creating a holy place for yourself, a private, spiritual space, and the artist took us through the whole process so we could do the same thing in our own homes.”

This year, in addition to another altar-making workshop, the 18th Street Arts Complex will host flamenco guitarists, a Rastafarian children’s drumming group, a children’s recorder ensemble, the Diane Davisson dancers, a henna body painting workshop for kids, cartooning classes, 14-foot puppets and more.

Raising public awareness was also a motivating force behind the Theatre of Hope for Abused Women’s (T.H.A.W.) decision to become involved, for the first time, with this year’s open house.

“We are one of the only theater groups in the Valley with a consistent political viewpoint, which is the feminist viewpoint,” said Philip Sokoloff, publicist for the theater group. “For us, the open house is an opportunity to get better known.”

T.H.A.W. is a nonprofit community outreach program of the American Renegade Theatre company that provides public education about the effects of domestic violence through theater arts, including ongoing Sunday matinees. The group will present “Metamorphosis,” at the Bitter Truth Theatre Saturday, a program of performance art, music, dance and poetry celebrating women.

With so many diverse experiences to take advantage of, the biggest challenge to the some 50,000 urban explorers expected to turn out for the open house could be how to choose.

Zucker, who heads the L.A. Arts Commission, and has been at the helm of the county’s open house since she modeled it after a similar project in New Jersey two years ago, has a good strategy: “I tell people to pick two to three events they think they are very likely to enjoy,” she advised. “But that then they should pick one that’s different, that’s something they have never tried. After all, it’s free.”

BE THERE

Los Angeles County-Wide Arts Open House, Saturday, all day, various venues. Complete schedules of the more than 120 events are available from public libraries around the county, Robinsons-May stores in Los Angeles County, the Arts Commission Web site: https://www.lacountyarts.org or by calling the free 24-hour information hotline at (213) 688-ARTS.