Two Fall Festivals Will Offer Entertainment for Valley Families
This weekend, the hills above the Valley will play host to two family-oriented festivals. One is on the site where the merry-go-round in Griffith Park overlooks the eastern end of the Valley; the other is at the Skirball Cultural Center in the Sepulveda Pass.
Saturday’s event, which bears the name “KTLA Kids Day,” is more than its name suggests--although there will be a chance to meet some stars from the station’s network, the WB. William Shatner of “Star Trek” also will be there, as well as personalities from KCET and “General Hospital.”
The festival also offers a schedule of sports clinics conducted by Los Angeles Sparks players Dadera Charles and Heidi Burge, and Olympic baseball stars Sheila Cornell and Pam Newton. Tennis and cycling clinics will also be held.
The festival will offer exhibits and demonstrations by 125 nonprofit service providers in the arts, health, sports, safety and other fields.
But the real hook for kids attending Saturday’s event will be free rides on the merry-go-round.
And tickets will be available that allow free admission to the nearby Autry Museum of Western Heritage and the Los Angeles Zoo, admitting six children at no cost when accompanied by a paid adult.
On Sunday, the Skirball Cultural Center’s Sukkot Festival, an ancient harvest celebration, will be open to the public. “One of (the Jewish religion’s) commandments associated with Sukkot is that of hospitality,” says Robert Kirschner, a rabbi who is also the center’s program director.
The name of the festival (pronounced sue-COAT) refers to the shelters that ancient Israelites built again and again during their 40-year wanderings in the Sinai Desert prior to settling in the “promised land” of Israel. After becoming farmers there, they took up the practice of sleeping in the fields during harvest time, for which they built sukkot.
Other features of the daylong event will be ecumenical. There will be square dancing at noon, demonstrated by the Valley Trailers Square Dancing Club with caller Mike Seastrom.
Then, a bluegrass “Harvest Concert” will take place, featuring the Witcher Brothers, followed by traditional Sukkot songs performed by Caryn Glasser. The Beverly Hills Piano Quartet will perform music by Mendelssohn.
Visitors are encouraged to bring canned goods to be donated to the L.A. Regional Food Bank.
BE THERE
“KTLA Kids Day L.A.,” a family resource festival, Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., free, in Griffith Park, Griffith Park Drive at Crystal Springs Drive, (213) 485-9548.
Sukkot Festival, Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. (at Mulholland Drive). General admission $7, kids under 12 and Skirball members, free. Call (310) 440-4500.