BEST BETS Saturday 10/13

10am

Festival

Cultures from both sides of the Pacific meet at the Seal Beach Kite Festival, a two-day event sponsored by the Japan America Society. Bring kites and fly them for prizes or participate in kite-making lessons or watch demonstrations by world-famous performers. The second day features a number of Japanese cultural events, including kite battles and live taiko drummers.

* Seal Beach Kite Festival, Seal Beach Pier, Main Street and Ocean Avenue. Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m.-sundown. Free. (213) 627-6217, Ext. 203.

10am

Opera

Opera hopefuls put their hearts and talents on the line as they compete in the Orange County District Metropolitan Opera auditions. A good number of the leading American opera singers took their turn in this early step at building a career. Winners at Chapman will compete in the Western Regional Auditions Oct. 26 and 27 at USC. Finalists will go on to sing for cash awards in the national grand finals in New York City.

* Metropolitan Opera Auditions, Memorial Hall, Chapman University, 333 N. Glassell, Orange. 10 a.m. Free. (949) 249-2101.

7pm

Dance

A dozen companies will perform at the Third Annual Choreographers Dance Festival, sponsored by Arts Orange County and Laguna Beach. The range is definitely eclectic: from “The Tweaksters” dancing Regan Patro’s “Pot Heads” to Ballet Montmartre dancing Stela Viorica’s “Le fin de nuit.” Other troupes and choreographers include Arpana Dance Company, Naked with Shoes, the Malia Movement Company, Ramaa and Swetha Bharadvaj, Johnny Tu, Viver Brasil Dance Company, Mandala DanceWorks, Printz Dance Project, DanceAly, and Interplay.

* Third Annual Choreographers Dance Festival, Seven Degrees, 891 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. 7 p.m. Free. (949) 497-0722.

8pm

Pop Music

When Mexican singer-composer Marco Antonio Solis played the Universal Amphitheatre in August, his show had elements of a Vegas revue. Despite some musings about the aftermath of failed romance, reviewer Ernesto Lechner wrote that “his show, with its moments of banda sinaloense , timbale solos by the singer himself and even the introduction of his mother on the occasion of her birthday, was more of a festive affair than a meeting of the broken-hearts club.” Solis brings that show to the scaled-down Theater at the Arrowhead Pond setup in Anaheim.

* Marco Antonio Solis, The Theater at the Arrowhead Pond, 2695 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim. 8 p.m. $40 to $125. (714) 704-2500.

8pm

Theater

A.R. Gurney’s “Ancestral Voices” should be right up Fred Savage’s alley. As Kevin, the lead character in the TV series “The Wonder Years,” he was a likeable, cute youngster grappling with life in the bosom of the family. Another actor provided the voice of a grown-up Kevin, serving as narrator and commentator. In Gurney’s play, Savage plays Eddie, caught up in the turbulence of a fracturing family near Buffalo, N.Y., before World War II; he also plays an older Eddie, who steps away from and comments on the action. Rene Auberjonois, the Tony-winning stage actor best known as Odo on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” plays Eddie’s troubled grandfather. Because he wanted to cover leaps of time and place, Gurney wrote the piece to be read from a script rather than fully staged with scenery and acted from memory, which he felt would have slowed the action. This performance, which also features Adrienne Barbeau, Katherine Helmond and Lawrence Pressman, will be done as a “concert reading,” sans costumes and gestures, as the author intended.

* “Ancestral Voices,” Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine. $26 to $32, half-price for students. (949) 854-4646.