Locals pick up quite a few arts awards

TOM TITUS

When my editor asked me two weeks ago if I could cover the sixth

annual Arts Orange County awards April 28 at the Balboa Bay Club, I

said, “Sure. I’m free that night.”

My immediate concern was if there would be enough local (Costa

Mesa and Newport Beach) winners to make the resulting column

interesting to Daily Pilot readers. Well, there were indeed quite a

few -- including one 41-year Costa Mesa resident who was shocked out

of his socks to wind up going home with one of the trophies.

I must dutifully report that one of the two outstanding individual

artist awards for 2004 went to the writer of this column for his four

decades of local theater coverage. I’ve been on the presenting end,

in this paper’s annual achievement accolades, but seldom on the

receiving end -- and winning something this prestigious in front of

more than 400 leaders of the county’s arts community is an enormous

honor that I’ll certainly endeavor to live up to.

Arts Orange County -- the nonprofit umbrella arts council

dedicated to developing, sustaining and promoting the arts and arts

education throughout the county -- put on one whale of a show,

passing out 11 annual achievement awards and four lifetime

achievement trophies. Andrew Barnicle, artistic director of the

Laguna Playhouse, and Marie Hall Brown, associate producer of

KOCE-TV’s “Real Orange” and host of the series “Bookmark,” shared the

emcee duties.

Newport Beach’s Arlene Cheng, who with her husband, George,

spearheaded the development of the Irvine Barclay Theater and has

been a major supporter of the Pacific Symphony, was honored as a

community visionary. Cited in the same category was Laguna Beach’s

Gordon Shaw, a renowned math and music educator at UC Irvine -- cited

posthumously, as he died two days before the banquet.

Kris and Linda Elftmann of Newport Beach were acclaimed as

outstanding arts patrons who dedicate both time and expertise to many

local arts organizations, including the Claire Trevor School of Arts

at UCI and the Balboa Performing Arts Theater. The other patrons

award went to Michael and Eleanor Gordon of Laguna Beach for their

continued support of Opera Pacific, the Pacific Chorale and the

Orange County Performing Arts Center’s symphony. Michael Gordon will

become chairman of the center in July.

An “outstanding volunteer” honored at the event was Catherine

Thyen of Corona del Mar, who has lent her support to South Coast

Repertory, the Orange County Performing Arts Center and the Arts

Pavilion at Orange Coast College, which begins construction this

summer. In the same category, the many guilds of the Performing Arts

Center came in for special accolades.

The outstanding arts organizations were the Newport Beach-based

Orange County Museum of Art -- which experienced a “landmark year of

artistic accomplishment and organizational growth” in 2004 -- and

Shakespeare Orange County, the classical theater company created by

Thomas Bradac out of the ashes of the Grove Shakespeare Festival.

Three awards were given in the outstanding arts educator category

-- to Kathleen Harris, who chairs the Mission Viejo High School

Performing and Visual Arts Department; the Performing Arts Department

of Irvine’s Northwood High School; and the Orange County Youth

Symphony, headquartered in Orange.

Sharing cultural legacy awards with Cheng and Shaw were James D.

Young, founder of the theater department at Cal State Fullerton, and

William D. Hall, dean of the Chapman University School of Music. A

second outstanding individual artist was Timothy Landaurer of Santa

Ana, a Shanghai-born cellist who has displayed unique musical

talents.

As for my own recognition, I must thank my longtime buddy and

fellow theater critic Chris Trela -- whom I once chose as man of the

year in theater for his work with the New Voices and Orange County

Playwrights’ Alliance -- for the “payback.” Chris now heads up the

marketing and development department for the Balboa Performing Arts

Theater, of which we’ll be hearing more in the near future.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews

appear Fridays.