The
Magic of Art
Like
Jack and the Beanstalk, magic sprouted from a handful of legumes when
the Orange County Performing Arts Center rose up out of a bean field in
Costa Mesa in 1986. The $65 million jewel in the County's cultural crown
was seeded with generous donations in both land and cash by the Segerstrom
family.
In
addition to being home to the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Opera Pacific,
and the Philharmonic Society, the 3,000-seat center has also hosted a
number of touring Broadway production and international dance and opera
troupes. Plans for a second, smaller concert hall, the Segerstrom Center
for the Performing Arts, are currently under way.
Nearby
is the Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory, considered one of the
finest regional theaters in the country. Spilling across South Coast Plaza
are a number of outdoor art installations, like the world-famous 1.6 acre
outdoor sculpture garden created by Isamu Noguchi, titled the "California
Scenario," as well as major pieces of work by artists like Alexander Calder,
Joan Miro, and Jean Dubuffet. Excellent theatre can also be found at the
Laguna Playhouse, Alternative Repertory Theatre in Santa Ana, and the
Vanguard Theatre in Fullerton.
Reflecting
the County's rich and diverse cultural mix, the Irvine Barclay Theatre
offers an eclectic mix of world music and contemporary dance and serves
as the home to the county's largest dance company, Ballet Pacifica.
But
this is only a taste of arts in the County of Orange. To see the whole
menu you'd have to travel to the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa
Ana, with its acclaimed art collection of indigenous peoples and fine
California paintings, to the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Center
with its premiere collection of visual arts from California Impressionists
to provocative contemporary art. Laguna Beach, home to the Festival of
Arts & Pageant of the Masters in the summer, draws lovers of California
art to the Laguna Art Museum year round, while contemporary artists can
be seen practicing their art at the Artists Village, centered around the
historic Santora Arts Complex in downtown Santa Ana.
And
this would be only the start. You would still need to make time to visit
the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum, housed in a sternwheeler on the bay
in Newport Beach, and the Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Birthplace
in Yorba Linda, so you can tour the farmhouse where America's 37th President
was born.
For
children, there's the Children's Museum of La Habra, Santa Ana's Discovery
Museum of Orange County, with its restored Victorian buildings, and the
County's most recent addition, the Discovery Science Center, also in Santa
Ana, with over 100 hands-on exhibits. And don't forget the International
Surfing Museum in Huntington Beach!
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