Community News

Arsenic & Old Lace

For 76 years, Kesselring’s play, Arsenic and Old Lace, has enchanted audiences with its two sweet old sisters who occasionally feel the need to release a worthy roomer of his lonely suffering with a sip of their homemade Elderberry wine. Added to their misguided mayhem are a lovesick nephew and his disfigured and dangerously insane brother and sisters’ delusional charge who believes he’s Teddy Roosevelt.

Madison Mooney, the organization’s executive director, added, “This show is just plain fun. It fits perfectly with this time of year when we all take a breath and step gratefully into the holiday season.”

The show opened Nov. 4 and runs through Dec. 2. Adult tickets $24-27 are available at www.lbplayhouse.org, or by calling (562) 494-1014, option 1. Performances are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.

Long Beach Playhouse is located at 5021 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach, CA, 90804, right across from the Long Beach Recreation golf course. The Playhouse is a community-supported theatre with programs and events that cut across age, gender, ethnic and cultural boundaries.

Rotary Centennial

On Wednesday, Nov. 1, the Rotary Club of Long Beach observed its 100th anniversary of being a chartered club in Rotary International and would like to invite members of the local community to its centennial celebration dinner on Nov. 15 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel (200 South Pine, Long Beach) from 7-9 p.m. Rotary International President Ian Riseley, who is flying in from Australia, will be the featured speaker.

The Rotary Club of Long Beach was first chartered 100 years ago as the 334th club in Rotary International when Granville Savage visited Long Beach and met with seven local men to share his enthusiasm about the Rotary Club in New York. Together, they formed the city’s first service club, the Rotary Club of Long Beach.

The club’s first president, J.J. Mottell, was a funeral director and civic leader. Mottell and 15 other charter members moved the club along to cement friendships, contribute to the community and elevate business ethics.

100 years later, the Rotary Club of Long Beach is in the top 50 largest clubs – out of 35,000 Rotary clubs worldwide encompassing 1.2 million total members – and is comprised of Long Beach’s business and community leaders who share a mantra of “Service Above Self.”

Tickets to the event cost $75 per person and can be purchased by contacting the club’s executive director, Madrid Zimmerman, via email at madrid@rotarylongbeach.org. For additional information, call the Rotary Club of Long Beach at (562) 436-8181.

Novak Being Honored

The International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) will honor Long Beach resident Jenny Novak for her “Beat the Quake: Earthquake Themed Puzzle/Escape Room” as 2017 IAEM-USA Public Awareness Award recipient. The presentation at the organization’s 65th annual awards luncheon that will take place Monday, Nov. 13, at the Long Beach Convention Center.

Serving as this year’s IAEM Awards Luncheon Master of Ceremonies is Emmy Award winning reporter and weekend anchor John Gregory of ABC 7 Eyewitness News.

Student Essay Contests

Students in grades 5-12 can now enter an annual essay competition to win a monetary scholarship prize from the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The Long Beach-based Susan B. Anthony Chapter is one of many DAR groups that presents awards to students from each grade level, with the winning essays moving up to district, state and national competitions. The contest is open to public, private and home-schooled students in Long Beach, Signal Hill, Seal Beach and Los Alamitos. The deadline to enter is Dec. 1.

The essays give students a chance to learn about history and creatively do some traveling through time. The 2017-2018 topic for grades 5-8 is “World War I: Remembering the War to End All Wars.” High school students will write about “Christopher Columbus: Advantages and Disadvantages of Working Relationships between Foreign Parties.”

For more information and a contest packet, students, parents and teachers can email susanbanthonydar@gmail.com.

Prosecutor On Straight Talk

Long Beach City Prosecutor, Doug Haubert is the guest on the next edition of Straight Talk. He joins host Art Levine to discuss the work of his office, and his particular emphasis on diversion as a substitute for criminal sanctions. He also discusses the ongoing problem of powerful synthetic drugs like opioids.

This Straight Talk show will air in Long Beach/Signal Hill on Saturday, Nov. 11 and Sunday, Nov. 12 at 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. on LBTV Channel 3 and Frontier FiOS 21. It also airs Saturday and Sunday in Long Beach and 70 surrounding cities at 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. on Charter Channel 188. It will be repeated the following weekend at the same times. Straight Talk is viewable on demand at www.StraightTalkTV.com.

Operation Christmas Child

Bethany Lutheran Church and Ministerio Bautista Logos Church have been designated as Operation Christmas Child drop-off locations in the Long Beach area.

Since its 1993 inception, Operation Christmas Child, a project of the international relief organization, Samaritan’s Purse, has sent gift-filled shoeboxes and a message of hope to more than 146 million children in more than 100 war-torn and impoverished countries.

For many of these children, it is the first gift they have ever received.

The 2017 Operation Christmas Child National Collection Week is Nov. 13-20.

During that week, residents are invited to fill an empty shoebox with school supplies, hygiene items, and fun toys for a boy or girl and deliver it to Bethany Lutheran Church at 4644 Clark Ave or Ministerio Bautista Logos Church at 701 South St.

For detailed packing instructions, volunteer opportunities and more information about Operation Christmas Child, visit samaritanspurse.org/occ.

For more information locally, call Kahana Smith at (562) 377-3673.

Gregory Boyle Honored

The Ukleja Center for Ethical Leadership at CSULB has selected Gregory Boyle to receive its 2017 Nell and John Wooden Ethics in Leadership Award. The community is invited to attend the award celebration from 6-9 p.m. on Nov. 16 at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center.

The event will feature an intimate dinner on the stage followed by an inspirational talk by Father Boyle, a Jesuit priest, on “Lessons from the Field: Kinship as an Intervention.” Father Boyle’s visionary leadership demonstrates the transformational power of changing lives by offering hope, training and job skills.

The Rev. Gregory J. Boyle, S.J., is the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles. From 1986 to 1992, he served as pastor of Dolores Mission Church in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles, then the poorest Catholic parish in the city, located between two large public housing projects with the highest concentration of gang activity in Los Angeles. He witnessed the devastating impact of gang violence on his community during what he has called “the decade of death” that began in the late 1980s.

In addition to supporting the mission of the Ukleja Center, a portion of the Nov. 16 event proceeds will benefit Homeboy Industries. Tickets are $300 for individuals and table sponsorships range from $3,000 to $10,000. For reservations or more information, contact Janey Roeder at jane.roeder@csulb.edu or (562) 985-8600.

Beauty & the Beast

Renaissance High School for the Arts presents the musical “Beauty and the Beast” on Friday, Nov. 17,  7 p.m. and Saturday Nov. 18, 2 p.m. at the Beverly O’Neill Theater at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center, 300 E. Ocean Blvd. Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for students and children, and are on sale now at the box office or online through Ticketmaster.

At Renaissance, performances are entirely student-led. With guidance from teachers, the 40-member cast, 20-member stage crew, 20-piece orchestra and 16 pit singers are comprised entirely of students. Even the costumes and sets are designed and created by students. Except for the instrumental music teacher who will be conducting the orchestra, Renaissance teachers will be sitting in the audience during performances, because the students will be actually running the show.

Immediately following Saturday’s performance only, there will be a special “cast meet and greet” where audience members will have the opportunity to take pictures and get autographs with characters from the show. Parents, be sure to bring your little princesses and princes to this family fun event. Costumes are encouraged.

Proceeds from the show will support Renaissance’s ASB and future school productions. For more information, contact Maria Dowell, Arts Coordinator, at (562) 591-7477 or MMDowell@lbschools.net.

All That Jazz

On Saturday, Nov. 18 at 8 p.m. in the Long Beach Arena the Long Beach Symphony will present an evening of music inspired by the legendary 1930s Harlem jazz clubs featuring greatest hits by Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Ethel Waters and more!

For this concert, the symphony will be partnering with the Long Beach NAACP and we will provide a donation back to their organization as a portion of its ticket sales.

Tickets to the concert start at $26 with student tickets available for $10 with valid student ID. For more information or to purchase tickets and subscriptions visit www.LongBeachSymphony.org or call (562) 436-3203 ext. 1.

Thanksgiving Cruise

Hornblower Cruises & Events is offering Thanksgiving supper cruises from Rainbow Harbor, 100 Aquarium Way, on Thursday, Nov. 23, with boarding at 4 p.m. and cruising from 4:40-7:30 p.m.

The cost is $92.95 per person, plus tax, service charge and landing fee. Purchase tickets online: www.hornblower.com or by phone: (949) 631-2469. For groups of 15 or more, call (888) 467-6256 and ask about the group discount.

White Christmas

This holiday season’s weather report forecasts snow. Start with a timeless tale of joy and goodwill, fill it with classic Irving Berlin songs and top it off with glorious dancing and you have Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, coming to the Carpenter Performing Arts Center Dec. 1-10. Tickets are now on sale at the Musical Theatre West Ticket Office, at www.musical.org, or by calling (562) 856-1999 ext. 4. Tickets start at $20.