Community News

Walking Tour

Long Beach Heritage, a preeminent resource for advocacy and education about Long Beach’s architectural heritage and historic places, is hosting its popular North Pine Avenue Walking Tour on March 2. The two-hour tour will highlight successful adaptive reuse projects in the area, including the new Regency Palms Senior Living Community in the Professional Building, a landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

As the group explores North Pine Avenue between 4th and 8th Streets, attendees will learn the history of the buildings, their architectural significance and the process involved in the adaptive reuse of sites including the Walker Building, Kress Lofts, York Temple Lofts and Meeker-Baker Building.

The tour will conclude with a visit to the revitalized Professional Building, home to the new Regency Palms Senior Living Community. John Thomas, historic preservation consultant and vice president of advocacy for Long Beach Heritage, will lead the group through this site and provide insights into the project, which incorporates residences in the upper floors and new ground floor retail, where local coffee purveyor Rose Park Roasters has opened its second location. Attendees will be treated to a coffee tasting at the conclusion of the tour.

Tour reservations are open now. To secure a spot, visit: lbheritage.org.

Smith on TV Show

Craig Smith, former presidential speechwriter for President Ford and President H. W. Bush, will be a guest on the next edition of Straight Talk. He joins host Art Levine to discuss the political scene at the national, state and local level. He also references his book “Confessions of a Presidential Speechwriter.”

This show will air starting the week of Saturday March 2 and Sunday March 3 at 9 a.m. on LBTV Channel 3. The show is also viewable on demand at straighttalktv.com

Lend Me a Tenor

Currently running at the Long Beach Playhouse through March 23, Ken Ludwig’s Lend me a Tenor is one of the best modern American farces to hit the stage. It’s got it all: mistaken identity, drug-induced confusion, lustful shenanigans and operatic impersonation. The play has received several nominations including best new comedy, best play and best revival. Originally written in 1984, it hasn’t lost a drop of its charm or ability to evoke laughter over the past 35 years.

Set in Ohio in 1934, the world famous tenor known as Il Stupendo, has indulged in a double dose of tranquilizers and is presumed dead. Nothing less than the fate of the Cleveland Grand Opera hangs in the balance. Can a young assistant succeed in impersonating the famed opera legend? And then the not-really-dead star awakens and responds to the obligation of actors everywhere, the show must go on! Brilliance and stupidity have never blended so seamlessly!

Brilliantly cast by director Gregory Cohen and Playhouse Artistic Director Sean Gray, the play’s eight actors embrace the fast pace of the action and the laugh lines. It was evident at the first read through the actors had the comedy nailed. With weeks of rehearsal the cast has found a million ways to evoke maximum humor from the script.

Tickets ($14-$24) are available at www.lbplayhouse.org, or by calling (562) 494-1014, option 1.

Performances are Fridays and Saturdays 8 p.m. and Sundays 2 p.m.

Aquarium Course

A new evening course at the aquarium this spring will explore creating models for balancing human impact on the environment, with input from experts in food, water and energy production. We are in the Anthropocene, the geologic epoch in which humans have become a global force for the first time in our 200,000-year history. We are a dominant force, not only in changing earth’s climate, but also in affecting the cycling of nutrients, the hydrologic cycle and a number of ocean processes and phenomena. California is experiencing all of the major impacts and has the opportunity to develop a model of how to thrive in the Anthropocene that could serve other states and other nations. Enacting this model would have great environmental and economic benefit to California.

Speakers will include Ted Nordhaus, president, Breakthrough Institute; Peter Kareiva, director, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California, Los Angeles; Jerry Schubel, president and CEO, Aquarium of the Pacific; Luke Gardner, aquaculture specialist, California Sea Grant ; Kim Thompson, program manager, Seafood for the Future; and Marshall Toplansky, professor of management science, Chapman University.

Classes are Wednesdays, March 6, 13, 20, & 27, 7 p.m.-9 p.m. at the aquarium, costing $40 ($35 for aquarium members and $20 for students with ID card). Info/RSVP by calling (562) 590-3100, Ext. 0.

Writers Club

The California Writers Club of Long Beach is holding its free monthly meeting on Saturday, March 9, at the Ruth Bach Neighborhood Library, 4055 Bellflower Blvd.

The meeting is 3-5 p.m. with networking starting at 2:30. The club’s March speaker is Anne Cleeland. Her topic is “Have You Found Nemo? How to Turn Your First Draft Into an Engaging and Cohesive Page-Turner.” Anne is the author of the Doyle & Acton mystery series, which appears regularly in the Amazon top 100, and a historical adventure series set in the Regency era.

For more information, please see www.calwriterslongbeach.org, info@calwriterslongbeach.org.

The California Writers Club was founded in 1909 and has 1800 members and 22 chapters statewide. The club’s mission: To educate writers of all abilities in the craft of writing and the marketing of their work.

Dance Show

CSULB Dance presents Hemispheres: A Mixtape, a performance of graduate thesis choreography by Temria Airmet, Cruz, Gen “Reagan” Li, and Manuel “Manny” Macias. Featuring work that explores themes from our modern world through contemporary dance, dance-theater, and hip hop, the concert consists of two distinct programs: Side A, featuring work by Cruz and Macias, will be performed March 14 and 16 at 8 p.m., and Side B, with work by Airmet and Li, will be performed March 15 at 8 p.m. and March 16 at 2 p.m. Hemispheres: A Mixtape is presented at the Martha B. Knoebel Dance Theater on the CSULB Campus (located near the Pyramid on Atherton). Tickets are $20 for general admission and $16 for seniors, students, CSULB faculty and staff, and Dance Resource Center Members. $9 parking is available in Lot G12. For tickets and information please call (562) 985-7000 or visit www.csulb.edu/dance.

Community Purim Carnival

Come to the Community Purim Carnival with games, rides, circus attractions, aerial butterflies, social action activities, vendors, costume contests and refreshments. Open to all. It’s from noon to 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 17, at the Alpert Jewish Community Center, 3801 E. Willow St.

Free entry. Unlimited game and ride wristbands $20 with donation of two cans of food and $25 without. Food, drink and vendors extra charge. No advance purchase. Cash, checks and credit cards accepted.