Community News

Jazz, Blues Festival

 On Saturday, February 15, the Aquarium of the Pacific will present a festival featuring four Long Beach-based jazz and blues bands in its state-of-the-art Honda Pacific Visions Theater. The acts will include The Bernie Pearl Blues Band, The Al Williams Jazz Society, saxophonist Alvin Hayes Jr. and New Blues Revolution. Tickets include aquarium admission and the aquarium will be open until 8 p.m.

This performance will take place in the new 300-seat Honda Pacific Visions Theater, which features state-of-the-art audio, visual and multisensory technology and a 133-foot long and 32-foot high screen with a floor projection disk.

The cost is $48 center section; $40 side sections (open seating within sections). Price includes aquarium admission.

Info: Call (562) 590-3100 or visit pacific.to/jazz

LWV 100th Anniversary

The League of Women Voters of Long Beach Area will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the National League with a party at the Art Theatre in Long Beach and we invite everyone to join us!

The festivities begin at 10 a.m. on Feb. 15, at 2025 E. 4th St.

Yes, there will be cake, as well as distinguished guests, live suffrage performances and the premiere of a League of Women Voters Long Beach Video.
Come join this free party to celebrate The League of Women Voters and support their ongoing efforts to Educate voters and defend democracy!

Project Azorian

Catalina Island Museum presents Project Azorian: The CIA’s Greatest Covert Operation, a lecture detailing the story of the highly secret and elaborate six-year effort to retrieve a sunken Soviet submarine from the Pacific Ocean floor through mission artifacts and a slideshow on Saturday, Feb. 15 at 6 p.m. in the Ackerman Family Amphitheater.

In 1968 at the height of the Cold War, K-129, a Russian submarine on patrol in the North Pacific was lost. The Russians searched for the sub but could find no trace of it. The U.S. located the submarine on the ocean floor 16,800 feet below water.

The CIA was desperate to recover the submarine and especially its contents to determine if the submarine carried nuclear weapons and what krypto equipment was recoverable. But the Russians were watching closely. Using Howard Hughes mining the ocean floor as a cover, the CIA built a 650-foot ship, the Hughes Glomar Explorer with the goal of secretly raising the submarine from the ocean floor – some 3 miles deep – without the Soviets knowing. The mission, codenamed Project Azorian, was one of the most complex, expensive and secretive intelligence operations of the Cold War.

Prices: Members: $10; Non-Members: $17; Children (ages 3-15): Free with paid adult admission.

Genealogy Meeting

The next meeting of the Questing Heirs Genealogy Society will be held at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 16 at 5918 Parkcrest St. Speaker Hal Horrocks will address “Organizing Your Genealogy” and “Early Migration Patterns to Kentucky and Beyond”. All are welcome; refreshments will be provided.

Lincoln Club Meeting

Attorney Rex Hime, a tax law specialist and member of the California Business Properties Association, will discuss the upcoming ballot propositions to eliminate and/or split the historic Proposition 13 property tax protection.

Hime has previously served as Executive Director of the California State Commission for Economic Development, Director for the California Commission on Agriculture and a Special Assistant to the Lieutenant Governor. Hime is an expert on property tax issues in California and will provide a fascinating presentation on how we can work together to protect against property tax increases in our Golden State.

Hime is a proven tax fighter. He previously helped create the coalition that stopped prior threats of split roll property taxes. He also provided leadership to the coalition of interests that achieved passage of the law prohibiting commercial rent control in California – making it the only state to enact such legislation.

Please join us at noon on Thursday, Feb. 20, at 6201 Appian Way. Cost is $35; please RSVP to Paul Carter at pc@lawbbc.com or by calling (562) 435-1426.

Mardi Gras Madness

Mardi Gras means masks, madness and music, and on Feb. 22 at 8 p.m. in the Pacific Ballroom of the Long Beach Arena (300 E. Ocean Blvd.), the Long Beach Symphony will bring it all to life with conductor Matt Catingub in a lively, fun-filled evening centered around the distinct style that makes New Orleans the city of jazz.

He’ll be joined by two-time GRAMMY award nominee and winner of two Telly Awards, Steve Moretti, on drums and Ginai, aka a Black Pearl of the Pacific, whose charismatic, hypnotic voice will render tunes such as It Had To Be You, Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody, Baby Won’t You Please Come Home and other favorites.

For more information or to purchase tickets and subscriptions visit www.LongBeachSymphony.org or call (562) 436-3203 ext. 1.

Spiritual Revolution?

A free talk and discussion, “A Spiritual Revolution: The Quest to Experience God,” explores the search for individual meaning. Speaker Giulia Nesi Tetreau has spent years studying the subject of life and identity for herself and others, first as a psychotherapist and subsequently through cultivating an understanding of spirituality, as a spiritual healer and teacher of Christian Science.

“A Spiritual Revolution: The Quest to Experience God” talk and discussion is free and open to the public on Tuesday, Feb. 25, at 7 p.m. Location is 5871 Naples Plaza in Long Beach. The sponsor is Fifth Church of Christ Scientist, Long Beach.

‘Noises Off’ at Playhouse

For those who love a good British farce, imagine the joy of being able to watch the mayhem going on behind the scenes as well as that taking place on the stage. British playwright Michael Frayne’s hysterically funny play, Noises Off, does exactly that, Feb. 22 to March 21, at the Long Beach Playhouse.

He takes audiences “backstage” for rehearsals and then onstage performances of a comedy that goes hilariously wrong during its 10-week run. As the actors struggle to produce a flop called Nothing On, doors are slammed, cues are missed and sardines are spilled as lives and careers dangle in the balance.

“Noises Off has been called ‘the funniest farce ever written’,” said Executive Director, Madison Mooney. “We get to follow the actors and the show from rehearsal to final performance. With each act we witness the deteriorating relationships between the cast and relish the romantic rivalries and quarrels that lead to all kinds of hilarious shenanigans.”

Noises Off was written in 1982 and played in London to enthusiastic audiences and reviews. During its first Broadway run in 1984, it was nominated for both Tony and Drama Desk Awards. For nearly 40 years, the play has been a staple of both professional and community theaters on both sides of the Atlantic.

This is its first production at the Long Beach Playhouse, partly due to the complexities of the set which requires shifting between backstage happenings and the onstage performance. Sean Gray, Artistic Director for the Playhouse, felt Larry Mura, the theater’s technical director as well as the show’s set designer, had the expertise to make it work.

Tickets are $20 to $14. They 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. The box office is open Wednesday-Saturday from 3-8 p.m. and Sundays from 1-2 p.m. on scheduled matinees.