Carpenter Performing Arts Center connects Cal…
Carpenter Performing Arts Center connects Cal State Long Beach to community
Michelle Roberge, director of the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center and Amanda Meek, Carpenter Center Education Coordinator. Long Beach Calif., Wednesday, November, 13, 2013.
By Andrew Edwards | aedwards@scng.com | Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
PUBLISHED: December 1, 2013 at 12:00 a.m. | UPDATED: September 1, 2017 at 3:45 a.m.
LONG BEACH >> The Carpenter Performing Arts Center is one of the places on the Cal State Long Beach campus where the university meets the greater Long Beach community.
The venue's stage recently doubled as a laboratory for Musical Theatre West's performances of "Young Frankenstein," and future engagements include performances by singer Rachel York, pianist David Benoit playing the music of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and the Peking Acrobats.
"We bring 150,000 people here to see our professional performances," Carpenter Center Executive Director Michelle Roberge said.
Besides theatrical and musical performances, the center is also key to the Long Beach campus' Arts for Life program. Arts for Life is a free or low-cost program that introduces performing arts to students and the general public.
Arts for Life activities include its Classroom Connections program, in which performers meet with Long Beach Unified School District pupils; Community Connections, for the public at large, and Campus Connections, for university students.
Examples of events organized through the Community Connections side of Arts for Life include Community Cinema, which is a series of documentary screenings accompanied by guest speakers or other activities, and Shakespeare Aloud, in which one does not have to be a professional actor to read the Bard's lines.
"Anybody who wants to can sit down at that seat and read," Roberge said. "It's all for free. There's no auditions. No director."
Roberge was reluctant to name all of her favorite plays but left no doubt on what she considers to be William Shakespeare's greatest achievement:
"The greatest play ever is 'King Lear,' followed closely by 'Hamlet,' " she said.
For students at Long Beach Unified schools, Arts for Life provides opportunities to meet with performing artists in the classroom before taking in a live performance at the center.
Besides giving children a chance to enjoy a performance, Arts for Life may also help demystify the performing arts, said Amanda Meek, the Carpenter Center's education coordinator.
"On career day in school, you get to meet a lawyer or a doctor," Meek said. "You never get to meet an artist. It gets to be a weird thing."
Contact Andrew Edwards at 562-499-1305.
Andrew Edwards | reporter
Andrew Edwards is part of the Southern California News Group's business team and focuses on housing stories for the Inland Empire. He's based at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin and has also worked for publications including the Long Beach Press-Telegram and The San Bernardino Sun. He graduated from UCLA in 2003 after studying political science and history.
aedwards@scng.com
Follow Andrew Edwards @AndrewEdwardsIE
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