Opera Pacific is gone, and Fullerton Civic Light Opera may soon be, too. But UCI Dean Joe Lewis hopes to keep the fat lady singing in Orange County. Lewis’ Claire Trevor School of the Arts staged four performances of “Hansel and Gretel” last month, and Lewis says he’s talking to his counterpart at Cal State Fullerton, Joe Arnold, about taking turns to produce an opera in OC annually. Lewis says that collaborating with other local schools and arts groups can create “huge synergy” and raise the profile of OC and UCI as hotbeds of creative talent: “We put a lot of artists out there” …
Lewis, a native of New York’s Hell’s Kitchen who arrived at UCI last March, is a versatile artist. His 1994 “Twelve Principles,” a series of symbolic discs on columns, decorates the Blue Line’s PCH station in Long Beach …
Enron prosecutor John Hueston, now with Irell & Manella, is the new president of the OC Bar Association, succeeding Costa Mesa lawyer Lei Lei Wang Ekvall. At the OC Biz Council, Eddie Northen of UPS is new board chair, succeeding Porter Novelli’s Linda Martin …
Spokeswoman Emily Anderson Taylor confirmed that Tiger Woods donated his $650,000 Chevron World Challenge winnings to his Irvine-based Tiger Woods Foundation. Todd Theodora is new chairman of the foundation’s Tiger Woods Learning Center in Anaheim, succeeding Dale Dykema, who remains on the board …
Despite losing his GOP primary run for California attorney general, Chapman U law prof John Eastman has been winning plaudits, including the Catholic Attorney of the Year award from the Scranton, Pa.-based St. Thomas More Society …
What threat? Cal State Fullerton recently hosted five scholars from Beijing’s University of International Business and Economics. In contrast to oft-expressed American fears of jobs being lost to China, the academics described a symbiotic relationship between the U.S. and their country. Bai Shuqiang, father of a teen daughter, said Chinese youth crave Hollywood movies, American colleges and Nike shoes. Xu Zijian said the contingent spent its free time in SoCal sightseeing and shopping, “making some contributions to the economy” …
With tongue in cheek, the Insider’s predictions for 2011:
• Saying it reminds him of Omaha, Laguna Beach weekender Warren Buffett buys the OC fairgrounds.
• A Donald Bren imposter is arrested after trying to deed Newport Center to the Nature Conservancy.
• Arizona and Nevada promote “debt retirement communities” that attract hordes of wealthy Californians.
• KOCE rebrands itself as “Los Angeles PBS of Orange County.”
• Activision Blizzard releases the ultimate war game, “Moorlach vs. The Nurses’ Union.”
