Each week, Arts Orange County and Culture OC deliver you this look at the stories and events happening in our arts and cultural community.

Creative Edge Lecture

This annual free address brings a nationally-recognized thought leader on creativity to the stage at the Irvine Barclay - this year, bestselling author and cultural activist Nina Simon will focus on regeneration, offering five paths to build energy, community and hope through the arts MORE

Requiem Café Shines a Light on Underrepresented Folks in the Gaming Community

Requiem, a queer-owned, fantasy-themed establishment located in downtown Anaheim, embraces gamers, anime fans, comics enthusiasts and more.

Hey Brother, Can You Spare an Empty Space?

Remove the high school and college theater programs, as well as those venues that mainly host and don’t create theater, and there are still more than 30 theaters, companies or groups producing live theater in Orange County.

That must be an all-time high, but so is this: About a third do not have a space to perform. Five years ago, of the county’s 27 producers, only two lacked spaces.

Why such an extreme swing in five years? One reason is six established theaters have closed their doors since 2019, five permanently. Six new companies launched in that period, but only two have their own spaces.

Andrew Litton Throws His Hat in Pacific Symphony Ring

REVIEW: The American conductor leads an authoritative Shostakovich; Alessio Bax plays Beethoven.

Candidate number five for the position of the Pacific Symphony’s music directorship showed up Thursday night at Segerstrom Concert Hall to lead a pleasing program and display his wares.

Andrew Litton is his name and he is probably the best known of the guest conductors this season. The American musician, 64, has already had a distinguished and many-faceted career, including stints heading the orchestras in Dallas, Bergen, Norway, and Bournemouth, England, all well documented on records. The current music director of the New York City Ballet also has some interesting details in his resume that would make him seem perfect for the job here, including plenty of experience conducting opera in semi-staged performance, something which Carl St.Clair has made a focus of in recent years.

Each week, we recommend a variety of events and experiences from the listings at SparkOC.com, our free website for Orange County's arts and cultural community.

O.C. Lantern Festival 2024

Costa Mesa's Segerstrom Center for the Arts is transformed for a music- and dance-filled celebration marking the end of the Lunar New Year, free for all ages MORE

Emigdio Vasquez: Works from the Fred Ortiz Collection

The newly-expanded Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University presents a special exhibit of works by the acclaimed Chicano painter and muralist who captured the history and flavor of everyday life in Orange's Cypress Street Barrio District MORE

Boca de Oro

The annual free family literary festival comes to downtown Santa Ana on Saturday - this year's theme is "The Hero in the Journey," celebrating comic books and their forebearers in mythology MORE

Look at the World

The Festival Singers of Orange County perform a concert in Mission Viejo celebrating the beauty of nature through songs ranging from classical and traditional to folk and popular MORE