Meeting Up at the Beall Center

University of California - Irvine (UCI): the college students have bodies that still pull upward against the force of gravity, eyes that don't squint at small type, and dreams of fame and glory unmortgaged by the bank of real life.

Me, I have the Orange County Small Theater Meetup group: nearly 500 folk way past college who love small theater. (Their extreme good taste brought them to Language of Their Own a year ago. ) They also love art. Specifically, multi-media art at the UCI Beall Center.

But this was my first meet-up with them and so how would I recognize anyone.

Do I just go up to the occasional mature face among youthful crowd and say "Hello, you look old enough to be everyone's parent. Are you with the group?"

After 20 minutes of wandering the free Costco pizza, overpowering rock music, and student clubs offering free hugs, I was approached by Anna, the group organizer, who recognized me from Language of Their Own. She took me into a the fold of about nine people, all of whom held fascinating opinions about art, colored by their life experiences.


One exhibit (above): projected, life-sized, moving images of people talking about I Want, the exhibit title. The projectors rose high enough so the shadows of viewers didn't appear until they got very close to the image.

Projections as background for a stage set? Not cheap but can be effective.

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