Minutes from the pacific ocean, behind a façade of undulating glass, lies one of the country's most exhilarating new places for music: the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. Designed by architect Cesar Pelli with acoustician Russell Johnson, the intimately scaled auditorium is the crown jewel of the Orange County Performing Arts Center complex. The building includes the multiuse Samueli Theater, a 500-seat space for everything from cabaret to chamber music. Across the plaza is the 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall, built in the style of an opera house, and, next door, the renowned theater company South Coast Repertory, conceived by its founders to give Broadway a run for its money. Culturally, O.C. has arrived. Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa, Calif.; 714/556-2787; ocpac.org. South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Dr.; 714/708-5555; scr.org.
Orange County’s Performing Arts Center
Photo: Trujillo/Paumier
What's on View in Orange County
Sept. 27–29
Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall The hall's resident orchestra, Pacific Symphony, led by Carl St. Clair, performs with pianist Marc-André Hamelin.
Oct. 11–14
Segerstrom Concert Hall "The Center's Fall for Dance" showcases dance companies from throughout the United States and abroad.
Oct. 11–14
Samueli Theater Victoria Clark, the Tony Award–winning actress known for her role in The Light in the Piazza, stars in a cabaret performance.
Sept. 23–Oct. 14
South Coast Repertory, Julianne Argyros Stage Shipwrecked! An Entertainment— The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (as Told by Himself), a play by Donald Margulies about a celebrated hoax perpetrated by a would-be explorer, has its world premiere.
