He wants to make sure the community does not forget.
As the heartbeat of the Culver City Centennial Committee, organizer Jim Clarke’s ambitious objective is to stage a Centennial event every week of the year-long celebration, which opens one year from next month.
Evenings and weekends, mainly.
The City Councilman probably is the right person for this job because he is Mr. Ubiquitous, attending and participating in more events around town than any other public figure.
Most of the centennial year programming probably will be Downtown-centric, starting with Opening Day by the historic Culver Hotel, a comparative kid at 91 years old.
Another popular venue is a couple blocks west.
Mr. Clarke explains:
“One of the arrangements the city has with the Kirk Douglas Theatre is that we get a certain number of free days each year for use by different organizations, something like 10 days. Generally, what they do is lump together all of those events at a convenient time, when they are between shows.
“This past June at the Kirk Douglas, they scheduled almost back-to-back events of organizations that had received some Cultural Affairs Performing Arts grants from the city.
“That,” said Mr. Clarke, “prompted me to wonder whether we could do something for the Centennial where we take about a 10-day window and have a Performing Arts Week, showcasing various acts of (performing arts grants recipients).
“In addition, we could fill in other days with The Actor’s Gang, Public Theatre, outdoor theatre, the Jazz Bakery, which hopefully will be up and running, so we can have a long celebration in the middle of the Centennial that focuses on all the great performing arts groups we have.”
Scheduling a Centennial program all 52 weeks is not a stretch, Mr. Clarke insists.
“It is not as if we need to create 52 events,” he said. “There are events that go on every year that will fit in – the Car Show, the 4th of July celebration, the holiday tree lightings, Martin Luther King Day, Fiesta La Ballona.
“With these every year events, maybe we can put a little Centennial Year twist to it,” Mr. Clarke said.
