Art and Entertainment on the Monterey Peninsula

This place has tremendous cultural diversity, and you'll find some sort of special event happening almost every week. If it's not one of our famous music festivals, you may come upon an art fair, a culinary event, holiday celebrations, or any number of other things. The chances are good that there's something on the local calendar to interest you.

We have two weekly publications which provide up to the minute information on local events. The first is the Monterey County Weekly, which can be found at nearly any streetcorner, gas station, grocery store, or hotel lobby. New issues are released on the population every Thursday. The other is a section in Thursday's edition of the Monterey Herald called GO!.

First, the entertainment:

The Big Exciting Places:

Sunset Center is located in Carmel on San Carlos between 8th and 10th and is the most prestigious performing arts facility on the Monterey Peninsula. Built originally as a school, Sunset Center includes a spectacular civic auditorium that features concerts, a variety of big name entertainers, and many community events. The old school auditorium was rebuilt and reopened in 2003 and is now a world-class concert hall with amazing acoustics. With just over 700 seats, it is big enough to make an impression, but intimate enough that the stage feels close to everyone. Sunset Center is the headquarters of the world famous Carmel Bach Festival and the Center for Photographic Art (see below).

Monterey Fairgrounds can be found on the eastern side of Monterey one block south of North Fremont Boulevard. It is now formally called the "Monterey County Fair & Event Center," which is a mouthful so anyone with any sense just calls it the fairgrounds. Throughout the year the site hosts a wide variety of events including music and art festivals, and even horse shows. The most famous events include the Monterey County Fair, Monterey Jazz Festival, and the California Roots Festival among many others. In 1967 it was the site of the legendary Monterey Pop Festival, and its appearance today remains much as it was during that historic event. We've been told that there's still a burn mark on the stage where Jimi Hendrix set his guitar on fire.

Golden State Theatre is located at 417 Alvarado Street in downtown Monterey. With around 1,000 seats, it is the largest and grandest auditorium ever built on the Monterey Peninsula. Originally constructed in 1926 as a vaudeville and movie house, the theater is the last surviving example of movie palace architecture on the Peninsula. The "atmospheric" auditorium was designed to look like the courtyard of a Spanish castle. Over the decades it suffered from neglect, but continued to operate as a first-run movie theater. In recent years it has been lovingly restored. Its current owners offer a diverse menu of road shows, music events, motion pictures, and lectures. The building also houses a weird and wonderful "experiential museum" called Selfieville.

But that's only the beginning....

We have music all over the place. There are bands of all types, symphony orchestras, choral groups, opera, and more.

In Carmel, the aforementioned Sunset Center brings in entertainers of all types, big names and small names, from all over the world. Now and then there'll be a concert at the Carmel Mission. That building's acoustics are especially well suited to choral music. And that organ.

Then there are the annual festivals. The Monterey Jazz Festival and Carmel Bach Festival are most famous and have stood the test of time. A relative newcomer, the California Roots Festival, was founded in 2010 and is heavily influenced by the spirit of the legendary 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. Other festivals come to town from time to time, some lasting a few years before fading into oblivion.

The Monterey Jazz Festival also sponsors an annual Next Generation Jazz Festival, a high school jazz band competition, in April. The music is every bit as good as the big festival in September, but all the events are free! The winners of the competition will appear at the regular festival in September.

Not all local music offerings are big productions. Each week you'll find a number of exceptional musicians performing at a variety of venues. We would caution that few of these are real nightclubs. Most are cramped eating and drinking establishments with a musician crammed into a corner as an afterthought. One notable exception is Sly's Refueling Station (formerly Sly McFly's) which provides a proper stage and dance floor. Also worth mentioning is the Sunday Jazz Brunch at Carmel's Mission Ranch, which also has a nightly piano bar. The aforementioned Monterey County Weekly and GO can give you the specifics on all of the local offerings in their weekly event listings.

If you're here for New Years Eve, our First Night Monterey celebration is the place to be, with countless choices of entertainment scattered throughout downtown. Buy a badge for admission to as many individual shows as you can handle.

And if that's not enough....

If live theater is your cup of tea, this is the place to be. We have a number of excellent theater companies on stages big and small. Here are the three most significant ones. This is not a complete list by any means.

Carmel's Forest Theater has been in business since 1910, making it the oldest outdoor live theater west of the Mississippi. Towering Monterey Pines frame the stage, the heavens form the ceiling. They put on some great live productions and they have outdoor movies, too! The fire pits will help keep you warm on foggy nights, but you will want to take a jacket. You also might want to take a cushion as the rustic wooden benches can be a bit hard on the backside. You'll find it on Mountain View Avenue, just east of downtown. For tickets call the Forest Theater Guild's office at 831-626-1681, or order on-line. An on-site box office is also available for spur-of-the-moment decisions.

Pacific Repertory Theatre. Headquartered at the Golden Bough Playhouse in Carmel on Monte Verde between 8th & 9th, Pac-Rep continues Carmel's long-standing theatre traditions. Their theater building includes a 290 seat main auditorium plus an intimate theatre in the round at the rear of the building facing Casanova Street. It's right smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood. The theater was there first, the houses came later. Get there early for good parking. During the summer months Pac-Rep also performs at the outdoor Forest Theater (see above).

Monterey Peninsula College. On the campus at Fremont and Aguajito in Monterey. Big productions that rival the big city shows. Very flashy, very well done.

Now, the art:

Carmel is loaded with art galleries. There are several galleries in Monterey and Pacific Grove too. Most of them are commercial businesses, which is OK, because even artists need to make a living.

Although Carmel got its start as an artist's colony, be aware that galleries featuring local artists are becoming harder and harder to find. Regrettably, the days are long gone when an artist's income was sufficient to prosper in the Carmel lifestyle. The sad fact is that extreme real estate prices have driven most of the artists away.

Many galleries, especially in Carmel, are part of chains. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since these chains usually have a limited number of outlets in places like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Carmel. They bring the sophistication of the big city without the smog outside the door.

There are some important differences in the sales tactics of galleries, though. Some of them know that most of the people who visit are merely browsing to enjoy some beautiful works. Salespeople at such galleries are willing to let you view them in peace. They are available to answer your questions, and hopefully make a sale. Other galleries are staffed by career salespeople who act like used car salesmen. It won't take you long to figure out which are which.

If you find something you'd like to buy, be cautious. Some pictures at first glance look like original paintings, but are actually mass produced prints with paint "highlights" dabbed on the surface. Sometimes this is done by the original artist, sometimes not. Since printing ink and paints can fade at different rates, highlights that blend in today may look out of place after several years. So be careful.

In recent years a printing process called "giclee" (pronounced gee-clay) has become popular. Giclee prints can reproduce the original colors of a painting with exceptional accuracy. However, they are basically glorified ink-jet prints which cost very little to produce, but in galleries they will sell for thousands of dollars.

What we're trying to tell you is before you plunk your credit card on the salesperson's desk, be sure you know exactly what you are getting.

Here are two galleries featuring local artists exclusively:

The Carmel Art Association is located in Carmel on Dolores between 5th and 6th. Its one of Carmel's oldest institutions, run by local artists for local artists.

Venture Gallery in downtown Monterey is also run by local artists. It's on the lower Alvarado Street mall, at the Portola Hotel. You can enter it from the mall or the hotel lobby.

We also have a few non-profit galleries and art museums:

The Center for Photographic Art is located at Sunset Center in Carmel, San Carlos and 9th. The center honors Carmel's great photographers of the past and promotes new generations of artists.

The Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art has two locations in Monterey. The original place is on Pacific Street between Jefferson and Polk, right across the street from Colton Hall. The second place, called La Mirada, is located just off of Fremont Street on Via Mirada. It's just west of Monterey Peninsula College. There is an admssion fee.

Salvador Dali Museum. The Monterey History and Art Association has teamed up with a private collector to display an extensive array of Salvador Dali works. The museum is located on the Custom House Plaza between Fisherman's Wharf and the Portola Hotel. There is an admission fee.

Art and Entertainment

The Big Exciting Places:

But that's only the beginning....

And if that's not enough....

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