For Venues, One-Stop Shopping

“Fame--the Musical” is closing at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, but something that could be dubbed “Fame--the Real World” will pull in later this month as performers from across the United States and 18 foreign countries flock to Costa Mesa, vying for family-oriented bookings at major arts centers around the nation.

From Jan. 26-29, the center will host “Showcase 2000: The International Showcase of Performing Arts for Young People,” an annual event in which dance companies, musical groups, puppeteers, theater groups and storytellers audition for a gathering of bookers and programmers.

About 500 scouts from arts centers and schools throughout North America will evaluate performances by 48 groups, including ones from the Netherlands, Australia, Italy, France, Kenya, Japan and Mexico, said Troy Botello, the center’s director of education.

The public can look in on the process on Jan. 29: $5 general admission seating will be sold for 12 performances from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

“A lot of us do our year’s booking at this one conference,” Botello said. He will be scouting talent to fill the center’s annual schedule of more than 20 family performances.

“Showcase 2000” has been held for 22 years; Botello said this is its West Coast debut.

The center, the city of Santa Ana and the Imagination Celebration, a family-oriented arts festival held every spring in Orange County, will give the showcase a send-off on Jan. 29 with a “Farewell Fiesta” street festival in downtown Santa Ana that is free and open to the public.

Danza Floricanto, a Los Angeles dance troupe backed by mariachis, and the Young Americans, a Cypress-based touring musical theater group made up of students, will perform from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. in the Artists Village in downtown Santa Ana. The festival stage will be at 2nd Street and Broadway. Art studios and galleries in the district will be open, and Santa Ana restaurants will have booths offering their best dishes, a la Taste of Orange County.

The center will host a second national performing arts gathering just before “Showcase 2000” begins. From Jan. 24-26, officials in charge of educational programs at 65 major performing arts centers will confer at the National Education Directors meeting.

Held every three years, the conference, which is co-sponsored this year by OCPAC and the Los Angeles Music Center, evaluates how well the education programs provided by arts centers are working, and looks toward goals and ideas for the future. Gordon Shaw, a UC Irvine physicist, will be the keynote speaker, discussing his research on the effect of classical music on young children.