ARTIFACTS 06.20.13 – What Maketh a Community?

• Dorothy’s Place, whose slogan is “Co-operating out of Poverty,” is making a stark plea for the women who call their Women Alive! Emergency Shelter home for the night. “Some of our ladies are exceptionally challenged with physical and mental disabilities… we need a facility where a woman can get a start on recreating her life, without having to recreate her bedroom every night.” Their goal is to raise $20,000 by June 30; they’re asking for donations on behalf of the more than 190 women they served last year. 578-4198, DorothysPlace.org/donate.

• Parks and Recreation, The Wire, The Devil Wears Prada. A workplace has a culture. Does that culture make you thrilled to arrive or eager to leave? Think about it. Then take the Monterey County Business Council’s annual Best Places to Work survey. Log on, now to July 19, at PersonnelDynamics.net. The worklife unexamined…

• The Monterey County Artists Studio Tour is taking applications to join the creative fray until June 30 at MontereyStudioTour.com.

• Last week, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas told an audience at the USC School of Cinematic Arts that they predict studios will soon implode under their own bloated weight. At the same moment and vicinity these rich, bloated filmmakers were lamenting, the Hollywood Fringe Festival opened to record ticket sales. What is Hollywood Fringe? A weeks-long grassroots guerilla theater festival. HollywoodFringe.org.

• Voices by the Sea choir perform a free concert 7pm Wednesday, June 26, at the Alisal Center for the Fine Arts (745 N. Sanborn Road, Salinas) of gospel music in different languages. 970-759-1084.

• Sandra Gray in the mix with Arts Habitat, the Seaside Artist Studios Tour, Seaside’s Open Ground Studios, and now, inviting folks to informal Tuesday evening artist gatherings at Cafe La Strada (400 Cannery Row). You can talk, listen or show work. But on the last Tuesday of each month, there’s a presentation; June 25, 5-7pm, artist Dick Crispo talks local history. 394-0754.

• Let’s stay on the Row. On June 22, at 9pm, Sly McFly’s brings back the J.C. Smith Band, who you may have seen on the stage at the Monterey Bay Blues Festival (R.I.P.) or receiving the Bay Area Blues Society West Coast Blues Band award. No cover.

• The Carmel Bach Festival has been reaching out to the greater community with a message of the magic of music. Take heed… or, ecoute… because this Francophilic season is full of surprises. The festival runs July 13-27, with pre-festival treats starting July 6-12, and tickets are available now at 624-1521, or at the Bach Festival cottage office at Sunset Center, which you should make a point to see, it’s so endearing.

• Carmel Presbyterian Church is open to auditions of acting, singing and dancing for the dinner-theater musical The 1940s Radio Hour, noon-3pm Saturday, 6pm Monday. Call first, 915-4519.