Lionel Richie puts on a show for Santa Clara University crowd

Lionel Richie isn’t just an entertainer but quite the magician, too. He cast a brilliant illusion last Saturday night, convincing a packed house at San Jose’s Center for the Performing Arts that they were back in the 1980s. And it even worked on the audience members who weren’t born yet.

Richie was the headliner at Santa Clara University’s 60th annual Golden Circle Theatre Party, a fundraising event that has raised more than $75 million for the Jesuit university since the Rev. Walter Schmidt and Fess Parker brought Rosemary Clooney and Jimmy Durante to entertain a sold-out crowd of 650 at the Montgomery Theater.

Saturday night’s significantly larger crowd of 2,100 sang, clapped and danced along to Richie’s hits including “Hello,” “Dancing on the Ceiling,” “You Are the Sun,” “Brick House” and “All Night Long.” The production was one of the biggest the event has had, with laser lights, a giant video screen and even flame jets (which required a last-minute OK from the fire department.)

Richie showed he is still a top-notch showman, though in his banter with the audience, he acknowledged some time had passed since his heyday in the 1970s and ’80s.

“I know what you’re thinking. How is Lionel Richie doing what he’s doing on that stage? The man has got to be 200 years old,” said Richie, who at age 76 was jumping around the stage like a man half his age. “I’ll let you in on a secret. Adrenaline is a wonderful thing. I’m in pain. But once the crowd comes out, I turn into somebody else altogether.”

It certainly was a highlight of a Bronco-forward night in downtown San Jose. SCU President Julie Sullivan welcomed the crowd and led an onstage toast with the past chairs of the Board of Fellows — which presents the event every year — along with this year’s chair, Vicki Pope. After Richie’s performance, the crowd was directed by costumed performers to the Signia by Hilton hotel for dinner and dancing.

ARTS VISION REALIZED: We know our arts organizations in Silicon Valley are still struggling, and what a lot of them struggle to find is space to rehearse, to keep their offices and to showcase their work. A new collaborative model taking shape in downtown San Jose may be pointing the way to success.

The Shared Arts Center on Sharks Way, on the other side of the Highway 87 overpass from Little Italy, will provide rehearsal studios, conference rooms, offices and a multipurpose maker space this summer, with work and fundraising continuing to transform an adjacent building to house a 250-seat black box theater, gallery and scene shop.

Ann Watts — executive director of the youth performing arts nonprofit Starting Arts — spearheaded the project, which she has been trying to bring to fruition for years. Starting Arts will share the space with Silicon Valley Shakespeare, Los Lupeños de San Jose, Playful People Productions and ArtHouse Studio.

“This shared model is a triumph,” SVCreates CEO Alexandra Urbanowski said last Saturday during a “hard hat party” at the space. “This is the way we overcome the challenges of real estate in our community.”

The building is owned by Swenson, and with some encouragement from City Hall, Swenson CEO Case Swenson saw the benefit of using the buildings — the former home of the Smith-McKay Printing Co. and later a martial arts gym — to make Watt’s vision a reality. “Business-wise, this wasn’t the greatest decision,” Swenson joked. “But I knew the minute she walked in the door, I knew this was for the community, and I was so thankful to see that kind of passion that you don’t see all the time.”

MEMORIAL PLANNED: The San Jose Woman’s Club will host a celebration of life for Betty Ann Chandler, the San Jose woman who died Jan. 9 at age 108. It’ll take place March 1 at 2 p.m. the group’s historic clubhouse at 75 S. 11th Street in San Jose. For those who can’t attend in person, the event will be livestreamed on Zoom — something that Chandler probably would have gotten a kick out of. For those wanting to honor her life, her family suggests making a donation to the San Jose Woman’s Club, where she had been a member since 1940.