A documentary on South Coast Plaza co-founder Henry Segerstrom plays on a big screen in Newport Beach Tuesday night before premiering on the small screen Thursday night.
Henry T. Segerstrom: Imagining the Future is billed as the first documentary film on the “cultural visionary and philanthropist … who re-invented the shopping experience and brought renowned arts to Southern California.”
South Coast Plaza arose from the bean fields owned by Segerstrom and members of his farming family. He was instrumental in bringing Nordstrom, Chanel and Hermes to Orange County. The Segerstrom family also donated the land (in what is now known as South Coast Metro) as well as funding for South Coast Repertory and the Orange County Performing Arts Center. After a second building, called the Henry and Renee Concert Hall, was added, the complex was renamed the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.
Not given to public speaking all that much up until his death in February 2015, Segerstrom helps tell his own story in the documentary. So does archival footage and interviews with the likes of Frank Gehry, Misty Copeland, Renée Fleming, Nigel Lythgoe and Bruce Nordstrom.
The film comes from executive producer Maria Hall-Brown, a longtime producer and on-air host of various Orange County-based public television shows, including the current weekly PBS SoCal program LAaRT. The narrator is Broadway star and Orange County High School of the Arts alum Matthew Morrison of TV's Glee fame.
Henry T. Segerstrom: Imagining the Future makes its world premiers at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Lido Theater in Newpot Beach. Email
rs**@or*********************.com
to see if you can get one of the very limited number of seats left. If you can't make it in, tune in to PBS SoCal KOCE Thursday at 7 p.m.
