Celebrating the future by looking to the past, the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla is dusting off costumes and artifacts for its annual benefit.
Athenaeum’s “Talk of the Town,” will be held on Friday, May 3, with the VIP bar reception at 5:30 p.m. and the main event beginning at 6:30 p.m.
For the celebration, the Athenaeum will be transformed into 1930s Hollywood, making use of the entire historic space at 1008 Wall St.
The library will become the dance floor, where attendees can swing to live big band music; the stacks and halls will have the Athenaeum’s decades of collections on display.
Other spaces will offer food and drink and silent auction items.
Those with VIP tickets will be invited to arrive early to walk the red carpet and receive exclusive champagne, cocktails and delicacies, along with a first look at the silent auction.
To complete the theme, guests are encouraged to dress in 1930s attire, inspired by the vintage glamor of actors, characters, directors, designers, artists and musicians of the era.
A 1947 Triumph Roadster will be parked out front, to serve as a photo backdrop for the event.
The inaugural “Talk of the Town” event a year ago, set in the 1920s, was a revamped version of the Athenaeum’s annual gala.
“The people watching was amazing,” said La Jolla Realtor Vidi Revelli, one of this year’s event co-chairs. “So many people dressed up. … This one’s going to be even better than last year.”
From now on, the benefits will travel through each decade of the Athenaeum history every year.
For the 1930s version in May, “all of the artwork is based on the 1930s,” Revelli said. “We went through a lot of different meetings to come up with the final look. … I just think it came out so beautifully.”
In addition to being a celebration, the Talk of the Town event is also meant to build community awareness of the Athenaeum, a nonprofit organization with roots in the 1894 establishment of the La Jolla Reading Club.
In 1898, Florence Sawyer constructed a Reading Room for the club at the corner of Girard Avenue and Wall Street. In 1899, the group was incorporated as the Library Association of La Jolla, evolving over the decades into the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library.
The Athenaeum is a “La Jolla icon,” Revelli said. “I grew up here and … I never really knew what was in there.”
She came to know more about it through her mother, and became fascinated with all Athenaeum offers to La Jolla, joining efforts to spread the word about the Athenaeum’s programs and offerings, from library materials, lectures and concerts to children’s programming and exhibits.
The Athenaeum “enriches the community and gives [it] something interesting,” said Revelli’s co-chair, La Jolla resident and Paradisaea co-owner Zoe Kleinbub.
“Our goal as chairs is to bring in new people to expose them to what’s going on with the Athenaeum,” Kleinbub said, “and to have a good time and showcase what it is all about.”
Revelli hopes Athenaeum’s Talk of the Town will also “drive future support of the artists and different [programs],” she said, raising money to also upgrade some features of the building.
“It’s a very captivating organization,” Kleinbub said. “Please come.”
General tickets for Talk of the Town are $250; VIP tickets are $1,000. Please reserve by Friday, April 19 at ljathenaeum.org/tott.
