A Night Under the Stars… With the Stars Saturday August 29 at the Festival of Arts and Pageant of the Masters

LAGUNA BEACH, CA--(Marketwired - August 27, 2015) - The Celebrity Benefit Concert and Pageant of the Masters, the most entertaining and star-studded night of the summer art season, will be held at the Festival of Arts in Laguna Beach on Saturday, August 29. This red carpet one-night affair will offer guests an evening of music and a special performance of this summer's popular Pageant of the Masters, titled "The Pursuit of Happiness."

At 5 pm the red carpet will be open for public viewing and will be walked by attending celebrities, including the evening's Pageant host Mira Sorvino and musical performer Melissa Manchester. Other guest celebrities scheduled to appear are Kristos Andrews (The Bay), G.W. Bailey (Major Crimes), Melissa Biggs (Baywatch), Paget Brewster (Criminal Minds), Michael Paul Chan (Major Crimes), Roger Clark (Volleyball Pro), Raymond Cruz (Major Crimes), Tony Denison (Major Crimes), Kate Flannery (The Office), Jo Frost (Supernanny), Matthew Gray Gubler (Criminal Minds), Thomas Gibson (Criminal Minds), Kearran Giovanni (Major Crimes), Robert Gossett (Major Crimes), Matthew Gray Gubler (Criminal Minds), Robert David Hall (CSI), January Jones (Mad Men), Richard Karn (Home Improvement), Phillip P. Keene (Major Crimes), Joe Mantegna (Criminal Minds), Graham Patrick Martin (Major Crimes), Shemar Moore (Criminal Minds), Don Most (Happy Days), Dr. Andrew P. Ordon (The Doctors), Dallas Raines (ABC 7 News), Jane Seymour (Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman), Mark Steines (Home & Family), Aisha Tyler (Whose Line is It Anyway), Kirsten Vangness (Criminal Minds), Lisa Ann Walter (The Parent Trap) and many, many others.

Guests will enjoy an intimate concert on the Festival green at 6 pm, performed by music legend Melissa Manchester. Manchester's career is remarkable not only for its longevity and accomplishments, but for its versatility. Following her stint as a founding member of Bette Midler's Harlettes, Manchester's tremendously successful solo career brought her critical and commercial acclaim. The "Midnight Blue" singer received her first Grammy nomination for Best Pop Female Vocal Performance in 1979 for the Peter Allen/Carole Bayer Sager-penned "Don't Cry Out Loud," winning the Grammy in that category four years later for "You Should Hear How She Talks About You." Two songs she performed, "Through The Eyes Of Love" and "The Promise," were nominated for Oscars in the same year. She has recorded twenty albums across her four-decade career, releasing her most recent album, You Gotta Love the Life, earlier this year.

After the concert, Academy Award-winner Mira Sorvino will draw the winning tickets for a 2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata GT ($30,020 value) and a Hawaiian Getaway at The Trump International Hotel^™ Waikiki Beach Walk^®, Honolulu, Hawaii with airfare for two compliments of KOST Radio 103.5 ($6,000 value). This is the conclusion of a summer long raffle. Since the Festival season opened on July 5^th, visitors have been purchasing their raffle tickets in hopes to be one of three lucky winners. Raffle tickets will continue to be sold right up until 8 pm that night: $5 for one ticket, $20 for five tickets (winning ticketholder need not be present to win).

Culminating the evening, guests will enjoy a special performance of the 2015 Pageant of the Masters production of "The Pursuit of Happiness," introduced by the celebrity host Mira Sorvino.

"August 29^th will be an incredible night," says Sharbie Higuchi, director of marketing and PR for the Festival of Arts. "We can't wait to share the evening with Melissa Manchester, Mira Sorvino, our celebrity supporters… and we look forward to welcoming our most enthusiastic Festival and Pageant fans!"

Tickets are on sale now and range from $50-$250. Limited and open seating for the concert and assigned seating for the Pageant of the Masters. The event is sponsored Mazda, The Trump International Hotel^™ Waikiki Beach Walk^®, KOST 103.5 and Yamaha. To purchase tickets, go online to www.PageantTickets.com or call 1-800-487-3378. The Festival of Arts is a non-profit organization that produces the Festival of Arts and the Pageant of the Masters.

For general information, call (949) 494-1145 or visit the website at www.LagunaFestivalofArts.org. The event is located at 650 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach, California. Proceeds support the arts and art education in and about Laguna Beach.

ABOUT MIRA SORVINO

Mira Sorvino won the Academy Award, the Golden Globe Award, the Critics' Choice Award, and the National Board of Review and New York Film Critics Circle citations, among other honors, for her performance in Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite. She was a Golden Globe Award nominee for her performance in Christian Duguay's miniseries Human Trafficking; and had previously been nominated for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in Tim Fywell's Norma Jean and Marilyn, which also earned her an Emmy Award nomination.

Sorvino just wrapped Daughter of God opposite Keanu Reeves and recently starred in the critically acclaimed Union Square directed by Nancy Savoka and Trade Of Innocents by Christopher Bessette. On the TV side she also just wrapped the lead role of Amy Whelan in the BBC America series Intruders, opposite James Frain and John Simm, as well as a heavy recurring in the hit TNT/DreamWorks series Falling Skies. She can also currently been seen recurring on the CBS hit show Stalker. Other recent credits include the NBC miniseries The Last Templar, Like Dandelion Dust, Multiple Sarcasms opposite Timothy Hutton, Waska, opposite Lynn Collins, Thomas Dekker, Kate Walsh and Jeremy Piven, Terry George's Reservation Road, opposite Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Connelly; Robert Redford's Quiz Show; Spike Lee's Summer of Sam.

Additionally, she produced Griffin Dunne's acclaimed independent feature comedy Lisa Picard is Famous, which world-premiered at the 2000 Cannes International Film Festival; and associate-produced the documentary Freedom to Hate, tracing anti-Semitism in the former Soviet Union.

Born and raised in New Jersey, Ms. Sorvino is the daughter of veteran actor Paul Sorvino. She attended Harvard University, where she graduated magna cum laude in East Asian studies and received the Hoopes Prize for her thesis. She has also won the National Italian American Foundation's Achievement Award.

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