North Coast Repertory Theatre to Host 44th Spotlight Gala Featuring Rita Rudner
The event will take place at 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach, CA on March 22, 2026
North Coast Repertory Theatre will celebrate its 44th Anniversary Season on May 16, 2026. This event will culminate in a one-night-only performance starring Rita Rudner. There will be silent and live auctions, food and drink, and joyous community!
Location: Park Hyatt Aviara Resort, 7100 Aviara Resort Drive, Carlsbad, CA 92011
5:00 pm Cocktails & Silent Auction
6:30 pm Dinner, Paddle raise for Artists Advocacy, Live Auction Items & Entertainment
The evening will begin in the Park Hyatt Aviara Resort for cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, and the silent auction. The event will then transition to the grand ballroom for a seated dinner, live auction items, Artists Advocacy / Paddle Raise and a hilarious performance by Rita Rudner.
Gala co-chairs are Dori Patterson and Jamie Carr.
Honorary Chair Committee
- Alexia & Paul Anas
- Laura Applegate
- Dr. Cindy & Martin Davis
- Marion Dodson
- Berit & Tom Durler
- Katherine & Dr. Tom Foster
- Pam & Hal Fuson
- Lee Goldberg
- Leonard Hirsch
- Sarah King
- Judy Moffson
- Marina & Rafael Pastor
- Jeannie & Gerry Ranglas
- Julie & Jay Sarno
- Sharon & Jerry Stein
- Lisa Cohen & Mike Step
- Jeanette Stevens
- Jo Weiner
- Sherry & David Winkler
CHAMPION FOR THE ARTS: KPBS
At the 2026 Spotlight Gala KPBS will be recognized as San Diego's Champion for the Arts. This award is presented to individuals or organizations who have given an extraordinary measure of their time, talents, and dedication to benefit visual and performing arts in the San Diego region. Through years of tireless effort and generosity, the individuals receiving the prestigious San Diego's Champion for the Arts Award have improved the quality of life in San Diego. We are honored to recognize KPBS for the first time—an organization that has steadfastly championed the arts even while navigating their own significant challenges during this difficult period of budget cutbacks.
Past recipients of San Diego's Champions for the Arts award include:
- 2016- Jessie Knight Jr., who with his wife, Joye Blount, have dedicated years to the arts, by serving on the boards of numerous arts organizations.
- 2017- Leonard Hirsch, who has given generously to the arts in San Diego since he and his late wife, Elaine, moved to Coronado years ago.
- 2018- Sheila and Jeffrey Lipinsky, both homegrown San Diegans, whose enduring generosity has supported the arts and arts education.
- 2019- The Mandell Weiss Charitable Trust, overseen by trustee Joseph Satz.
- 2021- Jay & Julie Sarno received the award for their dedication to San Diego theatres.
- 2022- Jeanette Stevens and Pam & Hal Fuson were the sixth co-recipients of this award
- 2023- Darlene Marcos Shiley, along with her late husband Donald Shiley, have been philanthropic pillars in the arts community.
- 2024 – Marina and Rafael Pastor
- 2025 – Molli Wagner
About Rita Rudner
A house-filling favorite in Las Vegas since she opened as one of the hottest tickets in town in June 2000, Rudner is known for her epigrammatic one-liners. Over the course of a multi-year run she sold almost two million tickets, grossed over a hundred million dollars and become the longest-running solo female comedy show in the history of Las Vegas. She was named Las Vegas's Comedian of The Year nine years in a row and in 2006 received The Nevada Ballet's Woman Of The Year Award. In October 2017 she was given the Casino Entertainment Legend Award. Rita's first solo HBO special, Rita Rudner's One Night Stand, was nominated for several awards, as was her eponymous English BBC television show that later appeared in the USA on A&E. Rudner's two one-hour specials for HBO, Born to Be Mild and Married Without Children, were ratings standouts and she performed all over the country, filling Carnegie Hall in New York three times. In 2008 Rita Rudner: Live From Las Vegas was PBS's first ever stand-up comedy special. Rita Rudner has written several books; her bestselling non-fiction titles, Naked Beneath My Clothes Rita Rudner's Guide to Men and I Still Have It…I Just Can't Remember Where I Put It, plus the novels Tickled Pink and Turning the Tables. The audio version of Naked Beneath My Clothes received a Grammy nomination.
Rudner is a frequent collaborator with her writer/producer husband of thirty years, Martin Bergman. The couple's first produced film script was Peter's Friends. The film, starring Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie, Kenneth Branagh, Imelda Staunton, Stephen Fry, and Rita, won the Evening Standard Peter Sellers Award for Best British Film and was nominated for the Goya Award for Best European Film of 1994. The script was nominated for a WGA Best Screenplay Award and Rita won Best Supporting Actress at the American Comedy Awards. The couple's second film project, a TV movie called A Weekend In The Country, starred Rita, Jack Lemmon, Dudley Moore, Richard Lewis, Christine Lahti, Betty White and Faith Ford. Bergman and Rudner's last film, Thanks, premiered at the 2011 Palm Springs International Film Festival, won several awards on the film festival circuit and was bought by and frequently aired on Showtime.
In 2003, Rudner launched from Las Vegas her first syndicated daily TV show, Ask Rita, which featured a panel of celebrities lightheartedly attempting to solve personal problems submitted by members of the public; it ran for two years. For her work on the show, American Women In Radio and Television awarded Rudner a Gracie Allen Award for Best Program Host. Rita helped write the 2001 and 2003 Oscar shows with Steve Martin and the 2002 Oscar broadcast with Whoopi Goldberg. Rita Rudner moved to New York at the age of fifteen to become a dancer on Broadway. She appeared in several shows, including the original productions of Follies and Mack and Mabel. It was while in Annie on Broadway that she began exploring the comedy clubs of Manhattan. In the early ‘80s, Rudner took a full-time leap from chorus lines to punch lines and was soon a regular guest on both Late Night With David Letterman and The Tonight Show. In 2009, Rita, Bette Midler and Sheryl Crow joined forces to perform a fundraiser for President Obama and the Democratic leader of the Senate, Harry Reid. In 2012, Rita and Martin wrote and performed The Rita Rudner Show for BBC radio in London. Rita also appeared in the Showtime comedy special Rita Rudner and Three Potential Ex-Husbands. In June 2016 Rita was invited and honored to speak about her career and technique in comedy at Cambridge University, England. In 2017 she was invited by Oprah Winfrey to appear on a cruise to Alaska that Oprah did in partnership with Holland America. In 2018, Rita's tenth TV special was released – A Tale Of Two Dresses. The special also featured Rita and Martin's singer/songwriter daughter Molly Bergman. In September 2018, Rita appeared at the Laguna Playhouse in the new musical comedy Two's A Crowd. She and Martin have previously collaborated at the Playhouse on two plays which they co-wrote – Room 776 and Tickled Pink – as well as “Act 3…” written by David Ambrose and Claudia Nellens. Two's A Crowd was staged off-Broadway in New York in 2019, and plans were in the works to transfer it to a larger New York theater in 2020 when the Covid pandemic forced those plans to be abandoned. In 2022, Rita returned to live performance with a series of concerts across the USA. Her memoir My Life In Dog Years was published in December of that year, and in January 2023 she appeared at the Laguna Playhouse in the world premier of STAGED, a new comedy written by Martin Bergman and her. In February, she features as a guest star in an episode of Magnum P.I. on NBC.
About Dori Patterson - Gala Co-Chair
Dori has been involved with North Coast Repertory Theatre for many years, chairing and serving on numerous Gala committees. She is delighted to co-chair this year's Gala alongside Jamie Carr. She and her husband, Jeff, have been proud supporters of NCRT since 2000. Their son, James, trained with NCRT's Theatre School, appearing in both student and main stage productions before pursuing a degree in acting at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He has since built a successful career in Esports broadcasting. Dori holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Duke University and worked as a registered nurse for 16 years. Her philanthropic contributions extend beyond NCRT, including involvement with Planned Parenthood, the San Diego Food Bank, political action organizations, and the MiraCosta College Foundation, where she has supported the Disabled Student Program. She has also dedicated time to fundraising and volunteering for the various schools her three children attended. Currently, she serves as the Membership Chair for Hand to Hand, a women's giving circle in San Diego County. In addition to her philanthropic work, Dori has been a certified FitPro for Jazzercise for 20 years and teaches classes in Encinitas. She also sings with Sorelle, a women's choir in North County. She and Jeff share a love for theatre, live music, and travel, often embarking on annual cycling trips with Backroads. They feel fortunate to have all three of their adult children and one grandchild living in North County San Diego.
About Jamie Carr - Gala Co-Chair
The word “idle” is not in Jamie Carr's vocabulary. Every waking hour, she is dedicated to making a difference—whether it's helping inner-city students excel, ensuring homeless individuals can access medical care for their pets, or championing numerous other social causes close to her heart. Jamie plays a vital role in coordinating fundraisers, overseeing events, and dedicating her time and energy to programs that strengthen organizations and the communities they serve. For the past five years, she has co-chaired the Helen Woodward Annual Spring Fling, and for 16 years, she has served on the board of Nativity Prep Academy, an inner-city middle school supporting under-served students—many of whom are the first in their families to pursue higher education. Jamie also volunteers with Feeding San Diego and serves on a board at Jewish Family Services, helping provide transportation for individuals in need of rides to appointments and essential errands. When she's not giving back, Jamie enjoys spending time with her two Labrador Retrievers, especially at her second home in Sunriver, Oregon. She is thrilled to be part of the team bringing you the spectacular event.
CHAMPION FOR THE ARTS – KPBS
DEANNA MARTIN MACKEY, KBPS GENERAL MANAGER WILL ACCEPT THE AWARD:
KPBS is San Diego's NPR and PBS station. For 65 years we have been San Diego's storytellers, providing locally and nationally-produced news, entertainment, educational, and lifestyle programming for all ages on television, radio, and digital media, as well as events and resources that help San Diegans build a strong and vibrant community. KPBS provides stories that make us think, help us dream, and keep us connected.
"On behalf of KPBS, I am honored to receive the Champion for the Arts award. KPBS has been San Diegans' source for local arts information for decades - whether profiling an emerging artist, providing a review of a play or museum exhibit, or featuring local arts experiences on our events calendar, capturing our cross-border region's sense of place through art has been a priority. Together with you, we make thousands of extraordinary moments happen each year as we explore the arts and cultural movements that make San Diego a unique place. Thank you for this recognition of our work." - Deanna Mackey, KPBS general manager.
Videos