Nobody’s Sitting Still for Barbara Johnson’s Parties

It was the perfect remedy for the black-tie blues: a bash so declasse that guests were invited to leave their manners and fancy rags at home.

Staged on the driveway of a $4-million estate in North Tustin, party-goers wolfed down chicken fingers instead of chicken cordon bleu, nachos instead of caviar on toast points, and walked away with favors from Pic ‘N’ Save.

The hostess? Barbara Johnson, 33, who is gaining a reputation in Orange County arts circles for her one-of-a-kind parties that have guests asking for more.

There was the surprise bash she tossed for her husband, Orange County Performing Arts Center Chairman Mark Johnson, on his 50th birthday earlier this year. Halfway through the evening, she turned the spy-themed romp into a toga party.

And there was the formal piano recital--held in a backyard amphitheater--where guests dined on gourmet fare at tables shaped like grand pianos.

At last year’s Christmas party, she invited actors and actresses to portray long-dead musical and theatrical artists. They visited each table, reciting their biographies while guests savored a four-course meal.

Then there was the recent anti-party party--where she wore a polyester muumuu and rollers in her thick, black hair--because she was tired of getting dressed up, she says, “and being so serious.”

“[The idea for the party] started one morning when I was joking with Mark,” she says. “We had been going to so many formal affairs, and I say something like, ‘You know, it would really be nice if we could go to a tacky party and just get it all out of our systems.’ ”

Her husband mentioned the idea to friends, and before she knew it, her phone was ringing off the hook. So, she did it--staged a get-together where the trash cans and catering truck were in full view and guests had to make their own coffee--instant Sanka, no less.

“The party was about letting your hair down,” she says, “getting everybody to loosen up.”

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Johnson makes her debut as a gala chairwoman next spring, when she oversees the Pacific Symphony’s annual Symphony of Jewels ball.

She has invited activists on behalf of all of Orange County arts organizations to join her committee--a move that coincides with her husband’s goal of unifying the groups that use the performing arts center.

When she agreed to chair the gala, she initially met with some criticism, she says.

“With Mark being chairman of the Performing Arts Center, I was in an awkward position when I agreed to chair a gala for the symphony. I had people say to me, ‘It might look like you’re taking sides.’ ”

(The center has fund-raising galas of its own, as do the regional groups that stage performances there, including the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, Opera Pacific and the Master and Pacific chorales.)

“I have told them, that no--this happens to be an event that can bring all of the arts groups together. We need to be a family.”

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As a woman whose husband has one of the highest social profiles in Orange County, Johnson attends as many as three society events a week--often black-tie fund-raisers for arts organizations and the other charities the couple supports.

While she finds the charity events rewarding, she says, it is her husband who is really “the social person.”

“I just like to throw parties. For me, it’s like an artist painting a picture. It’s fun to create settings, please people. But I’m no social dynamo.”

Before Johnson married this spring, she spent much of her time masterminding parties for her Costa Mesa catering business.

Her party-giving style, say friends, is at once sophisticated and fun. And she tends to be outgoing, not aloof, as some who regularly move in high circles.

“She is very warm,” says Olivia Johnson (no relation to Mark), an activist on behalf of South Coast Repertory theater. “She takes a back seat to her guests. They are always the most important people in the room. She is very humble.”

Catherine Thyen, chairwoman of the Performing Arts Center’s recent 10th-anniversary gala, admires the openness of the Johnsons. “They are not shy about sharing what they have,” Thyen says, “and they know how to share it. I think that’s great.”