Spring 2024

BEST OF THE CARMEL POLICE LOG… Case of found Apple AirPods: Reporting party found AirPods on the roadway and would like to claim if the owner is not located. The owner of the AirPods later came to the police department and retrieved them. SHORT CUTS CARMEL CONFIDENTIAL The Arts and Philanthropy Abound in Carmel S haron Wesley, MD, a family medicine doctor at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, has received the 2023 Physician Recognition Award. The honor recognizes Wesley’s lifetime achievement in outstanding clinical care and service to the hospital, medical staff and community. During more than two decades with Community Hospital, Wesley has served on Montage Health’s Board of Trustees, Patient Safety and Quality Committee and Professional Quality Committee. She is an inaugural member of the facility’s DEI Council and a volunteer with Meals on Wheels of the Monterey Peninsula and the Monterey Jazz Festival. Dr. Sharon Wesley Honored With 2023 Physician Recognition Award L a Playa Hotel celebrated its recent ren- ovations and more than a century of local history with a January gala and produc- tion. The Los Angeles-based IAMA Theatre Company headlined the event, transforming the hotel into an immersive theater expe- rience inspired by the characters of turn- of-the-century Carmel. The five-scene per- formance told the story of a young couple’s unconventional 1907 wedding celebration. Actress Katie Lowes, who starred in Scandal and Inventing Anna, co-founded IAMA Theatre Company with her husband, actor Adam Shapiro of “Never Have I Ever.” Shonda Rhimes joined as the company’s patron of the arts in 2016. Lowes’ former “Scandal” co-star Guillermo Díaz attended the La Playa Hotel event, along with “Top Gun: Maverick” actor Lewis Pullman and Patrick J. Adams, who earned a 2012 Screen Actors Guild award nomination for his work in “Suits.” “Graceland” and “Rescue Me” star Daniel Sunjata and Vogue writer Elise Taylor were also in attendance. Michelle Lewis, Ph.D., a social sciences and global studies lecturer at CSUMB, has released a book of cartoons called “Finding Joy: Love, Loss and Laughter.” Published in late 2023, the collection takes both playful and philosophical turns as it explores relationships, dating and love. Lewis also produces a comic strip called “Finding Joy” for the monthly parenting maga- zine Growing Up in Santa Cruz . Lewis has been a full-time CSUMB professor since 2014, follow- ing a 25-year career as an evaluator and public health researcher. This winter, Hollywood Reporter and Deadline reported that actor J.K. Simmons joined the cast of the upcoming Clint Eastwood filQ ±.uror ² 7iQQons who earned a Oscar nomination for his work in “Being the Ricardos” and won 2015 Oscar and Golden Globe awards for his role in “Whiplash,” will star with Toni Collette, Zoey Deutch, Nicholas Hoult and Kiefer Sutherland. Eastwood is directing the Jonathan Abrams screenplay that follows a man serving as a juror in a hiKh profile Qurder trial -n the process the character struggles with a serious moral dilem- ma that could sway the verdict and potentially convict or free the wrong killer. MY Museum in Monterey received $10,475 from Coastal Roots Hospitality as part of the Pick It Up-Pay It Forward program. 66 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • S P R I N G 2 0 2 4 At a grand gala in January, La Playa Hotel celebrated its recent renovation with an immersive evening of theater, performed by LA-based IAMA Theatre Company. Photo: Jason Sean Weiss/BFA