A COUNTYWIDE BLOCK PARTY FOR THE ARTS : INSTITUTIONS THROW OPEN THEIR DOORS TODAY, INVITING US TO SAMPLE NEIGHBORHOOD PLEASURES.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

It's not as if Taylor Gilbert is trapped in the Valley. It's not as if she never gets around.

As associate artistic director of North Hollywood's Road Theatre Company, Gilbert does her best to keep up with L.A.'s sprawling theater scene. If that means inching her way down the 405 to catch a show in Long Beach, she'll do it. If it means juggling a career and a newborn child with periodic sprints to the Taper, well, so be it.

Yet even with the best of intentions, Gilbert says, it's easy for L.A.'s far-flung theater artists to lose touch with each other.

``You get sort of isolated,'' she admits. ``We spend so much time just trying to produce our own projects.''

That's one reason why Road Theatre is opening its doors this weekend and inviting its artistic neighbors to drop by and sit a spell.

Today, Road Theatre will join more than 100 arts organizations taking part in the second annual Los Angeles County-Wide Arts Open House. From Long Beach to Calabasas, arts groups of every conceivable size, spreadsheet balance and artistic philosophy are putting some of their best work on display and encouraging the public to come and browse.

Whatever you think of the offerings and objets, you're sure to like the price: The all-day lineup of performances, exhibits and sideshows is absolutely free (you're on your own for parking, however).

So what's in it for Valley residents? Enough to keep you playing musical freeways from 10 a.m. until midnight.

Say you're a disciple of Hungarian folk dancing, or famous opera arias. A tiny voice is calling you to the Pasadena Presbyterian Church, where Casa Italiana Opera Company waxes Puccini-esque at 3:30 p.m., followed an hour later by the whirling Karpatok Hungarian Folk Ensemble.

Or maybe English handbells are your passion. You'll want to be in the vicinity of Las Virgenes Library in Agoura Hills for a performance by the United Methodist Church of Westlake Village Youth Choir.

Never met a multicultural mime? Show up at the Calabasas Public Library and you will (Judi Garratt is her name). A world-class camellia collection? Where else but the 130-acre Botanical Gardens of the Huntington Library in San Marino. Bilingual puppets? They're at South El Monte Library at 10:30 a.m.

The Road Theatre is marking the occasion by holding an open rehearsal of its new show, ``The Roaring Child,'' at 8 tonight at the Lankershim Arts Center, 5108 Lankershim Blvd. Besides exposing the company's work to potential new customers, the open house will allow the Road Theatre to give something back to its longtime supporters, Gilbert says.

``Being accessible to the community is part of our mission.''

In its second year of sponsoring the open house, the Los Angeles County Music and Performing Arts Commission has widened the scope of activities, offering more live dance, music and theater than in 1995.

But the visual arts won't lack for notice. From visions of contemporary Jewish life at the Skirball Cultural Center & Museum, to Frederic Remington's rugged desert landscapes at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, to the nightmarish sculptures of Ed Kienholz at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the open house offers a chance to discover a new facility or reconnect with an old reliable.

On Museum Row, the culture-studded stretch of Wilshire Boulevard between Fairfax and Curson avenues, five well-known institutions will be among the free attractions: the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Carole & Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures, the Craft & Folk Art Museum, the George C. Page Museum and the Petersen Automotive Museum. To ease pedestrian flow, the Miracle Mile Chamber of Commerce is closing down that segment of the boulevard for the day.

LACMA officials say they're convinced that the open house is a boon for business. Last year's attendance was ``about double'' that for a normal Saturday, says LACMA public affairs officer Stefanie Salata.

``So it really shows that it encourages people to bring their families and maybe spend time in a museum, if they realize they haven't been to LACMA in awhile,'' Salata says.

This year, LACMA planned its crowd-pleaser exhibition, ``Marc Chagall: 1907-1917,'' to coincide with the open house. It also is offering 10 percent discounts on museum memberships for those who sign up on Saturday.

In addition to Museum Row, events are being grouped into three distinct geographical regions, or ``centers of activity'': the North Hollywood theater district, a k a NoHo; downtown Pasadena; and Santa Monica.

Linda Chiavaroli, whose United Arts agency is promoting the event, thinks that the centers will help focus a potentially chaotic array of choices.

``You can park in one spot and walk around for all or part of the day and experience many things within an area of a few blocks,'' she says. ``That may make it easier for people who are not as familiar with an area.''

Last year's debut festival drew 35,000, a number that organizers expect to top this weekend. That's no mean feat in a region half the size of Rhode Island: When it comes to culture, some Los Angeles residents would rather watch ``Love and Marriage'' than claw their way through crowds and snarled freeways on Friday and Saturday nights.

Not even artists are immune to parochialism and couch potato syndrome.

``I find myself sticking on the Westside, maybe because there's so much here,'' says Cindy DeSantis, an assemblage artist and administrator at Santa Monica's 18th Street Arts Complex, an incubator of performance art, experimental dance, avant-garde theater, poetry readings, interactive video and other things cutting-edge.

``I feel bad because there's things happening in Hollywood,'' DeSantis continues. ``I'm sure it's the same thing for artists there. It's hard to come to the Westside.''

In rounding up open house participants, the county tapped its database of 1,500 arts groups. No curating was involved, so basically any organization willing to give up its Saturday could take part.

In North Hollywood, the bill of fare is especially eclectic. Stop by the Lankershim Arts Center between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m., and you can catch sketch comedy by Skitzo's, a vaudeville show adapted from classic children's literature, music by the 19th-century Russian-Jewish composer David Nowakowsky, and scenes from Mozart's ``The Marriage of Figaro.''

Stroll a few yards north on Lankershim and watch Celtic music and dance at the Raven Playhouse, or two one-act plays by Valley-based Actors Alley.

While brand-name entities like LACMA and the Petersen museum are sure to draw mobs, there's also room for low-budget outfits such as By Any Means Necessary Ensemble - which, as its name suggests, makes do with less.

``We will do theater, wherever and however,'' explains founding artistic director Deborah Kellar, ``because when we started, we didn't have any money. We couldn't even put up a play. I just called 55 of my friends.''

By Any Means Necessary will perform a complete two-act play, David Lee Lindsey's ``Haints, Conjurmen and Leaving'' at 226 S. Market St. at Manchester Boulevard, near the Great Western Forum.

Describing her 2-year-old troupe as the city's only fully professional African-American theater company, Kellar thinks the open house will encourage people to look at next-door communities in a new light.

``So you live in Compton, OK, fine. So you can see theater over in Venice, and if you see Venice, maybe (you'll decide) you'd like to live there.''

Of course, social barriers traditionally have kept communities like Venice and Compton worlds apart. That's unlikely to change anytime soon.

But if life imitates art, Open House '96 could help open up a culturally segregated city.

``I'm a transplanted New Yorker, and I was a theater and symphony buff there, but I find that there's even more available in Los Angeles,'' says John Berquist, director of tourism for the Autry Museum of Western Heritage.

``This is one of the few times that the arts are able to come together and agree that we need to extend ourselves for the community.''

INFORMATION

Information about the second annual Los Angeles County-Wide Arts Open House is available through Theatre L.A.'s free 24-hour information hot line at [phone]. Listings also are available on the Los Angeles County Music and Performing Arts Commission Web site at http://www.co.la.us/arts.

CAPTION(S):

Drawing, 5 Photos, Box

Drawing: (Cover--Color) Command Performanc e: The county organizes an open-door day of the arts

Jorge Irribarren

Photo: (1) The second Los Angeles County-Wide Arts Open House invites the public to roar through the Petersen Automotive Museum for free.

(2) Visitors can let their minds wander through the richly detailed miniatures - including this re-creation of a French Empire salon - at the Carole & Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures.

(3) Today, visitors can get a free look at Marc Chagall's 1911 painting ``I and the Village,'' part of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's popular Chagall exhibit.

(4) In the Valley, open house events include performances of the play ``Maria and the Comet'' by the Synthaxis Theatre Company in North Hollywood.

(5) Frederic Remington's 1909 painting ``The Mystery'' is among the historic items on display at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage.

Box: INFORMATION (See text)