It’s Your Life / People, Places and Things to do. : LOCAL TONYS : 5 Honored for Work Behind the Scenes

You won’t see their names on the marquee, but five behind-the-scenes people involved in the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza have stepped into the spotlight.

The Gold Coast Performing Arts Assn. presented its first Twilight Awards at its annual Twilight Gathering over the weekend at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks.

Receiving glass-etched statuettes were Tom Mitze, executive director of the Civic Arts Plaza; Martha Zilm, director of donor relations for the Alliance for the Arts, the fund-raising arm for the complex; Richard Johnson, executive director of the Alliance for the Arts, and Raymond and Helen Olson, who founded the Conejo Futures Foundation, which led to formation of the complex.

This is the second year that the association has held the $145-a-plate dinner and the first time that the glass statuettes have been presented.

Is this Ventura County’s version of the theatrical world’s Tony Awards? Larry Janss, chairman of the association, hopes so. Only it’s not the stars, big shots and philanthropists he hopes to recognize.

“There is this other layer of very important people, without whose participation the place would grind to a halt,” he said.