Fifty minutes. That's all it takes for lives and perspectives to dramatically change.

As the hostess of the 50-minute Hawaiiana Live! Hawaiian culture programs presented weekly at Hilo's historic Palace Theater, Leilehua Yuen has seen that happen many times. One program in particular stands out in her mind.

“;Every year throughout May, we focus on the lei and use it as a metaphor for the interweaving of Hawaii's diverse cultures and our interconnectedness with nature,”; Yuen said. “;A few years ago, after one of those shows, a woman came up to me with tears in her eyes. She had just bought a property on the Hamakua Coast, and had planned to bulldoze it and landscape it with imported nursery plants.”;

After attending Hawaiiana Live!, however, the woman told Yuen she was only going to clear the area for the house pad. Instead of introduced plants, she planned to create a landscape incorporating the existing native ohia, hapuu and other native plants. “;In that way,”; Yuen said, “;she felt she would help preserve something special about Hawaii.”;

Inspiring the audience to recognize and honor the beauty and richness of the Hawaiian culture has been one of the goals of Hawaiiana Live! Since its launch on Jan.10, 2007, it has educated and entertained 4,000-plus people; Yuen hopes many more will come.

The program spotlights various aspects of Hawaiian culture through storytelling, videos, hula, oli (chants) and mele (songs). A changing slate of Big Island artists, musicians, kupuna (elders) and kumu (teachers) is featured each week.

“;We tell our stories as we learned and lived them,”; Yuen said. “;They're not 'Hollywood-ized,' polished and sugarcoated. I do a lot of research to come to a deeper understanding of the subjects so I can share them in the best, most culturally appropriate way possible.”;

Themes revolve around the Hawaiian lunar calendar and relate to the current season. For example, in the coming weeks there will be presentations on weapons of the Hawaiian warrior; the famed rains of Hilo; and tsunami, including legends about Namakaokahai, the Hawaiian goddess of the sea, and descriptions of modern tsunami detection technology.

“;When we first started Hawaiiana Live!, someone asked me if there was enough material to do something different for 50 weeks of the year,”; Yuen said. “;I laughed. We've done 155 shows so far, and every single one has had a new element in it, be it a story, song, dance, film clip or participant. The Hawaiian culture is so diverse and complex, we're barely scratching the surface of it.”;

When Yuen was growing up in the 1960s, only Hilo and parts of Kona on the Big Island had access to television and radio. In those days, she said, most residents sang, played music, read books and “;talked story”; for entertainment.

“;At Hawaiiana Live! we remember the tales our grandparents told us around the kitchen table and we retell them with aloha,”; Yuen said. “;We sing the songs they sang, along with songs we are composing today. We share the things we cherish most about our island.”;

Informal but packed with information, Hawaiiana Live! provides insights to the “;real”; Hawaii that other shows, with their elaborate costumes and staging, do not. Impromptu performances by surprise guests and audience participation in activities such as a simple hula noho (seated hula) add to its down-home appeal.

Visitors looking for opportunities to mingle with kamaaina and experience authentic cultural exchanges won't be disappointed. The show also reconnects local people, especially those who've lived away for a long time, with the Hawaii they remember from years past.

“;They hear familiar songs and stories,”; Yuen said. “;They see places they're from in the videos. Wonderful memories come flooding back, and they feel like they've truly returned home.”;

Theater is the pride of Hilo

The Palace Theater opened in 1925 during the heyday of lavish American movie palaces. It was originally part of a small group of local theaters owned and operated by Adam Baker, a well-known Hawaiian showman who entered the theater business in the early 1900s.

Built of redwood imported from the Pacific Northwest, the theater was an architectural marvel in its time; in fact, nothing like it had been seen outside of Honolulu before. Fourteen massive redwood columns supported its wooden roof trusses, which spanned the entire width of the building. Its roof, sides and back were covered with corrugated sheet metal, and its neo-classical facade was done in stucco with wood molding accents.

Designed to take full advantage of its small land area, the Palace Theater had stadium seating, which pre-dated by 70 years the “;discovery”; of this arrangement by island theater operators in the 1990s. Although the theater was built before the advent of electronic sound amplification systems, it boasted excellent acoustics for plays and live musical performances.

One of the facility's most enchanting features is its vintage Robert Morton pipe organ. Dating back to 1929, it has more than doubled in size since 2005, with the addition of parts from a 1921 pipe organ from the Hawaii Theater on Oahu. Each Hawaiiana Live! program opens with Bob Alder, vice president of the Hilo Theater Organ Society (HTOS), performing a few Hawaiian classics on the organ and giving a brief history of it and the Palace Theater. (Peruse http://www.hilopalace.com and http://www.palacehilo.org/PalaceOrganHistory.html for more information.)

Restoration work on the theater and the organ is ongoing, and donations are welcome. If you would like to support the theater, make out a check to the Friends of the Palace Theater (the money can be designated for either programming or restoration projects).

If you would like your contribution to go toward supplies, equipment and replacement parts for the organ, you can write a check to the Hilo Theater Organ Society-Palace Organ Project. All donations are tax-deductible and can be mailed c/o the Palace Theater, 38 Haili St., Hilo, Hawaii 96720.

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Bulletin have won multiple Society of American Travel Writers awards.