When the Opera Buffs  hold their Performance Showcase next weekend,  50-year residents Dick and Lenore Wayne will happily be in attendance.

They are both actively involved in the group that  helps young singers who are making a career of opera with financial help and performance opportunities.

 Wayne is a board member and chair of the scholarship committee. He retired nine years ago after 25 years as a stockbroker with Merrill Lynch and joined the group 24 years ago—a year after it was founded.

He and is wife, who’ve always loved opera, are thrilled with the group that has made 40 grants, totaling $56,600, to 40 young Southern California singers  just starting their careers. Soprano Juliana Di Giacomo, featured in the Met’s recent Saturday broadcast of Stiffelio, and tenor Charles Castronovo, on the cusp on international careers, were helped by the group.

Another goal of the group is to expose everyone, especially younger people, to opera. “If  I’m walking down the street and I hear someone whistling The Toreador Song, I tell them, ‘I know of a great group you can join,’” Wayne said. “We would like more young members.”

 The group has provided performance opportunities to 16 singers, paying them a total of $6,900, at its two Performers Showcases; the next one of which is Saturday, Feb. 27  when the group presents “Brush Up Your Shakespeare,” at 2:30 p.m. at the Colburn School of Performing Arts’ Thayer Hall.

The program will feature arias from operas based on Shakespeare’s plays with a bit of Broadway, like Kiss Me, Kate, thrown in.

Tickets are $25 for non members, $5 for students. To order,  call 818-348-3391 or send  e-mail  to barbaramrkl@yahoo.com.

For more information, visit www.operabuffs.org