Mild Monday in New York

Sunset at 86th Street and Broadway. 5:45 PM. Photo: JH.

June 2, 2009. Yesterday was another beautiful, mild Monday in New York with rainclouds in the forecasts but not in the skies.

At 10:30 on a beautiful morning, I went down to 583 Park Avenue where Oscar de la Renta was showing his 2010 Resort. This was an all-industry serious business show. No banks of famous friends and fashionable ladies. No celebrity of the moment with the perfunctory gaggle of paparazzi. This was to Show.

People arriving at 583 Park Avenue yesterday morning at 10 to 10 for the Oscar de la Renta Resort/Cruise 2010 line.

The runway awaiting the models.

The building's chandelier.

583 Park was built as a church (Christian Science), designed by Delano and Aldrich. Its pure white interior is classic New England Congregationalist. Except it isn’t; it’s New York City. There is a beautiful chandelier that hangs under a blue dome in the center of the room. Otherwise it is simple simple simple and white white white. A perfect canvas for the de la Renta signature colors.

There was one runway down the middle of the room. The seating arrangement was also very clean and organized. In the front row on one side of the runway sat Anna Wintour, Grace Coddington, Hamish Bowles, Andre Leon Talley and several others whom I didn’t recognize. At the near end of that row was Patrick McCarthy of “W.” Farther down, in the next section was Glenda Bailey and her editorial coterie in the front row.

From Oscar de la Renta's Resort/Cruise 2010 line.

In my experience of fashion shows, they always start about twenty minutes or a half hour later than scheduled. Not this one. Called for 11, the first girls came down the runway about 11:10, and twenty minutes later they all came out and made their final fashion parade.

Then Oscar, always tan, often grey-suited appeared from the wings, never quite coming to center stage, gave a brief wave, a nod to his guests, and exited.

Last night down at Cipriani 42nd Street, The American Theatre Wing was holding its annual Spring Gala. Hugh Jackman was Honorary Chair. Benefit Co-Chairs were Catia (Mrs. Schuyler) Chapin, Lucia Hwong Gordon and Anthony Leeds. Kristin Chenoweth, Barbara Cook and Hugh Jackman also performed. Audra McDonald was scheduled to perform but nature came between her and her voice. She opened the evening and demonstrated just by speaking that the voice wasn’t up to par, a kind of cold in her voice.

The American Theatre Wing was started by a group of visionary women both in the theatre and out. Their objective was to assist talent in growing and developing. The Second World War was close behind and the ATW women started the Stage Door Canteen to entertains the armed forces when they passed through the city. The first clubsite was in the cellar of the New York Times building. Its first volunteer, Esther Leeds, was also the mother of a son, Anthony Leeds, who also happens to be the new President of the American Theatre Wing, succeeding Douglas Leeds (no relation).

Kayce Jennings, Catia (Mrs. Schuyler) Chapin, and Anika Chapin.

Audra McDonald with Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness.

The Stage Door Canteen became a very famous concept around the world. The stars of stage, screen and radio all came out to entertain the boys on leave. It was exclusive to the boys in uniform, although Tony Leeds told me last night that there were one or two tables sold every night to civilians for $100 or $200 – a nice sum in those days when a cuppa coffee was a nickel and a pack of Luckys were less than two bits. The tables sold out every night.

After the War, under the direction of Isabelle Stevenson (who served as the President of the ATW for thirty-three years), they created the Antoinette Perry Awards, now known the world over as The Tonys, the most coveted artistic award in the American Theatre.

Cipriani 42nd Street with guests seated for the first course.

The theatre crowd in New York, like those supporters of the opera, the ballet, brings together a wide variety of people with common, if often eclectic interests. Many of the supporters of the opera and ballet also support the theatre. Many others are mainly theatre people including actors, directors, many producers, family members. There were several hundred at this black tie dinner last night, but there is a gemutlich quality to the atmosphere.


	Mary Rodgers Guettel

I love the experience of going to the theatre. I have still vivid memories of the first time I went to a Broadway theater – the Broadhurst -- for the stage version of “Auntie Mame.” When the house lights dimmed, the curtain rose and the stage lights came up, all of us were instantly transported away from our own lives into the world of other people’s lives, so big no matter how small. Real.

Many of the American Theatre Wing supporters are non-actors, “civilians” as they refer to them in entertainment business. But they are committed to the theatre just like the actors, sometimes even moreso. Many of them are the angels, the backers. They were there last night glorying in the performances, those precious gifts that inspired the American Theatre Wing.

In the crowd: Pia Lindstrom and John Carley, Susanne Mados, Angela Lansbury, Doug and Anki Leeds, Kayce Jennings, Catia Chapin, Ted Chapin, Anika Chapin, Lucie Arnaz and Larry Luckenbill, Mary Rodgers Guettel and Henry Guettel, Dana Hammond and her son Nick Hammond, CeCe and Lee Black, Carole Guest, Celso Gonzalez-Falla and Sondra Gilman, Jim and Julie Dale, Joel Grey, Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford, The McEntees -- Conor, James and Kathryn; Elizabeth Stribling and Guy Robinson, Sir Howard Stringer, Anne and Jim Sitrick, Donna and Richard Soloway, Tovah Feldshuh, Carmen de’ Orifice, Mario Buatta, George and Mariana Kaufman, Stewart Lane, Arlene Dahl and Marc Rosen, Chappie and Melissa Morris, Jane and Morley Safer, Enid Nemy, Suzanne Murphy, Michael Musto, Ben and Elke Gazzara, Jo Sukllivan Loesser, Faith Prince, Ron Konecky, Anita Jaffe and Dasha Epstein, and many many more of that ilk and stripe. It was a good time. It was for the theatre.