SCR/Party Play with Ann Conway

Playwright Sarah Treem with Honorary Producers Richard Wright and Mary Beth Adderley

Actor Brooke Bloom, center, with George and Julianne Argyros

Actors Alan Blumenfeld (left) and Peter Katona with Laurie Smits Staude

ROMANTIC SETTING FOR
'A FEMININE ENDING,'
FIRST NIGHTERS' PREMIER 2008 PARTY
By Ann Conway

Inspired by the plot of 27-year-old playwright Sarah Treem's fresh new play, A Feminine Ending, SCR party planners staged a thrillingly romantic setting for First Nighters attending the opening night post-performance bash at Mastro's Steakhouse.

On view for the buzzing theater buffs: dining tables spread with ruby-red satin cloths, along with sprinkles of scarlet rose petals and flickering column candles wrapped in sepia-toned sheet music. (Not to mention the stemmed cocktails served up on silver trays—bubbling Mastro's Cosmopolitan and Lemon Drop martinis—and a feast fit for star-crossed lovers: heaps of icy fresh seafood, seared New York steak with balsamic sauce and a tempting array of mouthwatering mini-desserts.)

It was a technical musical term, after all, that provided the play's enigmatic title, referring to a phrase that concludes on a weak beat. But there was nothing fragile about the performance of the play's star, Brooke Bloom (playing the flighty and feisty Amanda). She held forth for 90 minutes in the premiere 2008 production directed by Timothy Douglas on the Julianne Argyros Stage (with Julianne Argyros herself, along with husband George, in the audience) underwritten by Mary Beth Adderley, Richard Wright and Elizabeth Adderley.

How does she do it, flawlessly perform so much non-stop dialogue (there was no intermission)? "I'm a pretty good memorizer," she said, sweeping up a red carpet into the party. "It's like a muscle, if you exercise it enough, you get really good at it!" As a young woman who has chosen to pursue her artistic dream as an actress, how did it feel to portray a young composer torn between realizing her opportunity to become a female Chopin or staying in the shadows as she watched her lover realize the career of his creative dreams? "I connect with this play a lot, in terms of my own life," she said. "But this is about a girl who gets a little bumped off her path and there are a lot of people who love her, who are right and not right for her, who kind of bump her back on her path. She spends a lot of time blaming everybody else for her confusion. But in the end, what she does with her life is really up to her."

For SCR Board of Trustees member Mary Beth Adderley—"who was probably the first SCR employee to be paid to act," observed Artistic Director Martin Benson during his onstage remarks—the production hit very close to home. Adderley was a thriving actress who went on to marry and have children. "I lived my dream and I got married, had kids, happily divorced and happily remarried!" she said, with a smile. "And now, happily, here I am. I had it both ways!"

Debbie Bohnett and actor Amy Aquino	Tom and Paula DeMars, actor Peter Katona, Sue and John Murphy
Wylie Aitken, Larry Higby, George Argyros and Dee Higby	Actor Jedadiah Schultz and Bette Aitken
David and Elaine Krajanowski, Director Timothy Douglas, Linda and Bob Hovee	Honorary Producers Richard Wright and Mary Beth Adderley with Artistic Director Martin Benson
Actor Brooke Bloom and Julianne Argyros	Tod and Linda White with Laurie Smits Staude (center)
Edith McLaughlin, Kathy Labonde, Judy McCaslin, Margaret Porter and Anne Mason	Elaine and James Alexiou
Table setting at Mastro's	Larry Webb and Janet Hadley, actor Peter Katona and Mike Meyer