SCR/Party Play with Ann Conway

Playwrights Circle members Larry and Sophie Cripe with director Chris Fields

Playwright Kate Robin, second from right, with Playwrights Circle members Linda Hovee, Tom Rogers and Sarah J. Anderson.

TINSELTOWN-ESQUE PARTY
CELEBRATES WORLD PREMIERE
By Ann Conway

In a Tinseltown party atmosphere staged under the stars, First Nighters celebrated the world premiere of Kate Robin's soul-wrenching play, What They Have, sipping ruby-colored Cosmopolitans, plunging fresh fruit into a gushing chocolate fountain and sampling a steamship round of beef as they buzzed about the production SCR buff Sophie Cripe dubbed "quirky."

"I love quirky!" exclaimed Cripe—attending with her husband, Larry—as she wended her way through the Lakeside crush outside the Wyndham Hotel. "It was fabulous—so intuitive about life today, the issues, the politics." Observed Larry Cripe of the SCR-commissioned work that portrays four young couples on the Hollywood/L.A. scene attempting to reconcile life's tragedies, joys and complexities: "The whole concept of the play was that you have to be able to let go to find out what you actually have. In this play, everybody seemed to be trying to grab hold of what they wanted and couldn't see what they had."

Indeed. And that's just the way playwright/TV writer Kate Robin lived it, having experienced just about every twist and turn of the plot in her own 41-year life. "I've been through almost everything that happened in that play," said Robin, as she mingled with First Nighters who included members of the Playwrights Circle (Honorary Producers with American Airlines), director Chris Fields, and the play's stars—Nancy Bell, Marin Hinkle, Matt Letscher and Kevin Rahm. "I'm a mother. I've had an epic fertility journey. I've been poor, had money—been on both sides of the coin!"

In this insightful and provocative work, observed Rahm, "each character is on that journey of learning what's true and important. Each of the characters goes through a very different version of that journey and what they're all looking for is meaning."

For SCR supporter Olivia Johnson, the play brought home what she has observed in the lives of many young couples she knows. "There are probably 25 characters in that play—an amalgamation of so many young people's dreams, hopes, aspirations, frustations—all stuck together in four roles. They gave us all a lot to think about."

American Airlines' Michael Fricke and Sonia Fee	Elaine Weinberg and actor Marin Hinkle
Ava S. Yu with actor Kevin Rahm	Debbie Allen, Matthew Ruhl, actor Nancy Bell, Tod Toriello, Nancy Kelley
Tom Rogers, actor Matt Letscher, Larry Higby	Playwrights Circle member Larry Cripe and director Chris Fields.
Charlotte Stanley and Laurie Smits-Staude.	Lakeside at the Wyndham