Becky Shaw—The Play, the Party and the Blind Date Buzz
Just about everyone has a blind date story, but only one has been turned into a comedy thriller that was a smash hit in New York—and now in Costa Mesa. On First Night of Becky Shaw, Friday October 29, the applause died down and the buzz began, as subscribers and their guests joined Director Pam MacKinnon and the show’s artists for the post-production Cast Party on Ela’s Terrace.
Rick Smetanka, partner-in-charge of Haskell & White, LLP, Honorary Producers of Becky Shaw, said “Cheri and I have seen many wonderful performances at SCR over the years, but we could not remember laughing more than during the performance of Becky Shaw. The characters were sharp, witty and really took us on a fun roller-coaster ride of liking them in one scene and then not-so-much in the next."
The party carried out the play’s theme with a swanky and sexy lounge feeling— modern lounge furniture, low lighting, purple up-lights on the trees and single orchid centerpieces with colored water, lit from inside. Mark’s Catering provided the date night hors d’oeuvres that included mini hot dogs and New York deli pastrami panini, buffalo wings and salmon cakes.
Guests greeted friends, congratulated the artists and sipped the evening’s signature drink—Wild Night Out—to the beat of modern indie music. And, blind date stories proliferated. Trustee Mary Ann Brown (married to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Rick Reiff, whom she didn’t meet on a blind date) could only listen. “I never even had a blind date,” she said, adding, “Perhaps I led too sheltered a life—as an actuary, with my head in the books.”
One of the happiest stories was told by SCR Trustee Sophie Cripe. “I’m the rare person who had good luck on a blind date,” she said. “I was going through a difficult divorce, and my friends were determined to find me a good person to date. One day they engineered a way for me to talk to the man they considered ‘the perfect match.’ He was funny, good looking and with blue eyes! During a five minute conversation, I learned his two greatest loves were family and theater. The rest is history.” Sophie and Larry Cripe are beginning their twenty-second year together.
The party, scheduled to end at 11:30PM, continued until well after midnight, as the artists basked in the glow of praise from First Nighters, who stayed on to rave about the play, including OCBJ Publisher Richard Reisman, who called it “one of the best shows I’ve seen at SCR.”
