Society : Guests Kick Back at Benefit, Munch Sandwiches and Salad

There wasn’t a black tie in sight--or any other tie for that matter. Instead, more than 100 guests at L P Repertory Guild’s Reverse Drawing wore slacks and shirts while munching on submarine sandwiches and pasta salad. Submarine sandwiches? But these were not your regular old submarine sandwiches or salads. They were San Remo Italian Market’s primo specialties--and they were extraordinarily good.

Of course, no one came to ogle clothes or savor gourmet delicacies at the Clifton C. Miller Community Center in Tustin. They came for the fun of it and with hopes of winning the evening’s cash raffle, which netted more than $3,000 for the Lilliput Players and LP Repertory Company that the guild supports. The players reach more than 100,000 schoolchildren annually with classics such as “The Frog Prince” and “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.” This year they’ve added “the water show”--an entertaining musical sponsored by the Southern California Water Conservation Committee, featuring crazy characters such as the Water Waster, who sings, “I just love to spend an hour in the shower,” as he cavorts around in his purple robe. Ricky the Raindrop sets him straight, though, with a fast-paced rundown on nature’s water cycle. Director Sarah Coleman wrote the script, and all the others--notable for their humor and pertinence to today’s world.

The Lilliput Players--named for their audiences of little people--were on hand, lending their sparkle to the occasion. Head player and vice president Bill Durkin noted that school bookings were the highest ever--numbering nearly 300.

Other members of the Lilliputian cast are: Tim Thorn, Robert Ferrara, John Motil, Matthew Stoltz and Deborah Leigh-Schmidt.

Chatty emcee Tom Porah did the drawing--in which every ticket ($50 each) was drawn, but only every ninth one was a winner. The final ticket was the Big One and the $1,380 prize was split between Cortez and Dolores Hoskins and Grace and R.W. Fritzche. Other winners included: Pat Werth, president of the guild; Jay Schield, Jay Larson, and Pat McCarthy. (The co-chairs of the event were Louise Gilliam and Carole Bergstrom.)

Lilliput Players’ director Sarah Coleman concluded the evening with her perennial compliment, “We couldn’t do it without the guild.”

In addition to this fund-raiser, guild members sell out two benefit performances on opening nights of the LP Repertory Company’s spring production in Tustin and sponsor a bridge marathon--which together bring in about $2,000.