Premiere Provides the Glitter for SCR

Olivia Johnson hadn’t tossed on her chinchilla in years. But she wore it to Friday night’s world premiere of “Three Postcards” by Craig Lucas and Craig Carnelia at South Coast Repertory theater.

What arts-adoring woman wouldn’t, given half the chance? It isn’t every day, after all, that one gets to see a play conceived, written and launched right in one’s own backyard. Not to mention the fact there would be hobnobbing, nibbling and tippling in the tony Center Club with the playwrights before the production and a chic repast in the theater foyer with the playwrights and the producers and actors afterward. Johnson wasn’t alone. A lion’s share of fox, mink (and Persian lamb on Marilyn Nielsen) warmed many women who had joined husbands and friends to be part of the theater’s premiere series.

Friday night also marked a milestone in the theater’s fund-raising campaign, a five-year effort to raise $12 million in capital, endowment and annual support.

James Dailey, chairman of the project, announced at the Center Club festivities that as of the beginning of January, $3.4 million had been raised toward the endowment and capital segments.

Dailey also announced recent major gifts, including a $250,000 challenge grant (which donors must match within a year) from the James Irvine Foundation, a $150,000 grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation and contributions from the Wells Fargo Foundation, the Mission Viejo Co. and the Pacific Mutual Foundation.

AT&T; donated $10,000 to helped underwrite the play.

“We’re committed to providing theater for Orange County,” AT&T; public relations director Dick Tripp said after the play. “And we feel this (SCR) is the medium for Orange County.”

Tripp, a Laguna Hills resident, said he could relate to the play’s three women talking while dining. “I can relate because I didn’t understand any of their conversation! Such realism! Men don’t wonder about what women say when they are together. They understand. They understand they don’t understand!”

‘It Was Wonderful’

Don’t get Tripp wrong. He loved the production. “It was wonderful. I’ve been a fan of SCR for years,” he said.

Balancing champagne and plucking appetizers like cognac pate, salmon-wrapped hearts of palm and artichoke quiche from silver trays, playgoers moved about the theater lobby, gleefully rubbing elbows and lauding the production.

Among them was an elusive Lucas, dressed in blue jeans and loafers, who wandered about the apres-theater bash in a euphoric trance. “When you write a play, it’s always about imagining. . . . I didn’t listen to women talking while dining with each other. You imagine what another person would be saying, feeling.

“That’s the leap you have to make all of the time in the world, you know? What are the Russians going through? The Germans? It’s all about imagining. It’s very rare when you can want to create something and then actually see what what you meant. I feel that here, tonight. And I’m very happy.”

Said director Norman Rene: “You think about something for a long time. And then, suddenly, you have 500 people witnessing that. It’s a great rush! A very powerful feeling to be able to communicate in that way.”

Supporter Catherine Thyen, wearing an Adolfo splashed with bronze bugle beads, said it was a “man’s play. Definitely written by a man. If a woman had written it, she never would have put in the part about the woman vamping the piano player. She would have kept that . . . very secret! I loved it. It was wonderful. The kind of play you want to see twice.”

Carroll Bryant is premiere series chairman. Series buyers pay $250 each per season to attend opening night plays and parties.