Benefits for Rep, Mercy Hospital Staged at Omni

Acting on the theory that it’s the little things that make the difference, the new Omni San Diego Hotel coyly sent away the guests who attended its grand opening gala Friday with a tiny gift.

These were simply Omni key rings, slipped onto drivers’ keys by the parking valets when no one was looking. The message was clear, though, and direct: “Remember the Omni next time you’re downtown.”

More than 500 guests crowded through the doors of the Broadway Circle hostelry for a six-hour celebration of the performing arts given as a benefit for the San Diego Repertory Theatre’s 6th Avenue Playhouse. It was a remarkable turnout for the Rep, which does have a loyal following, but this was an unusually big-ticket, formal event.

Classy Stage Show

The guests were drawn by more than the opening of the hotel. Many of them must have sensed that something special would happen that evening, as it did--the Rep mounted perhaps the grandest, classiest stage show to be presented at any San Diego County fund-raiser in this decade.

The show capped a party that spread out over three floors of the hotel and provided entertainment in every corner large enough to house a performer and audience. A mime, a pair of harlequins and a brass quintet greeted guests in the courtyard and sent them in to hear singers in the lobby lounge, watch exhibition dancers in the City Colors discotheque, listen to classical harp music in the Plaza Room, jive to the Will Parsons Quartet’s jazz offerings in the Harbor Room, and tap their toes in imitation of the Stemware Steppers clogging troupe on the third-floor, poolside terrace.

Guests also nibbled at hors d’oeuvres buffets set up everywhere, of which the most popular may have been the chilled shellfish displays in the Festival dining room. (If the arrangements seem to have been engineered to assure that guests would see as much of the hotel as possible, they were, but this is not unusual for a grand opening. A special relationship between the Omni and the Rep was fostered by Jack Berkman, a theater board member whose public relations firm, Berkman & Daniels, represents the hotel.)

A Few Big Names

The crowd numbered quite a few downtown movers-and-shakers-cum-theater buffs, including Horton Plaza developer Ernest Hahn, who described the hotel as a rather nice addition to his shopping complex; Meridian condominium developer Walter Smyk; Chamber of Commerce board chairman Bill Nelson, and Centre City Development Corp. Executive Vice President Gerald Trimble, who declared the Omni to be “an excellent statement for downtown San Diego, an urban hotel that should lend much to the area’s street life.”

After the guests had had more than enough opportunity to make the rounds of the various public rooms, a trumpet fanfare summoned them up the double staircase to the second floor California Ballroom, a comfortable room colored in soothing, pale peach shades. The first of the meal’s five courses was already on the table, and guests wasted little time digging into the combo of smoked shrimp and chilled black pasta. Dinner continued with a white Cabernet sorbet; veal medallion paired with lobster tail (a kind of yuppie surf ‘n turf); salad, and frozen amaretto souffle.

Rep Gets $80,000

As expected, the evening was not allowed to slip away without a certain amount of speeches, made mostly during the meal and sometimes to the harmonic accompaniment of busy knives and forks. Theater President Jennifer Hankins drew cheers when she announced that the Parker Foundation that day had issued the Rep an $80,000 challenge grant.

“This challenge is just what we need,” Hankins said. “It’s an incentive for the community to get behind the theater.”

Rep Artistic Director Douglas Jacobs also received an enthusiastic response when he thanked the crowd for supporting his 12-year dream of molding a nationally recognized theater company.

“San Diego is becoming a place that great artists can call home,” he said. “It is undergoing an artistic renaissance of astounding proportions.”

Omni San Diego developers Arthur Py and Thomas Vavra took turns greeting the crowd. Vavra amused the audience by treating it to a very detailed recitation of the hotel’s specifications, including the information that the structure contains 34 acres of dry wall. You learn something new every day.

All this set the stage for a show that burst like a small explosion and kept the audience raptly attentive for more than an hour. In “Salute to Firsts in the American Musical Theater,” a 13-member cast sang and danced through about 120 years of American stage productions, beginning with a number from “The Black Crook,” which premiered in 1866 and purportedly was the first musical extravaganza written in the United States. The show closed with a tribute to a competing local stage by offering a number from Roger Miller’s “Big River,” the musical that took the La Jolla Playhouse to Broadway.

Theater board members Jennifer Mitchell, Deni Vilaplana and Nanci Washburn shared the duties of organizing the party. Among the guests were Irwin and Joan Jacobs, Herb and Elene Solomon, William and Anne Otterson, Joe Hibben, Laurie Black and Robert Lawrence, Chris and Francie Mortenson, John Messner, Barry Newman, Nancy MacHutchin, Ted and Roz Odmark, Bud and Esther Fischer, Mel and Linda Katz, and Don and Nancy Sutherland.

Saturday’s “Tender Mercy,” the 18th annual Mercy Ball, brought an entirely different--and even larger--crowd to the Omni for a second night of wide-eyed revelry at the city’s newest hotel.

Given as a benefit for Mercy Hospital and Medical Center’s Mercy Clinic, the gala dinner dance and auction attracted more than 600 guests and, thanks to underwriting contributed by a long list of benefactors, raised more than $150,000.

Chairman Ruth Mulvaney said that this sum was exactly what she had in mind when she accepted the post as party chief.

“If we make a large amount of money for the Mercy Clinic, I’ll be pleased, because it serves so many people who can’t otherwise afford medical care,” she said. “That’s the one reason why the committee and I have worked so hard for tonight.”

Silent Bidding

The ball put quite a few volunteers to work, among them the auctioneers who conducted the cocktail hour’s so-called “silent” (they never are) auction, at which guests had a chance to bid on such diverse items as an evening with singer Frankie Laine and a luncheon aboard the private railroad car built for legendary railway magnate Cyrus K. Holliday (this prize was donated by the car’s current owner, banker and railroad buff Tom Sefton).

A brief live auction, conducted by Bob Arnhym, occurred later in the evening. Of the three items, the most unusual sold for more than $2,000 and offered its buyers a private audience with the pair of pandas staying at the San Diego Zoo. The package also included a group portrait of the event from photographer Twyla Cecil and a post-audience limousine to chauffeur the gang (minus the bears, one supposes) to dinner at downtown’s Panda Inn.

The banquet followed the theme laid down by the Omni kitchen the previous evening, and may have expressed the hotel’s culinary point of view. The meal commenced with smoked duck breast paired with chilled, tomato-flavored pasta and continued with cream of snail soup, medallions of veal with shrimp in garlic butter, and white chocolate swans, filled with chocolate mousse and floating in pools of raspberry sauce.

Celebrities Galore

Television celebrity Regis Philbin served as master of ceremonies and introduced Mercy President Richard Keyser, who informed the crowd that since the gala was completely underwritten, all proceeds from ticket sales would go directly to Mercy Clinic.

Next up at the podium was actress Mercedes McCambridge, who attended Chicago’s Mundelein College with gala chairman Mulvaney, and who reminded the crowd, as did Shakespeare, that the quality of mercy not only is not strained, but that it also droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven.

The formalities concluded when Mary and Lince Ward won the drawing for the grand prize, a week’s vacation in Ireland. This moment past, the Wayne Foster Orchestra took over and the crowd took to its feet.

The committee included Maggie Mazur, Mary Gilmore, Laura Avallone, Kate Borden, Rita Grady, Jane Guymon, Eleanor Rippo, Debbie and Jim Frampton, Betsy Dingman, Jeanne Jones, Rose Mary Taylor, Terry Freeman, Mary-Em Howard, Stephen Pye and Hugh Kramer.

Leading the guest list was Teresa Hardie, who celebrated her 103rd birthday that day. Others present were Maureen and Charles King, Pat and Ed Keating, Bishop Leo T. Maher, Carol and Bob Thomas, Marge and Fielder Lutes, Justine Fenton, Sara and Tom Finn, Betty Hubbard, Alison and Jon Tibbitts, Carol and Mike Alessio, Jane and John Pentelei-Molnar, Sandra and Doug Pay, Rita and Joe Neeper, chairman Mulvaney’s husband, Jim, and their seven children, and Mercy Auxiliary President Ruth Carpenter with Tom Fleming.