San Diego Rep Benefits From a ‘Rocky’ Night

After jumping to the left and then jumping to right, the 200 discombobulated and aerobically worked-out souls in the Hotel del Coronado’s venerable Crown Room settled in for a rocky night.

“Whatever Happened to Saturday Night?” asked guests to answer the musical question posed by “The Rocky Horror Show,” and to lend much-needed support to the San Diego Repertory Theatre, which enjoyed a huge success with the comic musical last summer and sponsored Saturday’s event as the first major shot in its goal to reach financial stability by year’s end.

“The Rocky Horror Show” and its film version cousin are the subjects of cult adulation and only too well known to those who know them at all. To thoroughly enjoy the work requires a variety of props, including popcorn, a refreshment rarely encountered in the Crown Room but handed out Saturday in discreet paper sacks to the reasonably demure crowd that showed up to join the show’s cast in “Let’s Do the Time Warp Again.”

Party favors included plastic cigarette lighters (a necessity for participation in a number titled “There’s a Light”) and bizarre, behemoth hats confected on the spot by Artists in Motion, a hands-on arts group that shaped recycled paper grocery sacks into fantastic chapeaux . The hats made the audience look more as if it had assembled in response to a casting call for the part of the Mad Hatter in “Alice in Wonderland.”

The spoof invited a definite giddiness on the part of guests’ wardrobes that was met with surprising reluctance; the crowd, on the whole, went in for elegance and restraint rather than flash, even though the invitation suggested “anything that glitters” as an alternative to plain old black tie. One impossible-to-overlook exception to the general correctness in attire was long-time Rep board member John Wertz, whose black bustier, worn under a dinner jacket, was noticeably less demure than the Chanel-style black dress and pearls worn by his wife, Susan. “I thought that we were supposed to push the edge of the envelope tonight,” Wertz said.

“ ‘The Rocky Horror Show’ is all about cross-dressing, you know,” said Rep producing director Sam Woodhouse, atypically black-tied but typically un-tongue-tied. “And tonight, like the show, is invitingly irreverent, with equal doses of satire and entertainment; these are qualities common to productions we stage at the Rep. What is most important is that this party is one of the key steps necessary to ensure our survival, by helping us toward the goal of $350,000 we need to raise by the end of the year.”

“These are tough times, and the sole focus of the evening is to keep actors and works on the Lyceum Theatre stage,” added Rep managing director Adrian Stewart.

Later, during a live auction in which guests bid both for use of a sky box at a San Diego Padres game and for a walk-on part in the Rep’s Christmas-time production of “A Christmas Carol,” Stewart implored the crowd, “Everything you donate goes to put art on the stage, so be generous.” The box brought a high bid of $700, and the walk-on part, $1,000.

The evening built through the cocktail hour, the festival of hat trimming and the dinner of beef filet perigordine , to one supreme moment, the performance of selections from “The Rocky Horror Show” by the cast that entertained about 30,000 San Diegans last summer. The audience urged on the performers, and then, encouraged by the cross-dressing Dr. Frank N. Furter’s exiting line, “Thank you for keeping us employed, honeys,” raced to the dance floor to rock out to “Pink Cadillac,” the opening number played by the Bill Coleman Band.

Linda Shohet, whose husband, Jeff, presides over the Rep board, headed a committee that included Barbara Brady, Ted and Warrine Cranston, Mary Pappas, Mary Swanby, Bette Townley, Joy Miller and Sheri Kelts. Among guests were Diane and Fritz Stocker, Darla Cash, Carol and Sol Maksik, Ginger and Jorge Huerta, Dona and Giles Bateman, Patty and Dan Evatt, Dede and Michael Alpert, Ceci Doty with Bob McNamara, Madeleine and Frank Pavel, Berneice and Dempsey Copeland, Victoria Hamilton and Paul Hobson, Linnea and Frank Arrington, Ully and Jerry Edge, and Joyce Hurd with Jerome Brodish.

SAN DIEGO--Philanthropist Joseph Hibben, long known as a quiet but prime force behind the arts in San Diego--and perhaps less well known as the man who arranged the financing Walt Disney desperately needed to produce “Snow White”--headed the list of honorees at Friday’s Leonardo Da Vinci Awards luncheon, hosted at the San Diego Marriott by the California Confederation of the Arts.

The Da Vinci Awards are given annually in conjunction with the meeting of the arts group, a statewide nonprofit organization of artists and visual and performing arts institutions. Last week’s meeting was the first to be held in San Diego since 1982, when the awards program was inaugurated.

All recipients are from the area, and, in addition to Hibben (whose local credits include the former presidency of the San Diego Museum of Art) were the Dayton-Hudson Corp., the San Diego Hotel-Motel Assn. (which through the rooms occupancy tax will raise more than $5 million for the arts this year) and the Parker Foundation, another major source of funding. Dayton-Hudson, which locally operates Target and Mervyn’s stores, is the only New York Stock Exchange corporation that donates 5% of its pretax profits to the arts.

About 300 guests attended the program, which besides a poached salmon lunch included performances by the San Diego Opera Quartet, the San Diego Symphony, the Nigerian Drum Ensemble and the Los Alacranes Majodas mariachi group. Not unmindful of the effect of the economy upon philanthropy, CCA executive director Susan Hoffman told the crowd, “These are contentious times for the arts.” On a more upbeat note, she quoted a letter from honorary chairman Gayle Wilson that described the honorees as “dedicated champions of the arts.”

In his acceptance, Hibben thanked the CCA for “doing a fine job in clarifying public policy on art, and spreading the realization that art affects the quality of life at every economic level.”

LA JOLLA--Music publisher Neil Kjos and his wife, Barbara, opened their cliff-top home Sunday to more than 100 patrons of the upcoming San Diego Opera season-opening gala, “A Magical Evening in Vienna.” Diversions included an elaborate buffet catered by Issimo, and showings of ball gowns and about $2 million in custom jewelry from Saks Fifth Avenue.

Iris Strauss, chairman of the Jan. 18-19 event, explained that in her gala’s pecking order, those supporters labeled “patrons” occupy a stratosphere of their own because they contribute $1,000 each to attend the event, while ordinary guests pay just $850 per couple. Hence such patrons’ perks as Sunday’s reception.

The number of patrons is up sharply this year, to 125, and Strauss said she also expects a record total attendance of more than 350. “The patrons are basically underwriting the opera, but everyone who comes gets the same things,” she added. In a variation on previous years’ formats, the week-end party will begin with cocktails at the Westgate hotel, move on to the U.S. Grant for a gala supper after the season-opening performance of “Der Rosenkavalier,” then return to the Westgate for a sleep-over and for brunch the next morning.

Guests included patrons’ chairs Valerie Preiss and Ingrid Hibben; Sophie and Arthur Brody; Judith Harris and Robert Singer; Jeanne Larson; Georgette and Jack McGregor; Harriet and Richard Levi; Lee and P.J. Maturo; Sandra and Douglas Pay; Jo Bobbie and Guy Showley; Franne and Steven Wall; Nancy and Ross Rudolph; Joyce and Edward Glazer, and Joan and Irwin Jacobs.