At SCR Benefit, All the Talent Under the Rainbow

Calling the event “the steal of the year,” Pablo Prietto took the hand of his wife, Anita, and swept through a rainbow arch to attend El Arco Iris Cultural on Saturday night.

“Here, for only $35, you get a delicious meal and a variety of entertainment unseen anywhere in Orange County,” said Pablo Prietto, chairman of South Coast Repertory’s fifth annual Una Noche del Teatro.

The benefit featured Latin American foods and a show that kept 500 theater lovers applauding happily for almost two hours.

Performing were members of the Culture Clash, the East Los Angeles Classic Theatre Company, Ciro Hurtado, the Inka Kings, dancer Claudia Lopez, comics Rick Najera and Diane Rodriquez, and for the first time, young members of the St. Joseph’s Ballet and Opera Pacific.

“We wanted to mix professional Latino performers with community groups this year,” explained Socorro Vasquez, a committee member and past gala chairwoman.

The money raised from the Una Noche del Teatro supports the theater’s work with the Latino community--locally, through an in-school theater outreach for children, and nationally, through its Hispanic Playwright’s Project.

As guests entered the theater’s fountain courtyard, they were serenaded by the Chicano music of Quetzal. Cruising buffet tables laden with duck and sweet corn tamalitos, masa turnovers and Cuban-style coconut shrimp, guests raved about the rainbow-themed decor.

“It’s so upbeat, happy,” Anita Prietto said.

Multicolored paper flags, papel picado , were strung between the leafy courtyard trees. Lamps were festooned with a rainbow of ribbons. A paper-flower-bedecked archway, reminiscent of the floral arches that decorate the church entrances of Mexico, helped set the theme, The Cultural Rainbow.

“This event is a wonderful way to help introduce the Latin community to theater,” Anita Prietto said.

Said Pablo Prietto: “Especially the young. Disneyland has donated tickets, and we, in turn, have given many of them to students who can’t afford to come, in order to expose them to the arts.”

Also among the guests was arts philanthropist Fernando Niebla, a founder of the Hispanic Playwright’s Project. “I love the variety and the enthusiasm of this event,” he said. “Every year, it gets bigger and bigger.”

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Poolside with Chanel: From the lean swimmers who played in the pool to the lithe models who sported the latest in Parisian fashion, last week’s “Afternoon with Chanel” at the home of philanthropist Mark Johnson was about the social event as an art form.

Luncheon guests--all members of the Newport Beach Guild of the Opera Pacific Guild Alliance--sipped Louis Roderer Brut Champagne on the elevated terrace of Johnson’s sprawling Tustin digs as they gazed on the scene below--two bronzed and buffed athletes, both in basic black, doing water-ballet moves in the pool.

Also on view were four snow-white scalloped canopies, each of which sheltered luncheon tables draped with white-on-white striped linens. Tables were topped with clear bubble vases filled with fuchsia, purple, red and burnt ember blooms. “The flowers are the colors of our fall/winter ready-to-wear collection,” noted Roger Martin, director of the Chanel boutique at South Coast Plaza.

“It’s back to basics,” Martin said of the new designs by Karl Lagerfeld. “For the last 10 years Chanel has gone to extremes, but now Lagerfeld is back to the classic Chanel look. Watch for longer jackets, very fitted, and straight skirts and pants.”

Especially hot are the wishbone-strap pump, the Oxford-style flat and pencil-slim black satin skirts paired with cashmere sweaters.

Johnson, who will co-chair the Opera Ball in November, was honored at the luncheon for his support of the arts. “I’m flattered, humbled, actually,” he said.

Barbara Harris of Newport Beach chaired the event. Gloria Gae Gellman, chairwoman of the Guild Alliance, said the $125 per person affair was being called “the event of the summer.”

“We are so grateful to Chanel for that,” she said. Guests also included Patti Edwards, Mary Dell Barkouras, Laila Conlin, Zee Allred, Dee Higby, Olivia Johnson, Jeanne Tappan, Gayle Widyolar, Susan Strader and Harriet Wieder.

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Shipshape with Sonenshine: Just back from a 50th birthday Mediterranean cruise aboard the Sea Goddess is Superior Court Judge Sheila Prell Sonenshine, her husband, Ygal, and 116 of their friends. The party-goers met in Venice, where they attended a kickoff reception at the Guggenheim Museum, then boarded the tony cruise ship to spend nights at themed parties and days sunning and shopping. “The Sonenshines took over the entire ship,” a participant said. “They invited all of their friends who were willing to pay their own way.” The cruise highlight: watching Bastille Day fireworks explode off the coast at Cannes.

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Lasagna with Liza: Liza Segretti--wife of Watergate figure Donald Segretti, now a Newport Beach lawyer specializing in bankruptcy law--whipped up lasagna verdi el forno for about 25 supporters of Opera Pacific last week at her mother Jane Lawson’s double-lot home on Newport Bay.

Liza, who met her husband during a dinner meeting of the Spaghetti Club (a social club formed by USC alums) in 1980 and proposed to him in 1981, she says with a smile, spent hours in her mother’s sunny kitchen preparing the luncheon.

She rolled out sheets of spinach pasta and whipped up Bechamel sauce for the dish, a recipe from Italian cookery whiz Marcella Hazan. (Liza took a cooking class from Hazan during a trip to Bologna in the ‘70s.)

“I would love to be able to write out a check for $100,000 to Opera Pacific, but I can’t, so I looked for a way to help generate some income,” said Liza, an opera board member who prepared her specialty for the company’s Festival of Fine Dining, a series of events staged in private homes.

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A taste of “Let’s Misbehave!”: Members of South Coast Repertory’s gala culinary committee met last week at the Westin South Coast Plaza to sample the ‘30s-style fare that will be served up at the theater’s annual preseason gala Sept. 23.

Themed “Let’s Misbehave!”, the $350-per-person event will be evoke the outdoor parties that flourished on the East Coast during the Gatsby era.

Committee members, headed by chairwoman Carole Johnson, sampled Champagnes and fine wines donated by liquor distributor Ted Simpkins and his wife, Mary Jean, who are underwriting the ball’s libation costs. They also tasted Beef Wellington and a trio of dessert cheesecakes.

The Westin’s executive chef, Frederic Castan, surprised the committee when he presented a tiny chocolate palm tree with the dessert course. “Takes us right back to the Cocoanut Grove,” said ball chairwoman Marilyn Lynch. Also attending were committee members Renee Segerstrom, Ellen Appel Olivier, Catherine Thyen, Peggy Powell and Joanne Rocks.