Lost in the Stars for an Evening With the Music of Kurt Weill

The work of Kurt Weill, born 100 years ago and one of the musical theater’s most innovative and prolific composers, was celebrated at the ninth annual Salon at the Taper.

Titled “I’m a Stranger Here Myself,” the event staged at the Mark Taper Forum featured a number of artists who launched their careers in Weill’s shows. Weill died of a heart attack at age 50 in 1950.

Among those sharing memories was Anne Jeffreys, who recalled her Broadway debut in Weill’s “Street Scene”: “I had a 104-degree fever, but, with the adrenaline going. I could do anything. My poor understudy never got on stage!”

And Nancy Olson Livingston remembered her first meeting with Weill. She had gone to lunch with Alan Jay Lerner, whom she would later marry, at Weill’s home. “Kurt asked me to play his new song, ‘I’ll Stay With You’ from ‘Love Life.’ Alan sang it to me while I played . . . and I believed him!” (They later divorced). “A month later while on our honeymoon, we got a wire that Kurt had died. Alan went into another room and cried all that day.”

Sheila and Wally Weisman chaired the event, which was hosted by Michael Feinstein and directed by Gordon Hunt. Feinstein ducked out to grab a red-eye to New York right after the finale (“Mack the Knife,” of course, with the entire company). But, most cast members lingered at the post-party held in the Grand Hall of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Spotted at Patina’s lavish buffet were Rene Auberjonois, Philip Casnoff, Alvin Epstein, Nanette Fabray, Constance Hauman, Harry Groener, the Hudson Shad quintet, Angelina Reaux, Michael Paul Smith and Andrea Marcovicci--she had flirted madly with Kirk Douglas in the front row, while singing “One Life to Live” from “Lady in the Dark.”

Also seen: Tige Andrews, Bea Arthur, John Astin and Carole Cook, all of whom had appeared in Weill’s off-Broadway production of “The Threepenny Opera” in the ‘50s.

The event Dec. 4 raised $250,000 for the Center Theatre Group. CTG director Gordon Davidson said proceeds from the Salon series are earmarked for “Nick’s Tix,” named for a CTG stalwart, the late Nick Vanoff, to fund low-cost tickets for students, seniors and the disabled.

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Grace Nicholson would have loved it. Pasadena’s Pacific Asia Museum, until 1944, the late art doyenne’s treasure house, echoed with the sounds of taiko drums, cymbals and lion dancers to launch the largest permanent display of Chinese ceramics on the West Coast. The morning drizzles cleared just in time for Friday’s courtyard soiree for the members’ preview of the new Chinese Ceramics Galleries.

The collection of 300 pieces spans more than 2000 years of ceramic production in China. It is, said East Asian curator Meher McArthur, “an art so revered in Chinese culture that some Chinese emperors scribbled poetic praise on their favorites--ruining the bowls, of course.”

The three galleries, created by exhibition designer Carol Fulton, focus on burial ceramics, export ware and porcelains for the imperial court.

Fulton’s credits include rooms at the L.A. Central Library and Getty Center and Craft and Folk Art Mu-seum, the restoration of a historic building in Shasta and a new museum in Temecula. (Aspiring designers take heart: Fulton recalled a memorable day when she spotted her former junior high art teacher in a gallery she created. “It’s wonderful! Who did it?” asked the teacher. “Someone who got an ‘F’ in your class,” Fulton replied.)

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You’ve probably never noticed the Sisters of Social Service on the streets of Los Angeles because these Roman Catholic nuns don’t wear flowing habits, wimples or cornets. The order was founded in 1923 by Sister Margaret Slachta, a Hungarian nun who was the first woman to serve in her country’s parliament. For 75 years, in simple gray suits, the women have been quietly going about their business, helping the needy in Los Angeles.

Members of Juniors of Social Service, who support Regis House, the West L.A. community center operated by the sisters, honored the order’s longtime service at the 65th annual Candlelight Ball at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel on Saturday. Talk-show host Leeza Gibbons presented the Angel Award to Sister Michele Walsh, general director of the order. In tribute to the sisters, event co-chairwomen Mary Martin and Sandra Hobson chose “Angels in Disguise: A Masked Ball,” as the theme, which brought out a variety of feather and glitter fantasies along with a sprinkling of “Phantoms” and “Jasons” in the crowd. (The nuns eschewed masks for the party, but, Sister Rochelle Mitchell did boogie on the dance floor.)

Juniors president Mary G. Palmer reports that the ball raised more than $150,000 for the more than 300 poor families served by Regis House.

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Patt Diroll’s column is published Tuesdays. She can be reached at pattdiroll@earthlink.net.