Event planners had an in-house inspiration for the design of the Broad Stage’s second-season opening night gala Friday: the clean lines of architect Renzo Zeccetto’s year-old theater itself. And the spirit of Zeccetto’s minimal design meshed nicely with the nonprofit arts center’s minimal budget.
But there was nothing understated about the atmosphere of the gala dinner sponsored by Venice Magazine, where 300 supporters paid $1,000 a plate to see Mikhail Baryshnikov’s first L.A. performance in five years. (The program of duets with prima ballerina Ana Laguna kicked off the U.S. leg of their international tour.) To provide a suitably festive setting, Denise Flachbart of La Petite Soirée worked with Alison Crowell, a gala committee co-chair, who also supplied potables from her Red Car winery, and David Toledo, the Broad Stage’s technical director.
Borrowing from the wood-and-stone building’s palette of earth tones, organizers laid tables spread across the adjacent plaza with Tabella Design's custom wheat-colored linen-and-raw-silk cloths and rust-hued napkins, a nod to the theater’s orange logo. Echoing the theater’s boxy silhouette, napkins were folded into squares and the centerpiece flowers—tall white orchids with sprays of orange kalanchoe at their base—sat in square wooden planters.
The tables sat on an unobtrusive sisal mat meant only to cover the lawn. The drama came from Toledo’s design of a dozen 20-foot towers, glowing blue through a skin of cotton-polyester material, in several neat rows on the plaza. Lighting was secured at the towers’ tops, and as the sun began to set, white light sprayed subtly over the scene, like dappled sunlight through the trees.
“When I think of the Broad Stage, I think simple, clean, elegant, classic, and sophisticated,” said Toledo. “The conceptual design came from a desire to connect the look and feel of the party to the look and feel of the Broad Stage. I wanted it to almost seem as though the elements of the party belonged there as a permanent part of the facility.”
Guests girded themselves for the evening ahead by cruising Along Came Mary’s ample buffets of beef brisket, Thai salmon, lemon chicken carcioffi, parmesan bread pudding, penne pasta, and salads. While they dined, recordings of the season’s upcoming programs compiled by the Broad served as ambient sound. After the sold-out performance, guests left the 499-seat theater to find a sweet ending to the evening: an extensive dessert buffet with peach cobbler, toffee-chocolate bread pudding, ice cream, cookies, and cupcakes.
