Palm Beach Theater Guild: February 2009

Photos by: Tom Tracy

It was a different Palm Beach crowd at Veronica Atkins-Mersentes and her husband Alexis’ spectacular penthouse, overlooking Palm Beach and the Royal Poinciana Playhouse. Unlike the usual rubber chicken sit-down benefits or cocktail parties in the winter playground, the Mersentes party was more of a salon for partisans who want to preserve their historic theater in Palm Beach.

Christopher Plummer and his wife, Elaine

Ogunquit Playhouse Director Brad Kenney, Joe Day and Lindsay Turner

Christopher Plummer and his wife, Elaine, were guests of honor with the small committee that included Palm Beach Theater Guild President, Patrick Henry Flynn, Winston and Helen Guest, Car Magnate, Chuck Schumacher and his wife Amanda, Philadelphian Dr. Elizabeth Bowden, Bostonian Dyanne Tosi, Broadway producer Ralph Guild, and Newporters Richard and Suebelle Robbins.

Gloria McCarthy, Pianist David Crohan, and Rena Damone

Plummer signed books in the library. David Crohan, the piano virtuosos, from Café Europe in Palm Beach and Martha’s Vineyard, tickled the ivories in the main salon. He was spelled by concert pianist, Marina Arsenvich, who played and was joined by the host Veronica Atkins Mersentes. She sang, “Dark Eyes”, a Russian Folk song that has a lilting gypsy melody.

During the salon, Patrick Henry Flynn lived up to his names and gave a brief oration about saving the beleaguered Royal Poinciana Playhouse and changing its use from a touring or booking house to a regional subscription theater. We expected “Give me the Royal Poinciana Playhouse or Give me Death,” But later, Bostonian and Palm Beacher, Flynn said that, “The historic, landmarked theater is fifty-one years old. In South Florida that is the equivalent of saying in Boston, Paul Revere slept here.”

Listening to Flynn was Broadway theater owner, Jimmy Nederlander and his wife, Charlene who jetted back to Palm Beach from St. Croix from an anniversary celebration. Nederlander’s partner, Terry Allen Kramer, threw an intimate dinner party for thirty-two last week, to save the landmarked playhouse. But Nederlander and his son James and Margo Nederlander had to miss the dinner because they were in the islands.

Larry Leamer and Alexis Mersentes

Best Selling author Larry Leamer whose recently published “Madness under the Royal Palms” is being talked about by everybody in Palm Beach, shared some witticisms with Christopher Plummer who finished the book that day, and commented that it read like a novel.

Kathy Craft, Patrick Henry Flynn and Mary Coviello

Others there included Bradford Kenney and Artistic advisor to the Palm Beach Theater Guild who runs the historic Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine, Harland and Ann Riker, Cathy and John Lively, Art Critic Gary Schwan and New Orleans travel maven, Pamela Pipes.

Amanda Schumacher and friends.

Suebelle Robbins, Nancy Parker and Ashley Copeland.

The Palm Beach Theater Guild is a non-profit advocacy group that has been engaged in a four year court battle to save the historic theater by renting it and changing it from a commercial booking venue to a regional subscription based Playhouse featuring significant American plays and musicals with stars.