Looking stylish and chic in a sexy black ensemble, the 27-year-old brunette beauty appeared to be in good spirits as she chatted with fellow guests including Julianne Moore and Selma Blair.
As previously reported by Gossip Center, Miss Hathaway is also gearing up to receive an award from the prestigious Harvard University.
The “Princess Diaries” babe will be named as Hasty Pudding’s Woman of the Year and will lead a parade through Cambridge, Massachusetts in February.
November 20, 2009 5:41 pm
It was a reunion of sorts: Ginnifer Goodwin, Selma Blair, a host of fabulous Bulgari jewels, and me. The occasion was Bulgari’s dinner at L.A.’s Sunset Tower last night, in honor of the upcoming Christie’s auction of the Italian jewelry house’s 125th Anniversary Collection. It was just six months ago that we’d all celebrated Bulgari’s milestone birthday in Rome. Any favorite pieces? Of course. “I’m just a simple girl—I’ll go for the rubellite tourmaline and diamond ring, 37 carats,” Blair deadpanned. (It certainly wouldn’t have been out of place in more-is-more Houston, where she just finished a run in the new play Gruesome Playground Injuries; we hear its next stop is Broadway.) Goodwin, in a Rebecca Minkoff blouse and Antonio Berardi skirt, made sure to tell her boyfriend, Joey Kern, “I would bid on any and all of the Serpent bracelets.” They won’t be cheap, but at least they’ll be virtuous: The auction profits go to benefit Save the Children’s Rewrite the Future campaign, providing funds for the education of children living in war zones and other areas of conflict.
tags: Bulgari, Ginnifer Goodwin, Rebecca Minkoff, Selma Blair
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The scent of white gardenias filled the hotel's Terrace Room as A-list celebrities mingled around black mirrored tables and white lounges scattered with black and white cushions.
Bulgari vice-chairman Nicola Bulgari, Ben Stiller, Ginnifer Goodwin, Maria Shriver, Rosanna Arquette and Selma Blair were among the crowd invited to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the venerable Italian house on November 19.
The party was the second gathering for the elite jeweller staged in a fortnight, following a cocktail soiree the week before in Miami, at which guests such as Jennifer Lopez, Gloria Estefan and music executive Tommy Mottola sipped champagne and viewed some of the company's creations.
But the two events had a purpose beyond the usual branding and celebrity endorsement opportunities such companies often seek from them.
Both were staged to preview a $5 million collection of the jewellery and watches Bulgari is auctioning in New York next month, with all funds raised from the sale to be donated to Save the Children's Rewrite the Future campaign, dedicated to providing quality education for eight million children living in conflict-affected parts of the world.
"For Bulgari, being part of history and at the same time being able to help change it by giving less fortunate people the possibility of a new future is the best possible way of celebrating its 125 years," says Francesco Trapani, Bulgari Group's chief executive.
The Italian jewellery powerhouse originally announced its support of Rewrite the Future in October last year, donating E1m ($1.6m) towards the cause immediately and pledging an overall goal of E10m to be gathered through a series of fundraising initiatives, including the jewellery auction through Christie's at Rockefeller Plaza next Tuesday.
A silver ring with the Bulgari branding was also created to support the campaign, with a percentage of worldwide sales from each ring going to Rewrite the Future.
Italian photographer Fabrizzio Ferri donated his time to shoot a campaign to promote the initiative, starring Willem Dafoe, Jason Lewis, Ben Stiller and Isabella Rossellini all wearing the ring.
The collection to be auctioned in New York, which was first revealed in May at Bulgari's first retrospective exhibition at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, is the centrepiece of the ambitious plan.
Since then it has toured the world, making pit stops in cities including Shanghai, London, Sydney and Los Angeles on its way to New York, where the jewels and watches will be on display in Bulgari's Fifth Avenue flagship before heading to Christie's.
The auction will feature 11 exclusive jewellery pieces and seven timepieces, some made for the auction and others to celebrate the anniversary.
The most expensive item is a multicoloured sapphire and diamond necklace with a retail value of $US1.05m ($1.14m).
The show stopper comprises 169 sapphires of differing size and colour, totalling 400 carats sprinkled through 951 brilliantly cut diamonds, forming a collar-like necklace with a slightly Egyptian appearance.
Its variety of colour, gems and cuts is emblematic of the Bulgari aesthetic, which is also exemplified by a sapphire and diamond ring designed around a rare cabochon-cut purple star sapphire with a total weight of 60 carats, flanked on by tapered baguette-cut diamonds.
Another highlight is the Lucea, a striking white gold necklace with diamonds totalling 84 carats. Seven rows of circular and square-shaped diamonds end with a fringe of large marquise and circular-cut diamonds in the piece worn by Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen in another of Ferri's campaigns for the house.
Earrings, diamond-studded watches, bracelets and rings make up the remainder of the collection to go under the hammer for Save the Children.
"I am convinced that we will succeed in achieving, and hopefully in exceeding, the ambitious target we have set ourselves," Trapani says.
Rajiv Joseph, whose play "Gruesome Playground Injuries" is enjoying its world premiere at the Alley Theatre, has won the 2009 Whiting Writers Award in the playwriting category.
The awards, of $50,000 each in ten categories, have been given annually since 1985 by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation to honor writers showing "exceptional talent and promise in early career." This year's awards were presented last week in New York.
"Gruesome Playground Injuries," Joseph's newest play, depicts two troubled soulmates, Kayleen and Doug, chronicling their 30-year relationship through the injuries each acquires in pursuit of attention and love. Selma Blair and Brad Fleischer star in the Alley production.
Joseph's other plays include "Animals Out of Paper" and "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo," which premiered to acclaim in Los Angeles earlier this year.
The injuries are horrendous and have earned the play its mature advisory from the Alley. At the same time, while extreme, they are more than suitable metaphors for the way people have of hurting each other in relationships.
"I think the ick factor of the play is something that keeps the audience visually in check. It keeps testing them. Where did those scars come from?" Blair said. "I'm not an ick fan. I had trouble even looking at him when we were first dealing with the prosthetics in the rehearsal process, just dealing with any blood is very frightening to me."
In contrast, Fleischer said he felt right at home the first time he covered his face in blood. "I come from the horror movie background so I love that stuff. I put the stuff on and I think that's great. I love putting that stuff on."
But Blair is nothing if not a trouper: "I keep my scars on to stay in Kayleen's skin when I'm not at work and then just touch them up before shows."
The length of the one-act show is tough, both agree.
"Having done a bunch of theater before, this is the hardest thing I've ever done," Fleischer said. "It basically is a one-man show where you're lucky enough to have somebody else out there where if you start faltering at all or if your energy starts to drop, you can look at the other person and pick it up."
"Rehearsal itself was really exhausting to me, but the payoff is so important," Blair said. "It's a blessing to get to do a play like this with Brad and with Rajiv's words. I love this play but it does require an endurance I need to find and it's an important play and I need to do it justice eight times a week."
Fleischer was an easy pick for his role, but playwright Joseph said they tried out several actresses for the Kayleen part before they found Blair, who wanted this role for a lot of reasons.
"This play is so close to me. This is a huge huge factor in my life, this play, and it was something I also wanted to prove -- can I do this? I'm terrified of stage, never really sure if I'm a good actress or not and this is a play where you get to figure it out; you get to work through a lot of choices and do it so many times."
At this point, Fleischer broke in to say: "I can tell you exactly why she got it ... We walked in and Selma is nervous and I was nervous for her and we started and ...all of a sudden Selma says 'I've got to stop,' and blood's coming out of her nose. For no reason at all, blood's coming out of her nose."
"I look over to Rajiv and he sits back and goes 'Oh, my God' and was just smiling and I'm thinking 'Rajiv, you can't start smiling when someone's bleeding out their nose.' And Rajiv says to me, 'Are you kidding? This is Kayleen!' "
Gruesome Playground Injuries runs through Sunday, November 15 on the Neuhaus Stage at the Alley Theatre, 615 Texas Avenue. For tickets, go to www.alleytheatre.org or call 713-220-5700.
A special First Affinity Series Symposium with playwright Rajiv Joseph and Alley Dramaturg Mark Bly is scheduled for Saturday, October 24, immediately following the 2:30 p.m. performance. They will discuss the genesis of the play, the rehearsal process and the societal issues raised by the play.
We'd heard so much about Rajiv Joseph as a promising new playwright that a more-than-ordinary pressure accompanied Wednesday's opening of Gruesome Playground Injuries at the Alley Theatre.
Happily, the Alley's world premiere of Joseph's newest play — his first presented in Houston — delivers on that much-touted promise. From its opening scene, and increasingly as it progresses, GPI reveals an original voice with a knack for blending quirky humor and unexpected poignancy.
Happily, too, the subtle but sure direction of Rebecca Teichman and the achingly human performances of Selma Blair and Brad Fleischer (they're the entire cast) do Joseph's script proud in a terrific rendition.
We first meet Kayleen (Blair) and Doug (Fleischer) as 8-year-olds in their Catholic school's infirmary. Kayleen languishes on the bed with a tummy ache. We discover that chronic “sensitive stomach” and vomiting (with traces of blood, or does Kayleen just imagine them?) will be a lifelong concern for the lass.
Doug bursts in displaying the bloody wounds of his latest escapade: He just rode his bicycle off the school's roof! We discover that Doug is perpetually “accident prone” or, more accurately, an accident enabler.
Doug and Kayleen's conditions draw them to each other in a prickly attraction — Doug eagerly expressing his fascination, Kayleen denying hers. But with the scene's convincingly kidlike obsessions (“Does it hurt?” “Can I touch it?”) and, especially, as it closes with Kayleen tenderly plucking bits of gravel from Doug's hand, we realize the two have forged a lifelong connection, whether they admit it or not.
GPI (if that sounds like a medical diagnosis, in this case it's entirely appropriate) chronicles Kayleen and Doug's relationship through the next 30 years, jumping back and forth in time. We find them at 23, or 13 or 33. Usually, one or the other is in a hospital or institution, or has lost an eye in a fireworks mishap (guess who?). As adults, their encounters occur after periods of estrangement. Though their emotional bond remains strong, the two are never willing to admit that at the same time. Joseph gradually reveals Kayleen's deeper emotional disturbances, her more secretive equivalent of Doug's overtly self-destructive tendencies.
Doug comes to believe Kayleen has a healing power for him — or could. Kayleen rejects that notion and its responsibility. And when the situation is reversed, she doesn't want Doug rescuing her, either.
At first you think, oh cute! a comedy about two oddball kids growing up through a string of crazy mishaps. Yet with its unaffected humor and deep sympathy, Gruesome Playground Injuries exerts a peculiar power to involve us in Doug and Kayleen's troubled lives. That's enhanced by wordless interludes in which the actors prepare for each new scene, donning whatever makeup is needed to suggest the injuries. At one point, simply pouring liquid becomes a potent ritual expressing anger and loss. (Trust me, you'll get it.)
Gruesome Playground Injuries finds a fresh way of expressing human vulnerability, and two individuals' struggle to understand their need for each other. Joseph takes risks, as in a key scene in which circumstances force one character to do all the talking, in a big confessional monologue that pays off emotionally. The unaffected humor, catching what many will recognize as normal weirdness, keeps the play fun and unpredictable. An adolescent first kiss scene is nothing new, but the one in GPI boasts the funniest payoff I've seen in any play or film.
Blair is excellent in her role, challenging because moody Kayleen so often shields herself with a surly, hostile and dismissive exterior. But Blair conveys her real pain, too, her sarcastic humor and her confused longing for Doug.
The engaging Fleischer proves a natural stage energizer in the live-wire role of impulsive, mercurial, energetic and ever kidlike Doug. The contrast between these two may be what makes the team playing so effective. They're the two-car emotional pile-up on the highway of life that you just can't look away from.
Taichman capitalizes on that factor with her shrewd staging of their interplay, from horsing-around to sullen spells. She also guides them persuasively through that tricky now-we're-kids, now-we're-adults stuff.
Taichman capitalizes on that factor with her shrewd staging of their interplay, from horsing-around to sullen spells. She also guides them persuasively through that tricky now-we're-kids, now-we're-adults stuff.
Accident and injury are the human condition, Doug and Kayleen seem to tell us. My own mere half-century on this planet leads me believe there's a lot of truth in what they (and the playwright) are so vividly expressing in Gruesome Playground Injuries.
• When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays, through Nov. 15
• Where: Neuhaus Stage, Alley Theatre, 615 Texas
• Tickets: $40-$55; 713-220-5700
| World Premiere – Thought-Provoking, Darkly Funny Gruesome Playground Injuries By Rajiv Joseph Directed by Rebecca Taichman Neuhaus Stage Previews start October 16, 2009 Opens October 21, 2009 Ends November 15, 2009 |
Selma will be in a play called “Gruesome Playground Injuries”, which will be going on in Houston, TX. The show begins performances Friday, October 16 and runs through Sunday, November 15 on the Neuhaus Stage at the Alley Theatre.
The world premiere of Rajiv Joseph’s (Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo) Gruesome Playground Injuries features Selma Blair (Hellboy, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Storytelling, Legally Blonde, NBC’s Kath & Kim) playing Kayleen and Brad Fleischer (Center Theatre Group’s premiere of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Broadway’s Coram Boy, Off Broadway’s Streamers) playing Doug. Gruesome Playground Injuries charts two lives, using scars, injuries and calamity as the mile markers. An imaginative tour de force the play explores why people hurt themselves to gain another’s love, and the cumulative effect of such damage, of such demands. Recommended for adult audiences. Strong language, profanity and violence.
TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets to Gruesome Playground Injuries are $21 Cheap Thrills pricing, for the October 17 matinee performance. Tickets for other performances are $40 – $55. All tickets to Gruesome Playground Injuries are available for purchase at www.alleytheatre.org, at the Alley Theatre Box Office, 615 Texas Avenue, or by calling 713.220.5700. Groups of 10 or more can receive special concierge services and select discounts by calling 713.315.3346. The added convenience of reservations by phone or Internet is available for a nominal fee. Tickets purchased in person at the Alley Theatre Box Office have a $1 facility fee.
