Spring Awakening
Up-and-Coming Actors Liven Up Lincoln Center Benefit
Early on last night at the Lincoln Center Institute's Junior Spring Benefit, all the pieces seemed to be in place for a charity rager. At least one guest had called in a "doctor's appointment" for the next morning, and the venue—the Hudson Hotel, which co-sponsored the event with Valentino—was supplying extra-large Champagne flutes. "They want to get us waaasted!" reckoned Nina Freudenberger.
But the interior designer and most of the other committee members kept it together, if only because seemingly every other one of them needed to be stage-ready the next day. Zoe Kazan, currently starring in A Behanding in Spokane, was cuddled up on a couch with her boyfriend, Paul Dano; a seat over were Mamie Gummer and her fiancé, Benjamin Walker, who's playing the lead in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. And if you're Lily Rabe, who's currently in rehearsals with Al Pacino for the Shakespeare in the Park production of The Merchant of Venice, you probably don't want to be battling a hangover at work.
Proceeds from the first-time event benefit the educational arm of Lincoln Center, which nurtures the sort of creativity Rabe and most of her fellow ticket-sellers (including designer Lyn Devon and photographer Frances Tulk-Hart) have been fortunate enough to cultivate more or less on their own. "As someone who struggled with math and science, I'm grateful for the arts education I had," noted Rabe, who majored in theater at Northwestern. Doubtless Whitney Port and Lindsay Lohan, also in attendance, would have echoed that sentiment.
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