Forward-line thinking for hospice
Hockey help: Gift of Time gala benefits Canuck Place, with plenty of backing from the puck purveyors
TOP LINE: Most charity galas have one person chairing. Some have two. But when the Gift of Time gala benefited Canuck Place, the children’s hospice related to the Vancouver Canucks Hockey Club, a full forward line was called for.
That’s why Lindsay Geheran, Cathy Trimble and Zahra Mamdani suited up to raise a reported $1,050,000 and counting for specialized pediatric palliative-care programs. Nine-year presenting sponsor Telus’s The Future Is Friendly slogan is a bittersweet one for the benefited babies, toddlers and youngsters whose lives dwindle away at Canuck Place. It could comfort the team, though, whose past season was anything but friendly.
GOOD LINE: Canucks defenceman Kevin Bieksa response to word that he looked threatening while being photographed with wife Katie at the Gift of Time gala: “I’m supposed to look threatening.”
GIFT OF TIMING: Autoform Mike Wood had a different-than-usual reason for leaving the Gift of Time gala by cab. Driving to the Bayshore hotel
with Rachel Lloyd in a new Tesla sedan, he pulled over to answer a call. Before the all-electric vehicle rolled again, it had a new owner, who paid $141,000 over the phone.
IN THE SWIM: Fifteen folk will pay $5,000-and-up each to dine at the Georgia Hotel Oct. 30 and benefit urological cancer research. After a bracing shower of Krug Grand Cuvée Brut champagne, they’ll nosedive into 13 donated Bordeaux-château wines of the 1982 vintage — from Lafite-Rothschild Pauillac to Le Pin Pomerol — and towel off with d’Yquem Sauternes ’67.
IN A NAME: Brilliant! was a third annual show that ran Sept. 27 in the Commodore ballroom, the day former owner Drew
Burns died. The event, which benefited the St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation, was founded by Volume Studio owner Dean
Thullner in gratitude for HIV/ AIDS and mental-health care he received. Other city salons and fashion designers presented 15 international-theme sets and reportedly raised $300,000. Looking like a million itself, the show could easily go on the road, albeit at the cost of many salon clients having their coifs unattended. Auctioneer Christo
pher Hunt, a.k.a. drag-dresser Symone, raised $100,000. A narrowly missed $15,000 bid would have seen a squad of firefighters drop their pants — and sent certain attendees to St. Paul’s with palpitations. A BRIDGE NOW NEAR: With 13 original songs by Bill Sample, former Sun reporter Bob Sarti has written a third musical set in East Vancouver. Based on a 1971 faceoff that resulted in an overpass being built across harbour-access rail tracks, The Raymur Mothers will premiere at the Russian Hall Oct. 29. Theatre In The Raw artistic director Jay Hamburger should give it deluxe treatment.
YES THEY CAN: The Women In Film & Television Vancouver organization’s Martini Madness fundraising party usually invites attendees to adopt a large- or small-screen production’s attire. Last year’s Mad (Wo)Men theme brought out 1950s-style flowing dresses. For Wednesday’s Moulin Rougethemed running at Vancouver FanClub, boas, fishnets and flounces ruled. Ooh-la-la costumes are fun, of course. But as WIFTV president Rachelle
Chartrand and directors well know, what counts isn’t having members dress for the cancan but getting their professional work in the can. More power — and screen time — to them. GIVE ’EM A HAND: Actress Krista Magnusson’s disembodied mitt has a scary role in
Matt O’Mahoney’s Bloody Knuckles, screening at International Village #8 at 3:45 today. But the one-time figure skater (no relation to similarly spelled
Karen Magnussen) needed her entire persona to devise the pioneering mentorship program for 18 fellow performers WIFTV will soon launch.
BALLOT BOXED: Municipal office- seekers preparing to live or die on the hustings might heed Anglo-French author Hilaire Belloc’s “Here richly, with ridiculous display / the Politician’s corpse was laid away. / While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged / I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.”
PARRY DIDDLES: The Firehall theatre’s former hose room is a fitting venue for the Urinetown musical to run Nov. 1-29 … Maybe Vancouver Art Gallery’s Swiss architects will match the library’s Colosseum-like building on Georgia Street by echoing Rome’s equally venerable Pantheon … Praying for the same weather next year, Theatre Under The Stars brass, supporters and stage veteran Jeff Hys
lop celebrated their 2014 season at the Sutton Place hotel … Jeweller Toni Cavelti donated a $24,000 diamond necklace and city actress Serinda Swan was MC when the Two World gala benefited developing-nation cancer care at the downtown Pinnacle hotel … Maybe conductor Gordon Gerrard will slip in Bring On The Clowns when the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra accompanies Cirque Musica’s aerial artists Oct. 11.