Tribeca Show Biz Parties for a Cause

“This is the happiest I’ve been in weeks,” gushed model Carol Alt as she dashed around her loft at 124 Hudson St., stuffing 300 party bags. “It’s great to be doing something outside of me and my career and my family.”

Olympic Gold Medal figure skater Victor Petrenko with party hostess Carol Alt. Photos by Allan Tannenbaum

Hours later, the effervescent Alt was swirling among the hundreds of guests in a silk yellow and floral-printed Roberto Cavalli mini-dress, grinning for cameras and bubblng about the event—what probably was the first soiree for Tribeca’s disperate and sizable entertatinment industry.

The main attraction at the Feb. 20 party, however, was a little-heralded local institution: Tribeca Performing Arts Center at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Alt and next-door neighbor James Percelay threw the bash to bring attention to the center, whose programming has been hurt by a 50 percent drop in rentals and whose very existence is barely known in the neighborhood.

Inspired by a Trib cover story last month on the center, Percelay and Alt decided to bring Tribeca Performing Arts to the attention of those who might best be able to help. “We wanted to see if we could bridge the gap between all the entertainment companies down here and the resources of the performing arts center,” said Percelay.

Some 250 guests, from Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, Olympic Gold Medal figure skater Victor Petrenko and actress Carolyn Rhea to models, movie executives and political staffers, filled the partygivers’ ajacent lofts.

Linda Herring, the center’s executive director, said that she needs star power to attract the local community to her two state of the art theaters.
Jerry Wade belts out a tune from the show "Cafe Society," to be performed at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center
Sen. Hillary Clinton's chief of staff Tamera Luzzattgo (left) with Congressman Jerrold Nadler aide Linda Rosenthal.
“There are so many artists living in Tribeca who have a following,” she said. “If they brought their work to their own neighborhood the audience would come.”

Herring brought performers of her own to the party from “Café Society,” an upcoming revue at the center that recalls the legendary jazz club. Their renditions snapped the party goers to rapped attention and proved to this jaded crowd that big talent—if not big names—already fills the center’s bill.

Though it may be too soon to see what the gathering will mean for the center, Percelay and Alt deemed it a big success.

“You’re always nervous when you throw a party,” said Alt. “But when I saw Linda Herring leave, she was so happy. I slept well that night.”

-- Reporting by Carl Glassman and Shirley J. Velasquez