I’m excited beyond words to embark on my next project, a highly acclaimed play about the fashion icon Diana Vreeland, former Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue editor, a woman who almost single-handedly shaped tastes, fashion and even language from the 1960s onward.
Much of the way we see clothes, color and even beauty owes much to this spectacular woman, this force of nature who by sheer and impeccable instinct influenced much more than just her fashionable milieu.
“Full Gallop” by Mary Louise Wilson and Mark Hampton is a play based on the life of Diana Vreeland (DV to you, dahlings), who stood at the center of American style for five decades. As editor of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue magazines, and as a member of the International Cafe Society, she chronicled the extraordinary people and events of her time.
The play is a portrait of this woman at a turning point in her life, when Vreeland had just returned home to New York after four months in Europe—a trip she took after being fired from Vogue magazine. In the play, she throws an impromptu dinner party in the hope that an invited wealthy friend will bankroll her in starting a magazine of her own. Other friends, however, attempt to persuade her to take a job at the famed Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In her distinctive style, once she decides in which direction her life will move, Vreeland will go at it “full gallop.”
It’s my first foray into producing theater (under My Own Mann Productions and Actor’s Actors, Inc.), and I would like to invite you to embark on what promises to be a most colorful, rewarding adventure with me, my dahlings! I have asked dear Bart Guingona to direct, and we have assembled a most impressive creative team.
“Full Gallop” will be running March 14-15 and 21-22 (8 p.m., with 4 p.m. matinee shows on March 16 and 23) at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Ayala Ave. cor. Sen. Gil Puyat Ave., Makati City.
Tickets are at P1,500 for orchestra center (reasonable, n’est ce pas?), P1,000 for orchestra and loge, and P600 for balcony.
(Call 2150788 or 0917-5378313 for tickets.)
See you there, mon cheri!