Love, Loss and What I Wore, a fundraising evening for Presentation House Theatre, featuring a reception and silent auction followed by a performance of the work, Thursday, April 25 and Friday, April 26 at the North Vancouver theatre, starting at 6 p.m. Tickets ($45) and info: phtheatre.org.
HANGING on the back of Nicola Cavendish father's bedroom door is a party dress she remembers her mother wearing to a 1959 New Year's Eve party in Winnipeg, Man.
Then five years old, the acclaimed North Vancouver actor vividly recalls how beautiful her mother looked that evening.
Years later, the dress is a treasured family heirloom, something Cavendish plans to one day hang on her wall, a means of treating it like the work of art it has become and to of course pay tribute to her beloved late mother.
The strong connection so often felt by women to their wardrobes and individual items of clothing, and the personal stories they can trigger is explored in Love, Loss and What I Wore, an upcoming production being mounted next week at Presentation House Theatre, Thursday, April 25 and Friday, April 26, as a fundraiser for the North Vancouver cultural institution.
Cavendish is among the actors and backstage personnel lending their talents to the benefit show, including fellow North Vancouver residents Jenny Mitchell, who's spearheading the project, and Veena Sood. They'll be joined by Patti Allan, Janet Gigliotti, Jennifer Clement and Susan Mendelson. The women previously united for the play in January in Vancouver as a fundraiser for Dress For Success. The majority of the lineup is the same this time around.
Love, Loss and What I Wore was co-written by the late Nora Ephron (known for her classic romantic comedies Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally. . .) and sister Delia (author of Hanging Up). It's based on the book by Ilene Beckerman as well as stories from Nora and Delia's friends, including Rosie O'Donnell. The play is continually mounted across North America, often as a fundraiser.
"It's very moving in places and quite poignant in others," says Cavendish, reached Tuesday from her father's Kaleden home in the South Okanagan. "I've still got clothes in my cupboard I can't get rid of. I don't know what that is, but the play nails it with the emotional relationship with clothing that we have, the sentimental memories that we have attached to a skirt or a pair of shoes."
Cavendish plays Gingy, who serves as the play's narrator. "I kind of open up the page of the play so to speak and let the audience in," she says.
Cavendish's experiences with Presentation House go back to 1982 when she and a friend were approached by its director and asked whether they'd like to put on a play. They responded positively and presented North Shore Live, which proved to be an "extraordinary" experience, she says.
"That play just happened to be attended by a New York Times critic who happened to be in Vancouver on the night that we were running that show and he decided, because it sounded intriguing, to come and check it out and he wrote up a review in Variety magazine, if you can believe it. This is a little two-hander, wilder-than-wild show, in which we played every character in a TV studio and all the guests," she says.
Cavendish next worked with Presentation House in 2006 as director of Hay Fever, which paired recent theatre school grads with established community players.
"I put the two together and came up with this wonderful little show. It was very successful for Presentation House," she says.
Most recently, Cavendish took the Presentation House
Theatre stage at a memorial service for her husband, who passed away suddenly in July 2011, the result of an undetected staph infection. He was a "crew guy, he was a backstage man," she says.
"I spoke from the stage and it was a wonderful, wonderful place to have the memorial service for Michael because we'd both met in the theatre and we knew that place very well," says Cavendish. "So my heart is very, very strongly attached to Presentation House for all the right reasons."
Cavendish and her six counterparts are pleased to be able to offer their support to the local theatre with the upcoming production.
"We all know that Presentation House needs much and the building that they're in, the old heritage building, needs much as well. We don't want to lose that theatre facility in North Vancouver," she says, adding she hopes the event encourages the greater North Shore community to likewise come together for the cause.
Each evening will get underway with a reception and silent auction at 6 p.m., followed by the performance at 7 p.m.
