St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
What: Dress for a Cause, now in its third year, returns for another fashion-filled evening. The night will feature a fashion show, silent auction, cocktail reception, and Scotch tasting. Fashion designer Sara Campbell, Kenzie Kids, and KGirl will host the evening, and Susan Wornick of WCVB TV 5 will be the master of ceremonies.
When: May 16, 6 pm
Where: Wellesley Country Club, 300 Wellesley Ave., Wellesley

Emerald Neck lace Conservancy
What: The annual Party in the Park will hold its elegant catered reception and luncheon against the backdrop of the Kelleher Rose Garden. Event chairs Janet Atkins, Jane Roy, Lynn Dale, and Holly Safford hope to gross another $600,000 this year to restore the Shurcliff-designed Rose Garden Fountain and support the Justine Mee Liff Fund, among other goals. The Boston Symphony Orchestra will perform during the event.
When: May 16, 11 am
Where: Back Bay Fens

The Breast Cancer Research Foundation
What: Show your support with a flourish of pink at the annual Boston Hot Pink Party. Dinner and live entertainment will follow a lavish cocktail hour. Last year’s event raised over $1 million for breast cancer research, and 2012 is expected to top that mark. Cochairs Elisha Daniels, Donna Stearns, Kelley Doyle, and Linda Waintrup contributed to the planning for this party, which will honor Daniels and Sandra Krakoff, the recipients of BCRF’s 2012 Humanitarian Award.
When: May 17, 6 pm
Where: InterContinental, 510 Atlantic Ave.

Best Buddies Challenge: Hyannis Port
What: Join event chair and Best Buddies global ambassador Tom Brady while cycling from Boston to Hyannis Port to raise money for Best Buddies International. Carl Lewis will lead the Carl Lewis Challenge, a five-kilometer run/ three-mile walk event, and all participants will cap off the day with a gourmet lobster bake on Craigville Beach and a private Plain White T’s concert. Anthony K. Shriver is the founder and chairman of Best Buddies International, which raised more than $4 million in donations during last year’s challenge.
When: June 2, 7 am
Where: Boston and Hyannis Port

Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center
What: The One Hundred dinner and gala will honor 100 individuals and organizations who have contributed to the fight against cancer. Last year the event raised nearly $1.3 million to support research, education, patient care, and community outreach. Event cochairs include Vicary Graham, Jonathan and Patty Kraft, and Henri and Belinda Termeer. The ceremony will feature Academy Award-winning actor Matt Damon, who became affiliated with the event after MGH treated his father for cancer.
When: June 7, 6 pm
Where: Westin Boston Waterfront, 425 Summer St.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY PASCAL LE SEGRETAIN/GETTY IMAGES (DAMON); SCOTT HALLERAN/GETTY IMAGES (BRADY);

GAIL OSKIN/WIREIMAGE (DANIELS, DALE); BEN JOHNSON/SHAWMUT DESIGN (INTERIOR); DAVE GORDON (GROUSBECKS

Ellie Fund
What: Celebrate the Oscars with the Ellie Fund, an organization that provides breast cancer patients with transportation to appointments, childcare, housekeeping, and meal delivery, all free of charge. Guests at this black-tie affair— including red carpet hosts J.C. Monahan and Bianca de la Garza, and event emcees David Brown and Susan Wornick—will enjoy cocktails, chef stations, and auctions while watching the Oscars.
When: February 26, 6:30 pm
Where: Mandarin Oriental, 776 Boylston St.

American Cancer Society
What: The annual Boston Key Gala benefits AstraZeneca Hope Lodge Center, a program of the American Cancer Society that provides free temporary housing for cancer patients who need to travel 40 miles or more from home to receive treatment in Boston. The gala’s honoree this year is Robert A. Cascella, president and CEO of Bedford-based Hologic. Joyce Kulhawik will emcee, and the band Soho will perform. cancer.org
When: March 29, 6 pm
Where: Citi Performing Arts Center Wang Theatre, 270 Tremont St.

Make-A-Wish Foundation
What: At the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Massachusetts and Rhode Island 2012 Gala, join emcee Liz Brunner for a cocktail reception, dinner, dancing, and auctions. The 2011 gala raised $700,000, allowing the charity to grant 100 wishes. massri.wish.org
When: April 28, 6:30 pm
Where: InterContinental, 510 Atlantic Ave.

The UNICEF Children's Champion Award dinner will honor Sting and wife Trudie Styler

UNICEF
What: The US Fund for UNICEF honors Sting and wife Trudie Styler at the Children’s Champion Award Dinner. Cochairs and board members Alli and Bill Achtmeyer, with Barrie and Kevin Landry and Elaine and Bobby Sager, host a cocktail hour, dinner and auction to raise money to help protect children from preventable diseases.
When: October 20, 6:30 PM
Where: The Park Plaza Castle, 130 Columbus Ave.
Contact: unicefusa.org

Room to Grow
What: Emcee Mary Richardson and community leaders celebrate the efforts of parents helping their children thrive despite the challenges of poverty. The annual Room to Grow Fall Gala will honor Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, one of the world’s foremost authorities on pediatrics and child development. The event includes dinner and an auction.
When: November 5, 6:30 PM
Where: Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston St.
Contact: roomtogrow.org

Boston Lyric Opera
What: Boston Lyric Opera’s annual fundraising gala celebrates the supernatural this year. Hocus Pocus: An Operatic Trip to the Dark Side includes cocktails and dinner interspersed with ghost stories and music performed by BLO emerging artists. Chaired by Willa and Taylor Bodman, Lisa Greiner and Alan Dynner. Black tie or occult couture encouraged.
When: October 22, 6 PM
Where: Mandarin Oriental, 776 Boylston St.
Contact: blo.org/events

On November 5, Louis Boston will present a trunk show with Jason Wu’s fall line, featuring his signature saturated colors and perfect tailoring. Long a purveyor of fashion from ofthe- moment designers, the store was one of the fi rst to carry Wu’s line in the US and the fi rst to carry it in Boston. “He’s a brilliant designer who is way ahead of the curve on many things,” says Louis Boston’s vice president, Maria Fei. “The craftsmanship that goes into his designs brings me back to the time when garments were meticulously hand-sewn to the utmost perfection.” Better mark your calendars now. 60 Northern Ave; louisboston.com

Women slipped into furs and draped themselves in jewels. It was an evening that demanded society’s finest: The nation’s most celebrated composer was premiering his hugely anticipated first opera not in New York, but in Boston at the Colonial Theatre. Admittedly it was an out-oftown tryout, but on September 30, 1935, George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess burst from the stage on Boylston Street and immediately carved its place in theatrical history. Based on the book and play by DuBose Heyward, who also wrote the libretto, the opera centered on a disabled beggar’s attempts to rescue a young woman mired in the seedy underbelly of Catfish Row, a South Carolina slum. Three quarters of a century later, Porgy and Bess opens locally once more. This time the American Repertory Theater is debuting the show, in its new adaptation as a musical, before a confirmed Broadway run early next year.

Bringing the steamy conflicts of Catfish Row back to the stage is Diane Paulus. A Tony nominee for her revival of Hair, the A.R.T. artistic director was handpicked by the Gershwin and Heyward estates to direct the Porgy and Bess revival. She’s assembled a killer cast with four-time Tony winner Audra McDonald starring as Bess. Broadway veteran Norm Lewis stars as the titular Porgy; and film, television and stage star David Alan Grier plays the insidious Sporting Life. Here, Diane Paulus and David Alan Grier share their thoughts on the show’s history and its new step into the future.

BOSTON COMMON: IS THERE SOMETHING THAT MAKES PORGY AND BESS PARTICULARLY RESONANT FOR THESE TIMES AND PERSONALLY?
DAVID ALAN GRIER: My father was obsessed with Porgy and Bess. He contracted polio during the Korean conflict; they said he would never walk again, and he was confined to a wheelchair. Then he worked up to crutches, then to a leg brace and a cane.
DIANE PAULUS: Did you know that DuBose Heyward had polio?
DAG: That’s what I mean. So you can imagine, I get goose bumps—it resonates when Porgy says, “I’m gonna walk like a real man, like a natural man.”
DP: The story has these incredible people who are dealing with their demons. When you speak about contemporary resonance, there’s a hurricane in the show that decimates the community. There’s something in this show about the will to survive and what gets us through—love, or a dream of who you want to be, that picks you up every day.
DAG: And what’s that concept of love? Porgy and Bess is, at its core, two flawed people, unlovable. Yet they find love. So yes, it’s a love story: how, in impossible circumstances, these people find love.

BC: WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE RACIAL COMPONENT OF PORGY AND BESS?
DAG: It was based on a real community and a real person, Sammy Smalls. Yet when Gershwin did it, it was so racially insensitive, racist in a lot of ways.
DP: There’s no Porgy and Bess without looking at the context in which it was done. There’s a lot to say about how it evolved, like what was radical in 1935.
DAG: It was radical, the concept that people of color could sing opera. That was one of the main criticisms, people saying, “We’re not going to seriously consider this an opera because these people—lesser people, black people— are not capable of understanding, singing and interpreting classical opera.”
DP: And it was George Gershwin who said, “No, Al Jolson, you cannot play this in blackface. I want an all African-American cast.”
DAG: Which was bold.
DP: It was also radical when the novel was written in 1925. We flash forward even a few years from then, and people think, This can’t be authentic.
DAG: Well, in 1935 African Americans’ literary and artistic voice was not what it is today. So to have white people say, “We’re going to tell your story,” immediately raised the hackles of black intellectuals and black theater goers and black people. But now it’s 2011, we have a black president, we have a different mind-set, and I think the pressure of that whole thing is different now.
DP: When the Gershwin estate came to me about the revival, they realized that if this piece is going to reach the next generation of audience, they needed a writer on board who can take it forward. To have someone like Suzan-Lori Parks [doing the adaptation], with Deidre Murray on the musical side, is so important. Deidre always says that she feels Gershwin wrote this as a love letter to black people.

BC: THE SHOW HAS RARELY BEEN PRESENTED AS A MUSICAL. HOW DO YOU ADAPT THE OPERA WHILE KEEPING ITS INTEGRITY?
DP: It’s a hybrid, and that was the genius of the piece. Gershwin was so far ahead of his time writing this in 1935.
DAG: When we began the process, I looked up the formal definition of opera: something that is totally sung. And in fact there is music for every line of dialogue. So, the first day of rehearsal, we were asking, “Can I sing this?” and then through the process going, “Well this doesn’t work, let’s speak this,” and then it all settled down.

BC: STEPHEN SONDHEIM SAID, “THERE’S PORGY AND BESS, AND THEN THERE’S EVERYTHING ELSE.” WHAT MAKES IT SO SINGULAR?
DP: It’s an incredible score. Don’t you think? You listen to this music and it’s iconic American. It has its own sound, and it just goes into you. It’s primal.

BC: DIANE, YOU’RE ESSENTIALLY CHARTING THE SAME COURSE AS GEORGE GERSHWIN HIMSELF—WORKSHOPPING THE SHOW IN NEW YORK, OPENING IT IN THE BOSTON AREA AND THEN DELIVERING IT TO BROADWAY. ARE YOU MINDFUL OF FOLLOWING IN HIS SHOES?
DP: It’s less about following in Gershwin’s footsteps. For me as director, and for Suzan-Lori and Deidre and all of the cast, we’re trying to get inside this house he built—to get in touch with the intention of George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward back in the 1920s and ’30s, and then find out what is not dated, but actually what’s timeless about the piece.

BC: IN THE GLEE ERA, DO YOU FEEL A RENEWED ENERGY AND MOMENTUM FOR MUSICAL THEATER?
DAG: To speak specifically to Glee, they’re really doing a different culture, and that is the culture of show choir. They’re not doing songs from Hello Dolly!, they’re doing Lady Gaga and Madonna. But in 2000 there were around 200 theater camps; 10 years later there are 2,000. There is interest among this new generation of young kids.
DP: I think musicals are American. We’re the American Repertory Theater. Musical theater can get a very bad rap as not serious theater, but to me it’s the muscle of American theater, and this opera is the uniquely American contribution—it’s the American 20th-century masterpiece.

On August 23 Zocalo Cocina Mexicana, the guacamole capitol of Boston, is teaming up with Community Servings for an end of summer patio party. In additional to putting on a splendid fiesta—promising plenty of summer cocktails and spicy bites—Zocalo will donate fiesta proceeds to Community Servings, which delivers hot meals to people with AIDS, their dependents and caregivers. As for the cocktails, Zocalo will serve its specialty margarita, whiskey smash, blueberry caipiroska, sangria and raspberry fresca mocktail. And you simply must dip into that famous guacamole served with corn tortilla chips, crispy avocado sticks, flautas de pollo and tostadas. The party will be hosted on Zocalo’s gorgeous outdoor terrace and serenaded by Latin musings. (6 PM–8 PM) 35 Stanhope St., 617-522-7777

Sandcastle building teams return to the dunes of Nantucket once again on August 20 for the 38th Annual Nantucket Sandcastle and Sculpture Day, where dozens of sand starfish, boats, skulls, lions and more will spring up on Jetties Beach. Professional artists from the Nantucket Island School of Design will be judging contestants on creativity, concept and design and skilled sand sculptors will bring their own dies, tools and props to shape and decorate their works. An event for all ages, the Sandcastle and Sculpture Day is the perfect post-brunch afternoon family outing. (Noon–5 PM) Jetties Beach, Bathing Beach Road, Nantucket; nantucketchamber.org

Esperanza Spalding

The soulful tunes heard upon entering Newport this weekend aren’t in your head—they’re the sounds of the 57th Annual Newport Jazz Festival. The weekend-long fest kicks off tonight with a concert on the green by five-time Grammy-nominated artist Michael Feinstein with special guests Joe Negri and legendary trumpeter Wynton Marsalis at the International Tennis Hall of Fame. A two-day line up of some of the greatest entertainers in the jazz world, from Esperanza Spalding (PICTURED) to Hiromi will follow tonight’s performance. We highly recommend taking a break from your Narragansett beach house to enjoy the sounds of the fest—we certainly will.

Our Newport Jazz Festival Picks:

Friday, August 5
International Tennis Hall of Fame, 194 Bellevue Ave., Newport, RI

Michael Feinstein with special guest Joe Negri and Wynton Marsalis (8:00 PM)

Saturday, August 6
Fort Adams State Park, Harrison Ave., Newport, RI

Hiromi (1:00–2:00 PM)                      
Wynton Marsalis (2:30–3:30 PM)          
Esperanza Spalding and Friends (3:50–4:50 PM)          
Grace Kelly with special guest Phil Woods (5:00–6:00 PM)

Sunday, August 7 
Fort Adams State Park, Harrison Ave., Newport, RI

Hiromi Trio Project (12:50–1:50 PM
Miguel Zenón’s “Puerto Rican Songbook” with Guillermo Klein (2:20–3:20 PM)                      
Angélique Kidjo (2:30–3:30 PM)
Ravi Coltrane Quartet (3:50–4:50 PM)           
Apex: Rudresh Mahanthappa and Bunky Green (5:20–6:20 PM)          

From legendary Cirque du Soleil director Jeannot Painchaud comes Cirque Éloize iD (May 10 to 15), a modern circus combining break dance, jaw-dropping acrobatics and skating with an eclectic soundtrack of rock, hip hop and electronica. The emotional and heart-pounding program takes cues from science fiction with stunt bikers performing against a cosmic video backdrop of sci-fi film clips, comic book scenes and graffiti. Described as “West Side Story gone hip hop,” the show is set in a futuristic city where neighborhood clans rule and individuality is expressed through dance.Citi Performing Arts Center, Wang Theatre, 270 Tremont St.