Linda Lavin in “Portrait of an Artist” was a wonderful evening of showbiz and well-lived life stories

My apologies in not posting this recap earlier – it’s been a busy few days.

But I wanted to be sure and share with you some of the photos I snapped on Saturday night when I attended Portrait of an Artist, a show during which Broadway and television icon Linda Lavin tells the story of her life and career, as her handsome husband Steve Bakunas conducts the interview – and at the same time paints her portrait!

The event was a benefit for Celebration Theater at its temporary (and possibly permanent?) new home at Atwater Village Theatre – a space I quite liked.

Miss Lavin tells it all: from childhood to early New York days, to first Broadway shows to the television years (nine seasons of Alice) and back to Broadway for a Tony win and several more nominations.

She tells all of this with terrific candor and I’m telling you right now, she has the makings of a terrific one-woman show on Broadway in the vein of Elaine Stritch and Bea Arthur. All she’d have to do is add in a little singing which we know she does so very well.

I did not know about the North Carolina years of Miss Lavin’s life and found them fascinating. She moved to Wilmington in 1995 to make the movie Stolen Memories: Secrets from the Rose Garden with Mary Tyler Moore.

It is there that she met Bakanus and created a very different kind of life. They ran a theater together for several years (a former auto shop that Bakunas renovated), restored houses in impoverished neighborhoods and were a real part of the community for many years.

It sounds like her most fulfilling chapter. Still so youthful and vibrant at 76, Miss Lavin plans to return to Broadway in a few months.

Plenty of famous faces showed up for the event including Miss Lavin’s Sean Saves the World castmates Sean Hayes and Megan Hilty who sat at a table on the stage along with Emmy winning actor Dan Bucatinsky of ABC’s Scandal and his director husband Don Roos (Opposite of Sex, Web Therapy).

Lavin’s longtime friend, Emmy winner Tony Shaloub (Monk) attended the show with his actress wife Brooke Adams ( just loved her in the 1989 TV movie Bridesmaids) as well as producer Marco Pennette (Ugly Betty).

Also in the audience was NBC Entertainment President Robert Greenblatt, the openly gay executive who championed Sean Saves the World but ultimately canceled it.

I was so happy to meet the star after the show and was glad she had seen the preview piece I had posted on the blog about her show and liked it.