Having a Ball?

For more than two centuries, British colonials tried to remake the vast Indian subcontinent in their own image. The task facing the chairs of the last season's Angel Ball was only slightly less daunting. After 20 years of being staged in hotel ballrooms, the 21st gala for The Community School of Naples, themed A Passage to India, would be brought on campus.

Parents were proud of the school's new 50,000-square-foot field house, but some doubted the wisdom of holding a ball there. How, they asked, can you expect guests to pay $450 a person to dance and dine in a space where basketball players normally cavort?

Easy. You recreate the Taj Mahal.

Naples is a gala kind of town. But how much effort goes into one night of magic? A behind-the-scenes look at the making of the 2005 Angel Ball shows that strategy, timing and theme all pose key challenges. And when the going gets tough, cool heads-and chairs with contingency plans-can still triumph.

Let's Get It Started

In January 2005, the chairs of November's Angel Ball are named: Courtney and Chad Ott and Elise and Mark Burfield. All are school parents; Chad is also a CSN graduate. The couples know that they have to make it clear to potential supporters that the money raised by the ball goes for financial aid for qualified students, not for improvements to the sprawling north Naples campus.

In 1985, when the first Angel Ball was held at the Naples Beach Hotel & Golf Club, it was one of a handful of black-tie benefits on the social calendar. Now there are dozens. The ball has the advantage of a November date, meaning guests haven't succumbed to spring's donor fatigue, but, competition for philanthropic dollars is tight.

As the husbands start looking for sponsors to underwrite tens of thousands of dollars' worth of costs, the women get down to the planning and executing of the ball. "It's like running a million-dollar corporation for a year," Courtney says.

The chairs find an invaluable ally in the school's director of special projects, Mary Ann Smiley. The 10-year ball veteran is the enforcer of budgets and timelines, with a sideline in after-ball auction-item follow-up. (No one receiving a Monday morning call from Smiley would dare express bidders' remorse.) More than 75 committee members are ready to help, and event planner Beth Carr stands by to carry out the production details once the chairs announce the theme.

An Ambitious Theme

Picking a motif is a treacherous business in a town where bright ideas seem to hit everyone at once. Angel Balls of the past few years have welcomed divas in big hair and oversized sunglasses, women channeling their inner Wicked Witches and Sleeping Beauties for a fairy-tale come to life and, for the ball's 20th anniversary, those paying tribute to the bygone icons of Hollywood elegance.

With Far Eastern styles showing up in home accessories and jewelry design, A Passage to India is forward-thinking without being too esoteric. There's an earnestness and sincerity to the theme as the chairs approach it: The elephant, an icon that appears throughout the event's printed material, represents the passing of knowledge from one generation to the next. Other promotional pieces highlight a quote from Gandhi: "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Still, Gandhi never had to agonize over whether to ditch his robes for a little black dress or jewel-toned gown. Months before the ball, women fret over whether bright silks will flatter them, ordering custom saris from London or India and putting gowns from Marissa Collections and Saks on standby just in case.

The 500 expected guests will want to be kept buzzing about the fashion, the over-the-top auction packages and the décor. They want to believe that the Rajah could walk through the gym door at any moment.

Hello, "Christo" Drapings

Fortunately, Beth Carr is already a believer and is delighted to be holding the ball in the school's new addition. Never mind the rows of bleachers-they're going to be draped in 10,000 yards of orange duponi silk. And the rafters? Hidden by billowing tents of fuchsia silk. And, too, she'll be freed from the structural limitations that come from working in a hotel ballroom. (It's amazing what they won't let you hang from a ceiling.)

Carr's crew will have a few days to assemble their vision on site, versus the 24 hours hotels usually allow. But Carr knows the parts need to be in place well before then. Silks need to be procured, table linens need to be custom-made, and she needs to find the furniture that will transform the upstairs workout room into a spot fit for a sponsors' reception. For that, she starts in India.

At First, Smooth Sailing

Courtney and Elise juggle chair duties with family calendars and social commitments, but by late summer, they joke that they have to take a hard line toward children who clamor for milk and vegetables. "It's 'Take a multivitamin, and I'll get back to you,'" says Elise. Courtney concurs: "Your mother has left the building."

Courtney, Elise and Mary Ann Smiley meet with Andra Fereza of MediaGraphics on the ball's invitation, a traditional Hindu wedding scroll that Elise has found on an Indian bridal site. They check the schedule to see if they have the 12 production days needed for the invitations to be manufactured in India. They do.

The timing of the invitations and the auction catalogue release are critical. Seating charts-never easy-are made less tricky when a critical mass of responses comes in at once. That way the chairs can see instantly which friendly couple can be paired with which shy new parents. And having the auction catalogue in hand two weeks before the ball is a way to build excitement about what are called the "large fantasies," items that can't be obtained anywhere else. Keeping the large and small packages fresh is a challenge in an era when it seems that money can buy anything.

This year, the one-of-a-kind items include a custom, themed piece from the very collectible master goldsmith Ruven Perelman. One of the quirkier smaller fantasies is a session with Lloyd Sheldon Johnson, a Boston-based psychic who is almost impossible to book. The catalogue also lists the silent-auction items, which range from the ordinary-a teeth-whitening session from dentist parents-to the truly novel, a wild-game cookbook signed by author/rock star Ted Nugent, a former CSN parent. As they review the timeline, the women agree that they are eerily on schedule. Someone should have knocked on wood. .

Then, Rocky Waters

The disaster that is Katrina casts a pall over philanthropic efforts across the country. It's hard to throw a party in the wake of tragedy. The storm also increases hurricane jitters locally, and when Wilma threatens in late October, the Burfields and the Otts evacuate. Their homes suffer only the loss of a few trees, but down the road at MediaGraphics, the roof caves in on top of Fereza's computer. She has data backed up, but crucial time is lost in getting the files to Press Printing. The catalogue comes out just a few days before the ball, limiting the time attendees have to consider their wish lists.

The weekend after Wilma, when many in Old Naples are still waiting for their power to be turned back on, the chairs of the Hospital Ball announce that their gala must go on, although everyone is welcome to don casual duds. Instead of using the money for the new heart unit at NCH, organizers announce that net proceeds will go to Hurricane Wilma relief. This is met with cheers by the attendees of the ball-and with sinking silence from the chairs of other galas.

There's no way that the school can divert the Angel Ball funds. Almost $1 million in financial aid is already pledged to students for the current term. The money comes solely from the school's two big fundraisers (the other is a spring polo event) and the anonymous donors of the school's Angel Program. The chairs know that those who have been involved with the school from its beginning understand the importance of supporting promising students. They have to trust that other guests have gotten the message.

And maybe they have to hope that a hurricane-weary community will welcome a grand party, and that they are in need of some mystery and magic.

They do. And they are.

Finally, a Vision Rises

The night of the Angel Ball, guests hand their keys absent-mindedly to the young valets while gaping at the Taj Mahal, complete with twin gilded domes. No one has to know that it took 10 people to wrestle the hand-carved foam sculpture to the face of the building, or that five days earlier, Beth Carr had to fly an artist in from Madrid to finish painting it. The illusion is in place.

Guests are escorted into the palace and the silent-auction preview by umbrella-bearing minions (students who are receiving community service hours for volunteering at the event). Upstairs at the sponsors' reception, the Otts and Burfields are near the canopy bar by the entrance, greeting guests. Despite Elise's threat "to wrap myself in a sheet and a bow," she and Courtney are resplendent in gold and orange silk. Like Hollywood stars, the two are decked out in more than $100,000 of loaned jewels from Bigham Jewelers. Their husbands haven't been talked into saris, but one brave male, parent David Chambers, is a hit in his muted silk Nehru jacket with bright blue embroidery, made in London.