Life partner Bradshaw Smith, family members, and neighbors, friends, and colleagues, including cabaret performer Susan Campanaro (Lavinia Draper), honored unforgettable late actor, singer, composer, and under the name Rose E., pastry chef John Scoullar, who passed away on March 25 and would have turned 62 on July 26, with a moving, multi-faceted memorial in Cherry Grove on July 24. This followed one that took place at the Laurie Beechman Theatre, in Manhattan, on May 22.
The July remembrance began at Grove Manor, where John and Bradshaw made their Fire Island home, with the dedication of a memorial “Cupcake Garden,” decorated with a portrait of Rose E., and seashells and rose petals, arranged by Miguel, followed by a meal that featured mac and cheese, according to John’s recipe, meat balls and ziti by Anthony Cardinale and, of course, colorful cupcakes for dessert. Guests were also invited to add pieces of twine to a growing ball, as Rose E. had claimed to be from a small town that boasted the largest ball of twine on record.
Repairing to the beach, the assembled tossed cupcake tins-full of John’s ashes into the waves to the musical accompaniment of a song, written by Jerad Bortz, for the Manhattan celebration of John Scoullar’s life. We continued on to the dock, where, at sunset, to the playing of a song about “44 sunsets,” from a stage adaptation, which John wrote with Rick Cummins, of Antoine de St. Exupéry’s “The Little Prince,” Bradshaw scattered rose petals and more of John’s ashes in Great South Bay.