You Are Cordially Invited to a SPIRITED HOLIDAY SOIREE

Join illustrator and bon vivant TUG RICE for a lively, piano-fueled cocktail party, where creatives mingle with whispers of artists past in his Sutton Place apartment.

- VICTOR MAZE

In the Noël Coward play Blithe Spirit, novelist Charles Condomine and his wife invite an eccentric medium to their dinner party so he can discreetly study her as fodder for his new book. But the host's plan backfires when an after-dinner séance conjures the feisty spirit of his deceased first wife, who refuses to leave. As is often the case in Coward's plays, comedic chaos ensues.

Although illustrator Tug Rice's Manhattan apartment is-thankfully-not haunted by any mischievous ghosts, one does feel a different kind of spirit in the air at his holiday cocktail party. It's a spirit of creativity rooted in history-and perhaps the spirit of Coward himself, whose framed portrait watches over the revelry from a candlelit chest in the foyer. Rice first discovered the British playwright and composer when he portrayed the role of Charles Condomine in a high school production of Blithe Spirit and instantly connected with his work, even joining the Noël Coward Society, a fan club of sorts. "I was the youngest member by 80 years," he quips.

Rice's guests indulge in Negronisa specialty of the house-and Louis Sherry chocolates, presented in a limited edition tin designed by the host. OPPOSITE: A harbinger of the evening's festivities, a circa 1948 painting of stylish revelers hangs above the drawing room's faux-marble mantel (decorative painting by Artgroove).