VOGUE | A HARD DAY'S NIGHT

October 2, 2001 - Like the players in an indie film lover's dream, a thicket of movie and theater thesps turned up for The 24 Hour Plays after-party at Spa. Natasha Lyonne, Liev Schreiber and Lili Tay lor hit the hip downtown club's VIP room, coming straight from the Minetta Lane Theatre, where six short plays were written, staged and performed, all in the course of 24 hours (get it?), for one night only, to benefit families affected by the World Trade Center tragedy (ticket sales alone raised $30,000). Once safely offstage,

Philip Seymour Hoffman confessed to being a bundle of nerves, forgetting his first line. Luckily, the ubiquitous actor quickly ad-libbed his way back on track during his scene with Marisa Tomei and Adam Nelson.

Also crowding into the celeb-filled space were Billy Crudup, Mary-Louise Parker, Fisher Stevens, Rosie Perez and chameleon Sam Rockwell (remember his loathsome character in The Green Mile?), who cut a mean rug on the makeshift dance floor with Pearl Harbor co-star Catherine Kellner.