(Photo: Robin Platzer/Twim Images)

O skar Eustis, the new artistic director of the Public Theater, and his wife, Laurie, found themselves cast in a sting operation recently after their Cobble Hill brownstone was broken into. Their co-star? Phoebe Cates. Among the items stolen was Laurie’s Coach purse, which had a $250 gift certificate inside to Blue Tree, Cates’s boutique. The Eustises asked Cates to watch out for it, and, sure enough, the next day, a couple showed up brandishing the card. Store manager Ivana Callahan called Cates and then stalled the perps, pretending to have trouble finding a record of the certificate. “The man said it was a gift from his mother,” says Callahan. “I asked his mother’s name, and he didn’t know it. He told me, ‘I just call her Mom.’ They were pretty stupid.” Cates phoned Oskar, who was in a meeting with Stephen Sondheim (who said, “Where is the store? Let’s go get ’em!”). When the police arrived, the robbers were also in possession of Laurie’s credit cards. She says, “I feel safer in New York knowing that Phoebe Cates is looking out for me.”

Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Table of Contents: March 13, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!