By Harry Haun
20 Mar 2009

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The original Maria, Carol Lawrence, was on hand to cheer the new team on. "I had a wonderful time," she exclaimed. "I loved it. It was a beautiful production. I think it was up-to-the-minute in the — well, I don't know if it's politically correct, but it is certainly true — the violence and the horrible bigotry and the intolerance. Unfortunately, it's still going on. We attacked it 50 years ago, and it's still alive."

The Bernstein offspring — Alex, Nina and Jamie — were also present with praise for all parties. "I was elated," said the latter. "We've waited such a long time for this night, and I have to say today was hard to get through, with all the anxiety and excitement of finally getting to showtime, and then the minute it began I forgot all about being anxious and I got lost in it." Her sister, Nina, then picked up the ball with: "We've been waiting 30 years for this night—the last revival was in 1981. That's a very long time."

It was a ritzy, glitzy opening, as these things go, knee-deep in beautiful celebs and the like and representing a variety of arts. To give you an idea, Christie Brinkley and Vanessa Williams were in the same room, but then the room was the Palace.

"It's my favorite show of all time," Williams trilled. "Anita was my dream girl. I'm afraid I'm too old for it now, but I love Leonard Bernstein, I love Jerome Robbins, I love Stephen Sondheim. It's the best of everything."

Her Blondeness — Brinkley, in a fire-engine red dress — brought her 13½-year-old Jack. "I saw the movie when I was my son's age, but I've never seen it on stage before," she confessed. Much can be learned from the story, particularly for teenagers. "Not too long ago, my daughter and son were doing one of those on-line games when, all of a sudden, this pop-up comes up, trying to recruit kids to a gang. I thought, 'Oh, my gosh. With all the different areas that kids could be pulled into the world of gangs, now the internet has gotten into the act,' so I think this show is a good lesson and very relevant right now as these gangs seem to be reemerging."

Son Jack was shooed out of the celebrity path by an unsmiling Lauren Bacall, making her way into the theatre where she twice-struck Tony silver (Applause and Woman of the Year). "Move," she said — which was more than I got out of her — and he dutifully jumped. "Think of it as a compliment," a publicist said, consoling the kid.

Scott Hart, proprietor of the swank 44&X eatery (located, of all places, at 44th and Tenth Avenue), was checking out this west side story. "Arthur Laurents was in the other night, and we had a lovely chat," he said. A favorite mannerism of the restaurant is the funny way Hart names his drinks after Broadway shows. I suggested a "Bloody Maria" for the one, but he topped me with a "West Sidecar."

Michael Riedel, who stirs the theatrical cauldron at the New York Post, arrived — atypically! — with a nun on each arm — a Sister Laura and the Rev. Mother Dolores.

The latter is prioress of the cloistered community at Abbey of Regina Laudis in Connecticut, but 50 years ago, at the time of the original West Side Story, she was just beginning her five-year, ten-film acting career under the name of Dolores Hart.

She even made it to Broadway once — in Samuel Taylor's 1958 The Pleasure of His Company. "It was at the Longacre and the Music Box," said Mother Dolores in a soft, still beautifully enunciated voice. "I was under contract to Hal Wallis on a loanout."

Does she get to theatre much anymore? "Not at all. We are cloistered, but Laura thought this would be a very important and special occasion." Her only other theatre experience was seeing Vanessa Redgrave in 2007 in The Year of Magical Thinking — so maybe this is becoming habit-forming (pun intended). "I hope so."

Other first-nighters included Barbara Cook, Houston Astro Craig Biggio, Patricia Clarkson, "Sex and the City" creators Michael Patrick King and John Melfi, Tony Roberts, painter Hunt Slocum, director James Lapine, Bill Kux, composer Stephen Flaherty, husband-and-wife Rooms authors Paul Scott Goodman and Miriam Gordon, Mike Nichols, Elaine May and Stanley Donen, Rob Ashford, Rachel Dratch and her Minsky's director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw, Bobby Cannavale and Sarah Paulson (currently rehearsing The Gingerbread House for an upcoming Rattlestick opening), Michael Kors, Kathleen Turner, Lili Taylor, Dana Ivey with director Walter Bobbie (both from the just-closed Savannah Disputation), Taye Diggs, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and designer-wife Georgianna Chapman, ABT's Ethan Stiefel and Gillian Murphy, model Irina Pantaeva, John Patrick Shanley, Bryan Batt of "Mad Men," Patrick Wilson of "Watchmen," Phyllis Newman, Amanda Green, designer Valentino, Cheyenne Jackson, singer Peter Cincotti, screenwriter-director Paul Haggis, Leslie Gore, Jeffrey Denman and Kerry O'Malley of the recent White Christmas, Phil Donahue, Zac Posen and the usual "Ugly Betty" contingent (Mark Indelicato, Ana Oritz and Eric Mabius).

CBS' jester-in-residence Mo Rocca wrapped the evening up for me in his usual inimitable fashion with "It made me believe in the possibility of love after my life spent in a gang. I'm one of the only people who was both a Shark and a Jet."