By Harry Haun
23 Nov 2009

The site of the after-party was also a first for first-nighters — the no-less-historic Riverside Church. "Where are the sacraments?" asked one thirsty guest on arriving.

Slick-domed Harry Belafonte with baseball cap and walking cane, admitted it was a little like coming home to his theatre-of-operations. "I played the Apollo quite a bit in my early years," he said in that famous wind-tunnel wheeze of his.

The shorter male half of the Power Couple of the Evening was, improbably, the patriarch of "Star Wars," George Lucas. When asked bluntly what on earth was he doing at the Apollo launch of Dreamgirls, he wordlessly pointed to the elegant lady beside him — the financial correspondent for "Good Morning America" as well as the president of Ariel Investments, LLC, a Chicago investment firm managing more than $3 billion in assets — Mellody Hobson. "Yeah," said Lucas when we got his drift, "I go where she goes." (They're amigos, it seems.)

Lucas' latest, for which he is co-writer and executive producer, has been shot and is in the final throes of editing. "It's called 'Red Tails,' and it's an airman movie — about African-American fighter pilots during World War II. Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard and a lot of young kids — teenagers, basically — star."

With Lucas prominently in attendance, can C3PO be far behind? Actually, yes, it accidentally turns out. Anthony Daniels, who provided the snooty clip-Brit voice of the "Star Wars" gold gizmo, was present as well, but he would have you believe that this alignment of celebrities was mere kismet, that he doesn't make a practice of stalking his cinematic creator. "It's just The Force working in the right way," he offered. "I'm very glad to see George. It's always great to see him."

Star Wars: The Concert was what brought Daniels to town. "It's the 'Star Wars' story from beginning to end, with me and the Royal London Philharmonic Orchestra. We've just finished, and we fly to Canada tomorrow to do it in Ottawa and Toronto. But we'll be back — hopefully next year to a central New York location like Madison Square Garden. It's an arena show so I'm talking up to 25,000 people a night."

He has yet to make his acting debut here. "The nearest thing I ever got to acting in New York was actually performing on Broadway in Duffy's Square," he admitted. "I brought, in my gold costume, dark M&Ms to this planet. They did a whole big stage thing two or three years ago. It was the only time I'd been on Broadway, sadly."

A couple of theatre scribes will be waiting for that debut with sabres drawn because of a slight tiff/misunderstanding at the after-party where Daniels banished the press from the press table like they were crashers (among them, Hollywood Reporter's Roger Friedman) so he could sit next to, and chat up, Joan Rivers.

Tony winner Lillias White, who was Effie in the tour version that played the Ambassador and in a 2001 one-night-only Broadway-benefit, adjusted her current eight-performance-a-week agenda to check out the new girl. These days you can find her playing the mother of Fela!, opening Nov. 23 at the Eugene O'Neill ("Be there!" she charged).

The original's Tony-nominated Deena Jones, Sheryl Lee Ralph, hit the red carpet in front of the Apollo in full star-strutting style, looking remarkably untouched by the past 28 years. "Lemme tell ya," she bloomed at the compliment, "they say that good black don't crack, and I refuse to age. Whenever I see the word age, all I can say is 'Never.' I will be young forever, especially in my heart."

The flamboyance faded inside the theatre, outside of camera range, and she glazed up a bit when two strangers introduced themselves. "I always talk about Tom Eyen when I'm doing my performances," she explained, "and, as soon as I came into the Apollo, his niece and nephew came up to me and mentioned his name. That would be Tom's spirit, Tom saying to me, 'I'm right here with you tonight.'"

She also got a big hug from Dick Scanlan, the Tony-nominated author of Thoroughly Modern Millie. (She was his Muzzy Van Hossmere in that show.)

"I have a bunch of stuff going, but I never say anything until it's all official," Scanlan remarked sagely. Is it sinkable or unsinkable? I asked, full steam ahead. "We hope it's unsinkable — we're working on it. We did a workshop in Denver last year and hope to do a big production next year in a theatre like the Denver Theatre Center."

Graying with distinction but wearing new arm candy, John Patrick Shanley revealed that he has a new opus in the pipeline: "I'm working on this play Pirate. It's about terrorism. It has to do with the Somali pirates and other things as well. It's partially about that recent incident, but it's about more than that."

Krieger's partner, actor Robert Joy, sported a nice tan for the occasion. "I guess I do because I just flew in from California, but I never think about getting sun in California," he confessed. "I'm working on a television series, 'CSI: New York.' I play their medical examiner so it has been a long-time gig out there for me."

It was his first time at the Apollo. "We just walked through backstage with some gifts for the cast, then we took this circuitous route up to stage left and walked out into where the red-covered seats are — my heart just started beating so fast. It's, like, 'Oh, my God! Now I'm in the Apollo.' Having come through the stage door — there was something very special about that — and then to end up out front. I'm very excited."

Before Krieger found his musical calling, he was a publicist, and many of his acts played the Apollo — so this Dreamgirls premiere was a sentimental journey home for him — or at least he had come full circle and out another end. During their tour backstage, the composer didn't show his partner his publicity office because he didn't have one. "I was a floater. I was walking all the time going from desk to desk."

The physical building hadn't changed that much for Krieger. "It feels very much the same, but that was 1971, so the whole inner atmosphere — the environment — was so '70s, so different then. As we live history together, there are definite reasons why people gravitate to a new style." It was, he said, a real heart-squeeze to be back.

Dreamgirls' duly-taxed designer William Ivey Long brought a classy contingent of, well, class to the opening, including Carolina Herrera, proving anew designers hang out together. "Who else knows the pain?" he reasoned.

"I'm a very good friend of William's — that's why I'm here," Herrera volunteered. "And also this is my first visit to the Apollo Theatre. It opened 75 years ago, and I'm just now getting here. I'm very excited to be here tonight for this smashing success."

"Let's hope because my fingers are so bruised," cracked Long. As well they should be, having dreamed up 580 different creations for this production. Factor that in with the 200 wigs that Paul Huntley supplied, and you have a madhouse backstage. "It was very tough," Huntley allowed, "because there is not very much room backstage. We have an army of seven hairdressers working back there."

The glamorous commotion reaches a zenith during a fast photo-shoot where the three title players zipped through two costumes down to their sequined selves.

"The first show I ever did was Nine," Long recalled, "and we shared a wall with Dreamgirls — the Richard Rodgers Theatre and the Imperial Theatre. I used to run across to see Dreamgirls with Woody Shelp, the great milliner, and we'd hang out in the wig room, so I've been a fan of Dreamgirls from the preview period on." He even got first dibs on any revival from producer Breglio.

By intermission, another of Long's guests — Lee Radziwill — was won over, without much of a struggle, to Herrera's thinking. "I adore it," she trilled. "It's so special, so fantastic! William's one of my very closest friends so I'm so thrilled for him." It was not her first time to the Apollo — "but I haven't been here for a long time."

As the two ladies moved from the sidewalk and headed back into the theatre, a homeless woman approached them, hand outstretched asking for a handout. The designer's husband, Reinaldo Herrara, ponied up some spare change.

Also in attendance were Mamma Mia!'s Harriet D. Foy with Marva Hicks from "Star Trek: Voyager," Mario Lopez, West Side Story conductor Patrick Vaccariello, Bennett's long-time dance-assistant Bob Avian, New York Beacon News entertainment editor Don Thomas, CBS News' Richard Schlesinger and former Time-Warner chairman and now Apollo kingpin Dick Parsons.