In lieu of palm leaves, gladiolas were distributed, er, flung to the well-heeled in first four rows and, with some human effort, to the poor "paupies" populating the balcony—by Dame Edna Everage, heralding her return to Broadway Nov. 21 at Irving Berlin's Music Box Theatre. Dame Edna: Back With a Vengeance is the title or, maybe, fair warning. Hurricanes had played well-documented havoc with Florida's gladiola crop, forcing the good dame to dip into her emergency supply—all of them, she chirped cheerfully, grown "organically, with my own manure"—in her gladdie garden Down Under. But they were used sparingly: only two were tossed to the audience till the last-minute flinging frenzy.

Once in place, in the air, however, she taught her giddy disciples how to jiggle and sway them and touch hers. "Such a sophisticated show," the dame clucked contentedly. "What other show gives you this sort of thing? You don't get this at 'night, Mother." Brenda Blethyn, currently the Mother in question on Broadway, roared approvingly and later joined the contingent of dames and broads who enjoyed a photo-op audience with the titled dame on stage after the show. TV's Joy Behar and Barbara Walters of "The View" (both of them very much out and amongst 'em on Broadway this week), opera star Renee Fleming and Tony-winning beauty Cady Huffman posed for a battery of flashes that lasted until the dame at last wheezed, "You have a definitive series of photographs." Behar, still packing her Instomatic from earlier in the week, got one more, photographing her "View" co-hostess cheek to cheek with Dame Edna. "We'll show it tomorrow on the show," promised Walters—to plug Everage's forthcoming appearance on "The View." "I'm looking forward to it," Everage told the two. "I'll wear something really simple."

Everybody laughed, knowing "simple" wasn't in her fashion vocabulary. The Playbill credited her outlandish-even-for-The-Outback costumes to Will Goodwin and Stephen Adnitt, but she averred that they were the work of her gay son, Kenny. The Music Box was rife with "Friends of Kenny," perhaps including the multi-Tonyed William Ivey Long (although he may have been just a costume design consultant who had glazed over).

After the celebs had gotten their shots and sent packing, Dame Edna turned her winning ways to a modest assortment of reporters who had assembled on stage. Up close, the press could detect secret messages, theatrical crib-notes possibly, scribbled on stage—"Laura Bush Fights Illiteracy," "Full of Charm" and, most telling of all, dead center stage: "ME." "You know," said the dame, adapting a severe tone, "I never allow probing, investigative journalists on stage for this reason. You're so experienced you notice things like that."