As if seeing On The Town reach Broadway once more weren't exciting enough, Betty Comden & Adolph Green will get another bit of New York cheer: on Dec. 11, they'll receive the ASCAP Richard Rodgers Lifetime Achievement Award.

Karen Mason is expected to perform the Comden & Green tune "Make Someone Happy" (from Do Re Mi), with invited guests to include Hal Prince, Jerome Robbins, Sheldon Harnick, Linda Lavin, Al Hirschfeld, Lauren Bacall and Cy Coleman.

Comden and writing partner Green were on hand at Manhattan's Lincoln Centre Triangle Barnes & Noble in July to discuss their work on the original production of On The Town. Together the team is responsible for Wonderful Town, The Will Rogers Follies, On the Twentieth Century, and the film of Singin' in the Rain, among many others. Also present were six cast members from the new On the Town, which begins previews April 7, 1998 at Broadway's St. James Theatre.

Composer Rodgers was half the team of Rodgers & Hammerstein, that created Carousel, The King And I and South Pacific.

-- By David Lefkowitz