Honorary Chair Mo'Nique. Photo by Dario Calmese

With the holidays fast approaching, nothing brings us pirouetting into the snowflake season quite like the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT). At Wednesday’s Opening Night Gala, the limbs were flying around the stage with unfettered aplomb, flitting from grace to gusto whilst set to solos from the company’s A-List pals Anika Noni Rose, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Jessye Norman.

Now in its 54th year, the group’s rich cultural history was made evident throughout the selection of pieces performed throughout the evening, in particular Revelations, which was initially choreographed by Mr. Ailey himself. The piece had a special significance for Ms. Noni Rose, who told The Observer: “The AAADT was the first ballet that I saw, and Revelations was the piece that stuck in my mind so strongly. So it was a huge honor to be asked to perform here tonight - it was like the circle closed for me.”

The opening was also something of a landmark for dancer Renee Robinson, who was hand-picked by the company’s namesake some 32 years ago. Ms. Robinson is hanging up her dancing shoes this Christmas – for the AAADT at least. Speaking of her three decades with the company, she said, “What feels great is not only that I was chosen by Mr. Ailey, but that I had the opportunity to work under him and hear him speak about his vision and his legacy.”

“Over the years, the changes that have happened within the company have stemmed from the wonderful seed Ailey planted, and that’s what keeps it alive, current and important to society all over the world,” she continued. The only dancer to work under all three of the AAADT’s artistic directors (Mr. Ailey, Judith Jamison and Robert Battle, who currently holds the post), there is no denying that Ms. Robinson knows what the job entails better than anyone. So has she become a mother hen-type figure to the dancers finding their feet in the company? “Oh no,” she laughed, “I’m more like the fun aunt!”

Fun was certainly had by all throughout the evening, from the standing ovation at the performance’s close to hundreds of guests hitting the Hilton’s dance floor for some Beyoncé-esque booty-shaking before the meal began. Academy Award winner and stand-up comic Mo’Nique had the crowd eating out of the palm of her hand during a speech mid-show, and continued to bolster the party atmosphere as the event went on. A long-time AAADT supporter, she told us, “Whenever the group would come to whatever city I was living in at the time, me and my family would go out and see them, and you just felt every movement and every step, every lyric, you felt everything they put into their performances. So when they called and asked me to be involved tonight, it was like – ‘For real? Of course!,’” she enthused.

Widespread involvement in the event was key, with a sublime number in the first half of the show causing quite the stir. As the stern looking company made their way into the audience, apparently selecting ball-gown toting spectators at random, things appeared to be far slicker by the time they reached the stage. Seamlessly moving from the roles of confused audience members to pro-shakers, this additional cast proved that age and physique don’t stand in front of a real dancer’s ability to move, and the piece was precisely the effervescent exhibition of skill that the AAADT has become renowned for.

The dancing continued well into the night, with gala guests evidently inspired by what they had seen earlier on stage. With a jazz band on hand to bust out everybody’s favorite Motown tunes, and the hotel's ballroom decorated like a sparkly winter wonderland, the AAADT brought a slice of Christmassy cheer to New York in a celebration of which Mr. Ailey himself would’ve undoubtedly been proud.

The Gemignani family. (Linda Lenzi/BroadwayWorld.com)

Move over Michael Kors – there’s a new indoor-aviator-toting man in town. Last night, legendary Broadway musical director and conductor Paul Gemignani received the Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theater Award at the 21^st annual Oscar Hammerstein Gala, where the cream of New York’s stage crop came out to celebrate his remarkable oeuvre. Speaking to The Observer on the red carpet, Tony award winner Paul Gemignani revealed that he was “terrified” about the evening’s entertainment – a veritable selection of Broadway treats hosted, and in part performed, by his son Alex.

“We don’t go into this industry for awards,” Paul Gemignani continued, “so when it happens, it feels like an out of body experience.”

But one stage and screen stalwart who did have awards on the brain was Mario Cantone, who divulged, “At the moment, I’m working on my new one man show for Broadway, which will debut in fall 2013. Or summer, because guess what, I’ll do it anytime! But it’s a one man show so it won’t get nominated for a Tony.”

Mr. Cantone, who opened the tribute, said that everyone, including him was in for a surprise. “I have no idea what I’m going to do up there - I never prepare!” he said before taking the stage. The crooner began with a faux eulogy to the honoree, which he assured the crowd he had been put up to by Alex Gemignani and then, without missing a beat, he quickly changed his tune – literally – with a number from Assassins.

Following Mr. Cantone's performance, everyone from Brian Stokes Mitchell to Marin Mazzie poured out in honor of the great MD. There was singing, there were speeches – there was even a sumptuous meal put on for the guests. The dimmed lighting and slew of champagne did almost have us nodding off in the comfy seats, but Alex Gemignani’s sweet compering skills managed to coax us out of our near slumber.

The junior Gemignani said he was hoping for high emotion from the evening’s proceedings, and his aims were certainly achieved. Performances by himself, his father’s wife Derin Altay and a step out of musical retirement from director Lonny Price had the honoree wiping the tears from under his shades. Indeed, the younger Gemignani’s rendition of former Oscar Hammerstein Award recipient Cy Coleman’s The Legacy was amongst the star performances of the night. Occasionally, the celebrations did feel a touch like an excuse for the honoree’s son to run amok in a candy store of his favorite Broadway greats, but the sentiment made up for the mild self-indulgence in an evening where a man used to working below the stage rightfully earned his time in the spotlight.

Pigs are flying, hell is freezing over, dogs and cats are living harmoniously together, and the Yankees are awaiting reassignment from the Boss …. We only have three words to say: Let’s go, Knicks! Now who here blows up like a Thanksgiving float after eating a rogue peanut? If you are one of the 11 million Americans who suffer from food allergies, which can actually kill you—which must suck, because food is our friend (and don’t even get us started on how we feel about nuts)—tonight the Food Allergy Initiative, a nonprofit organization looking for a cure for fatal food allergies, honors four-star earnin’ superman of chefs, Thomas Keller of Per Se and the French Laundry, at Daniel. “We’re thrilled to honor Thomas Keller this year,” said Food Allergy Initiative vice president Sharyn Mann, who confirmed that peanut allergies are the most common. “But peanuts are really legumes,” she reminded us. “It’s the Brazilian nut—and the tree nuts—that are really dangerous.” Further west and south, there is yet another gala, this time for Community Access, a nonprofit that helps to house people with psychiatric disabilities (Courtney Love, are you listening?). Tonight they’ll be honoring singer Judy Collins, who has been devoted to the cause since her son’s 1992 suicide, at the Chelsea Piers Lighthouse; honorary chair of the event is Mrs. Hillary Clinton. “We don’t know if she’ll attend—the event is only six days before the election,” said executive director Steve Coe. What election? “We approached Ms. Clinton because we heard that Bill and Hillary named their daughter after the song ‘Chelsea Morning’—sung by Judy Collins,” said Mr. Coe. Expect bawdy Bette Midler, uptown girl Christie Brinkley and Bill Cosby, among others. Next! Granta, the Brit lit mag that’s pretty good—but which was really good back when its wine-tipplin’ founder, Bill Buford, was at the helm—celebrates its 25th anniversary with current editor Ian Jack and Mr. Buford. What’s also nice about tonight is that all of the city’s young social strivers will be collected in one moist, ambitious clump at Cain, the new nightclub from Jamie Mulholland (he of the wankfest Lotus), so the rest of the city can breathe in peace. The invitation reads that this new “exclusive boutique nightclub” offers a “nocturnal sanctuary of South African culture amidst the wilderness of West Chelsea.” (We’re assuming that means post-apartheid South Africa, but you never know with this bunch …. ) Expect to see: halter tops —and lots of ’em—and smooth-groomed itchy arrivistes such as Jamie Johnson, Ivanka Trump, and Theodora and Alexandria Richards. There’s an unconfirmed rumor that Teresa Heinz Kerry —who refers to herself as “African-American” because she grew up in colonial Mozambique—will ride in at midnight atop an elephant. [Food Allergy Initiative, Daniel, 60 West 65th Street, 6 to 8 p.m., by invitation only; Community Access 30th Anniversary Gala Celebration, the Lighthouse, Chelsea Piers, West Side Highway between 17th and 23rd streets, 6:30 p.m., www.communityaccess.org; Granta 25th Anniversary Issue, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, 6:30 p.m., 212-864-5400; Cain grand opening, 544 West 27th Street, 9 p.m., by invitation only.]

Thursday 28th

Tonight, fashionable types swathed in cashmere and glitter will totter into Cipriani’s for the Annual Night of Stars, where awards will be given and delicious food will remain uneaten. Expected to show are honorees such as the most-mentioned Marc Jacobs, Giorgio Armani, Helmut Lang and Beatle spawn Stella McCartney, as well as the presenters like Kate Hudson, goddess Michelle Pfeiffer and Martin Scorsese. (Do you ever get the feeling that Mr. Scorsese is the only one left who still “gets” New York?) The evening benefits something to do with fashion—which is good, since we hear there are parts of the world where fashion is simply starving! Publicity rep Diane Clehane gave us a sneak peak into the goodie bag (always the best part), and it includes gift certificates to Chanel, fragrance from Marc Jacobs and Stella McCartney, StriVectin (the new Botox) and, for when you realize that Botox makes everyone— everyone —look like a freak: Maker’s Mark bourbon. Further west, there’s a debut party for something called “ YPS,” which Lincoln Center apparently thinks is the hip, cool way to say “Young Patrons Society.” (We think they should have gone with “ the Notorious Y.P.S.”) The membership group is “for young New Yorkers dedicated to celebrating Lincoln Center” and aims “to create a significant community of young performing-arts enthusiasts and build a base of supporters whose commitment will be vital to Lincoln Center’s audience development efforts.” Sexy. But anyway, tonight is the inaugural cocktail party, and the invitation promises drinks, hors d’oeuvres and “new friends.” Can we get that in writing? Old-schooler D-Nice will spin—and will no doubt be amused by the “dancing” in the crowd. The invite calls for “festive attire,” so wear something ruffley. [Fashion Group International 21st Annual Night of Stars, Cipriani 42nd Street, 110 East 42nd Street, 6:30 p.m., 212-302-5511; Autumn Cocktail Party for the Young Patrons Society, Avery Fisher Hall, Grand Promenade, 8 to 11 p.m., 212-875-5460.]

Friday 29th

As if we haven’t suffered enough at the hands of Boston , the male/female duet of the Dresden Dolls —a self-described “Brechtian punk cabaret” band who presumably took their name from a V.C. Andrews book and not from the city in which at least 25,000 German civilians perished in the Allied fire-bombing during WWII—has been picking up the all-mighty hipster fan base (read: Williamsburg trust-funders), and they come to town for a night at the Bowery Ballroom, that low-ceilinged venue on Delancey where the girls tend to show a lot of shoulder and the boys recognize opportunity. The band, which likes to put on vaudeville-style shows that have a “circus-like atmosphere” ( meep!), will be insisting on having costumes for the concerts. Is Halloween over yet? [The Dresden Dolls, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, 9 p.m., www.boweryballroom.org.]

Saturday 30th

It’s getting spooky around here …. Lots of All Hallows’ Eve activity around town —and besides that, it’s Mischief Night (or Cabbage Night, or Witches’ Night, depending where you’re from). Some men who enjoyed a little mischief in their day— Pablo Picasso and Max Beckmann —are the stars of an exhibition on the Upper East Side’s Richard L. Feigen & Co. opening today. (They could be very inspirational as far as mask-making is concerned, is all we’re saying.) Much fancier is the action over at the Waldorf-Astoria, where the Actors’ Fund of America is holding its fancy-schmancy black-tie gala called—what else?—“That’s Entertainment.” Republican-baiter Whoopie Goldberg co-hosts with stage actor and Actors’ Fund president Brian Stokes Mitchell, and the reception will include dinner and (intriguingly) tribute performances. Most exciting, however, is the awarding of the Lee Strasberg Artistic Achievement Award to the beyond-dreamy Johnny Depp. “The last two recipients were Meryl Streep and Susan Sarandon,” said executive director Joe Benincasa. “We’re so pleased with all the people we’re honoring that night.” Other honorees include Angela (“I § Mysteries”) Lansbury , presented by the curl-rocking Bernadette Peters. “Brian Stokes Mitchell will be performing at the end of the show, and we have a few surprises we’re not ready to announce yet,” said Mr. Benincasa. Crispin Glover? Down in the East Village, Two Boots Pioneer Theatre (which smells, no doubt, of that delicious pizza) is running a special “Night of Italian Horror” movie night, and it doesn’t even involve Vespas or Buttafuocos! It’s an all-night marathon of scary Italian movies like Gates of Hell, The Ghost, Deep Red, Beyond the Door 2, Demons and Burial Ground. Costumes are apparently encouraged, and prizes will be given in the following categories: Most Inappropriate, Most Disgusting, Most Frightening and (our favorite) Most Italian. [Beckmann and Picasso exhibit, Richard L. Feigen & Co., 34 East 69th Street, 212-628-0700; the Actors’ Fund of America “That’s Entertainment” Gala, the Waldorf-Astoria, 301 Park Avenue, 6:30 p.m., 212-221-7300, ext. 263; Night of Italian Horror, Two Boots Pioneer Theater (pizza!), 155 East Third Street (at Avenue A), 7 p.m. till dawn (scary), 212-254-3300.]

Sunday 31st

BOO! Halloween again, which means it’s the time for fashion and publicity assistants everywhere to wear naughty nurse (/nun/schoolgirl/librarian/witch/cat) outfits and get hit on by guys in suits dressed up as “lawyers.” Sigh. If you’re strolling through Washington Square Park and see “little people” dressed up as ghosts and goblins, do not be alarmed: It’s a parade for children, you know—the ones that this holiday is supposed to be for. However, if you are insistent on wearing that yellow Uma Thurman-in- Kill Bill number (which will probably not do you any favors at all), head to the Halloween 2004 bash at the Copacabana (you can sing the song!). The good news: It’s daylight saving time, so we’ll gain an hour of sleep. The bad news? No matter what time you’re reading this, it’s probably already getting dark. So you might as well just stand outside of wanker joint Marquee and try to gain entrance to Heidi Klum’s annual Halloween party —unless, of course, you have a life. The invite has a photo of new mommy Klummy in fright wig and lots of stuffed dead animals scattered about. Be on the lookout for celebrities on their worst behavior while believing they can go unrecognized (we’ll find you no matter what, Affleck!). [N.Y.U. and Manhattan Community Board 2’s 14th Annual Children’s Halloween Parade, the arch at Washington Square Park, 1 to 3 p.m. (there will be free candy!); Susanne Bartsch Halloween 2004, Copacabana, 560 West 34th Street, 10 p.m.; Heidi Klum’s Halloween party, Marquee, 239 10th Avenue, 9 p.m., by invitation only.]

Monday 1st

Sample sale! Sample sale! Even better than a regular sample sale (where you get to see women strip down to impressively small thongs in the impressively don’t-give-a-crap way we aspire to) is a sample sale that goes to some worthy cause instead of lining some heiress’ money-hungry pockets. Today, “Samples Off Fifth” benefits amfAR and Gift for Life, which funds AIDS research. Shoppers will find a cornucopia (a word people only use in the autumn) of stuff, including decorative accessories, personal-care products ( hmmmm), seasonal bargains (candy corn?) and more—all donated by “some of the world’s top manufacturers.” O.K. Tonight, more do-gooding downtown with the Caring Community, a nonprofit since 1973, founded to “serve the active and frail elderly of Greenwich Village and lower Manhattan in a manner that fosters independence, dignity, and respect.” And we’re so sure it has nothing to do with anyone trying to get their meaty little paws on a rent-controlled Village apartment with a wood-burning fireplace.

Harrumph! They’re having a dinner and dance at the Tribeca Rooftop and will be honoring CBS cutie (and future Mrs. Les Moonves) Julie Chen and, in an apparently unironic move, Dr. Dennis Fabian, the Village’s “renowned orthopedic surgeon” (read: hips). And, of course, there’s the inevitable “Pre-Election Indie Rock Bash” at the cooler-than-thou Delancey Bar, where Rock the Vote and the Eureka! International Film Festival team up to toast “the synergy between entertainment and political action.” Basically, it’s an excuse to get drunk and hope for the best tomorrow. [Samples Off Fifth, International Toy Center, 1107 Broadway, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., 212-806-1612; the Caring Community Gala, Tribeca Rooftop, 2 Desbrosses Street, 6 p.m., 212-777-3555; Pre-Election Indie Rock Bash, the Delancey Bar, 168 Delancey Street, 7 p.m., www.eurekaiff.com.]

Tuesday 2nd

The big day …. We know that everyone thinks their vote doesn’t count, and you know what? It doesn’t. So do what John Kerry did: marry a few really rich women and go goose-hunting. But do vote for him: If Teresa at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue isn’t a nightly comedy house-on-fire—a reality show to beat all reality shows, complete with bleeped-out words and exotic Portuguese hors d’oeuvres—we don’t know what is! [League of Women Voters, www.lwv.org.]

Wednesday 3rd

The plus-sized, boisterous Toccara is being fêted as the girl to take the whole kit and caboodle. We too love Toccara—her breasts alone are reason to watch the program … they defy everything we ever knew about physics (which was never really a lot). And wouldn’t it be nice to have someone who doesn’t resemble Mary Kate Olsen snatch victory from the jaws of the skinny biyatches? However, the quiet and graceful Yaya remains our front-runner. Go, Yaya! [America’s Next Top Model, UPN, 8 p.m.]

It frightens me because its howl of black grief and loss is terrible to witness, and because I think this epic, feverish play and parable of Reagan's America leaves its most distinguished dramatist alone. He is alone now. At 56, August Wilson is at the peak of his articulate power, and there is no one writing quite like him.

King Hedley is the latest of his epic plays that speak to us so forcibly of the black American experience in the 20th century. Decade by decade, this great, proud dramatist has chronicled the story in acclaimed dramas such as the Pulitzer Prize winners Fences and The Piano Lesson, as well as Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Two Trains Running, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Seven Guitars . But King Hedley alone hovers on the shaky brink of new, uncompromising discovery. It's as if the very form of Mr. Wilson's dramas is bursting open in his late plays into an alive, spontaneous impressionism. For who else writes of God and sorcery by combining the everyday life of an American tragedy with the death from grief of a 366-year-old Aunt Ester in whom all wisdom resides?

King Hedley is partly a symbolic myth, a bluesy lament, a Yoruba ritual, a grand opera which has been confused with a soap opera, an American Dream defiled, a killing field, madhouse or urban Greek tragedy. But Greek tragedies aren't concerned with putting food on the table, or getting a job where none exist, or the wife who ran off with all the furniture, or scoring heroin, or playing by the white man's rules. Mr. Wilson soars from the mundane to the mystically possessed and back again, like the madman in the play named Stool Pigeon spouting biblical incantations.

"I got to make it whatever way I can," explains King Hedley, the king and killer and fallen one. "I ain't bothering nobody. I got to feel right about myself. I look around and say 'Where's the barbed wire?' They got everything else. They got me blocked in every other way. 'Where the barbed wire?'"

King Hedley , directed by Marion McClinton, is set in the ruins of the Hill District ghetto, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1985. It's about the Messianic title character (Brian Stokes Mitchell), who spent seven years in prison for killing a man who insulted him and cut him viciously on the face; King's mother Ruby (Leslie Uggams), a former nightclub singer who lost the song; his proud wife Tonya (Viola Davis), who's a grandmother at 35; his friend and partner, the dapper Mister (Monté Russell), with whom he's selling hot refrigerators to raise enough cash to open a video store selling kung-fu movies; and Ruby's former lover, the hustler in frayed elegance Elmore (Charles Brown), who was jailed for blowing a gambler's face away. And there's Stool Pigeon (Stephen McKinley Henderson), the neighborhood prophet of doom, who lives in a firetrap of newspapers piled to the ceiling. Keeping up with the news is his business.

"The people wandering all over the place," Stool Pigeon tells us. "They got lost. They don't even know the story of how they got from tit to tat …. The story's been written. All that's left now is the playing out."

But there are stories within stories–about fate, vengeance and the bearing of souls, about fathers and sons and never making it. There are tales of blood feuds and guns, primal black manhood and a warrior class, a seed planted in dirt, invisible halos, the solace of sex with a stranger, the God-like decision of taking someone's life–"God decide when somebody ready … God don't like that you thinking you him"–or the unending grief of the mother of a murdered child among the dregs of the forgotten and damned of America.

In its ambitious, public way–in its sweep and gut– King Hedley inevitably makes the recent Pulitzer Prize-winning plays Proof and Dinner With Friends appear quite small and domestic, which is what they are. In his rich, wordy portraits of lives lived out and lost in desperation, August Wilson is drunk on the glory words, still stoned on them after all these years. He's like a veteran fighter who's always first out after the bell. Just when you think he's on the ropes in King Hedley , when the muscle appears to slacken in the heat of battle, he comes out swinging.

Is there a more passionate actress anywhere than Viola Davis, who also touched us so deeply in Mr. Wilson's Seven Guitars ? She and the magnificent Charles Brown as Elmore must surely take best-actor awards home this season by the sackful. But then, Mr. Wilson has written the scorching speech for Ms. Davis' Tonya to get our blood boiling. She's telling King why she's aborted their child:

"I'm thirty-five years old. Don't seem like there's nothing left …. I ain't raising no kid to have somebody shoot him. To have his friends shoot him. To have the police shoot him. Why I want to bring another life into this world that don't respect life? I don't want to raise no more babies when you got to fight to keep them alive."

Mr. Wilson is the griot of black America–and therefore of its historic oppressor, white America. I've written before that for me, it isn't his poetic lyricism that touches us so much. It is the utterly unaffected humaneness at his core that makes his stories complete and universal. Some disagree, finding in King Hedley a naïve, heavy symbolism and repetitiveness bordering on melodrama. But exactly the same is said about the great epic dramas of Eugene O'Neill.

Without the dips and excesses, we don't get the big, undiluted picture–as if Mr. Wilson had just spattered it with fresh blood. His blood. He writes emotionally, and emotion is never tidy.

Some also fault the dramatist for not setting the play specifically in the 1980's. There's little more to locate the period than some gangsta rap and a recording of President Reagan announcing it's morning in America again. But a political overview isn't Mr. Wilson's intention, unlike that great epic of 80's America, Angels in America . ("Children of the new morning, criminal minds. Selfish and greedy and loveless and blind. Reagan's children.") King Hedley could have taken place anytime, as it were. But could it? The Reagan years were among the most careless in our history. Mr. Wilson is more concerned with the symbolism of his black Everyman raised on the ashes of an anonymous, abandoned America.

At first I thought Brian Stokes Mitchell, for all his lyricism and commitment as King Hedley, a light heavyweight in a heavyweight role. Yet I remember him in his scarred, righteous ordinariness and ultimate martyrdom. The same proved uncannily true of the performance of Leslie Uggams, whom I felt for a while too refined for Ruby. Yet I vividly remember her during the action waltzing alone in a kind of timeless place, as if in a reverie of infinite possibility–and I actually dreamt of it, shuddering awake in the middle of the night with this memory of the elderly gray lady of the ghetto dancing carefree upon Mother Earth or the detritus of her own black history.

The play is deceptive that way, rolling over us in its apparent naïveté to its shattering conclusion of murder and ritual sacrifice. King Hedley is killed, for his death was pre-ordained. But August Wilson is implying a fantastic question as Stool Pigeon chants ecstatically over the dead body. Suppose the next Messiah were a black killer who was killed?

See him coming ! (the madman chants).

We give you our Glory .

We give you our Glory .

We give you our Glory .

A lady named Heather Headley has got "it," all right. She's the first musical performer I've seen in memory about whom I'd say, If she doesn't make it, we all better give up and go home. She has everything, including great beauty and sex appeal. She's the most exciting stage presence since Lena Horne.

That's some claim, I know. And Ms. Headley's musical range has yet to be put to the fire, if she's to compete with Lena Horne's musicality at the highest levels. But the moment she walked on stage during Do Re Mi , the last of this season's City Center Encores, I was scrambling through the cast list in my Playbill to find out who this astonishing feline creature could be.

In Do Re Mi she was playing the ingénue role of a waitress, Tilda, who becomes a famous singer in this 1960 musical comedy about-if you please-a schlemiel named Hubert who wants to be a jukebox tycoon. They don't write them like this anymore, more's the pity. Phil Silvers played Hubert in the original production; Nathan Lane-in top form, the funniest he's been since Guys and Dolls -plays him in this concert version. Music by Jule Styne; lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green; book by Garson Kanin with a fun adaptation by David Ives. Quite the team. I loved every dopey moment of it, wishing only that I could see it all over again, like tonight!

And Heather Headley? I'd seen her before! The Playbill listings told us that she's currently playing Nala in The Lion King . She has understudied in Ragtime , appeared in a couple of regional shows-that's all. But Nala? One thinks: Nala who? Is she a lion cub? Simba's sister? Nala, Nala, Nala … I reviewed the show when it opened, but I can't remember the role, or even Ms. Headley. Could anyone name or recognize just one lead performer in The Lion King ?

Exactly! Ms. Headley no doubt plays Nala beautifully, but she's a cute Julie Taymor half-animal, an animated artwork in a blockbuster Disney musical for all the family. She isn't human or real. She cannot be herself-her divine self.

Contemporary musicals have no humanity in them. (They profess to.) The Civil War hasn't a single authentic character, only types and stereotypes; Ragtime is another history lesson, but it has all the real flesh and blood of a corporate logo; something like Footloose belongs to the Stone Age; and It Ain't Nothin' but the Blues is described everywhere as a musical, but it ain't. It's a provincial cabaret, or dutiful recital-and it ain't nothin' but the blues, either, unless you think Patsy Cline is John Lee Hooker in disguise.

The long-closed Parade isn't winning every best musical award in sight because the world has suddenly perceived its merit. It's winning because it has nothing to beat. The pleasure of the City Center's Great American Musicals in Concert series isn't just in reminding us that there were great American musicals (or even minor classics and thoroughly enjoyable oddities). They also remind us of the exciting possibilities-of what could still gloriously happen. We all feel, for example, that there's more talent onstage in City Center shows like Do Re Mi than we can currently see on any Broadway stage.

There's more charm on winning display at City Center, too, and far more spontaneity and wit than Broadway offers. Jule Styne knew how to swoon into a love song ("Make Someone Happy"); and Ms. Comden and Mr. Green could write a madcap number titled "What's New at the Zoo." Who writes insanely eccentric songs anymore? Who has fun? Because of time and budget constraints, the City Center series can't be overproduced, over- rehearsed, overdirected or overwrought. Which puts us over the moon. These wonderful shows return the sheer intoxicating pleasure of performing to the musical stage.

That's their secret and why we love them. (The previous City Center outing, Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 , was a rare clunker. Nineteen thirty-six wasn't a very good year.) To see in Do Re Mi the romantic ease and humor of Brian Stokes Mitchell, released from the one-dimensional bondage of Coalhouse Walker in Ragtime , confirms the unrestricted possibilities of giving back the musical to the performers themselves. We tire now of pseudo-Epics and Big Statements as much as we always have of pseudo-operas and cartoons and musicals that aren't musicals. In the performer is the future. Mr. Mitchell's show-stopping duets with Heather Headley were like watching a relaxed master with an enchanting, feverishly gifted pupil. But very soon, there'll be nothing to teach her.

The new, chic Second Stage Theater on Eighth Avenue and 43rd Street has been designed by the renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, and I'd take bets that Mr. Koolhaas prefers movies to theater. In association with New York architect Richard Gluckman and theater design consultant Joshua Dachs, he has designed a coldly minimalist postmodern screening room rather than a theater for the millennium.

Any new theater that's built in the city should be celebrated, of course. But not blindly. On first viewing, I liked its spare, modest simplicity-its deliberately industrial neo-space age renunciation of 19th-century cherubs and gilt plush, the Edwardian frou-frou legacy of plastic nymphs and chandeliers. The new Second Stage Theater, carved out of a former bank in the heart of the theater district, is no exercise in nostalgia. But how modern is it, really?

It remains essentially and disappointingly a 19th-century proscenium-arch theater. The materials used are one thing. But there's nothing futuristic about seats that face a stage. Movie houses are designed that way, even chic ones; and most theaters, too. The new Second Stage Theater fails to smash through the conventions to make the entire space highly flexible and changeable. The future of new theaters is in their immense adaptability. New writers demand new spaces and configurations. But Mr. Koolhaas hasn't seized the moment.

The stage itself is too wide, but it can be played with. The seats are permanently fixed: The environment can't be transformed into mutating new areas and new audience perspectives. More and more, leading directors and artists are trying to step way beyond the confines of conventional spaces in order to shake up the status quo and make theater excitingly new. But Mr. Koolhaas' static design won't let them.

It matters less that the seats themselves are too narrow and hard-edged, or that the leg room is ungenerous. (But it does matter.) Still, I've usually found that the discomfort of seats grows-or decreases-directly in proportion to what's happening onstage. Which, in the beginning and the end, is the point. In that sense, it matters little whether Mr. Koolhaas' soundproof 12-foot-tall windows within the auditorium are a daring breakthrough, like having windows in a casino. Because the moment the show starts, Mr. Koolhaas' postmodern gold velour window curtains with the steel studs are drawn, and all eyes are on the stage.

This may be the first theater auditorium in history with windows. But what of that? When the curtains are open, the view isn't of a staggering cityscape, but of a brick wall. (There are more appropriate theater messages than brick walls.) But when the curtains are drawn, the auditorium is virtually the same as any other, facing a stage where we hope, beyond hope, that magic will always happen-whatever the theater design.

Not this time, I'm afraid. The inaugural production at the new Second Stage Theater is of Jason Miller's 1972 That Championship Season . We need a revival of it about as much as we need another Dunkin' Donuts. It's difficult to believe that this soggy drama about the 20th annual reunion of a high school basketball team that all goes wrong was considered thought-provoking in its day. It's a bewilderingly tame choice for Second Stage's new era and new home. If this is the future, it's backward.