Broadway at the Bowl: Bet on a Sequel

“OK, Doug. When do we do it again?”

Poor Doug Cramer. In TV, repeat performances are simple--and called reruns. But the sold-out success of Broadway at the Bowl Monday night--with Mary Martin, Elaine Stritch, Patti LuPone, Dolores Gray, Tommy Tune, Bea Arthur and Placido Domingo as host--means that Cramer will probably have to do it all over again next year.

As a benefit for the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, the night at the Bowl made “between $100,000 and $200,000,” Cramer said, bemoaning the high cost of putting on a high-class production. Performers had been flown in from as far as London, special stage arrangements had to be made and a full day of rehearsal with orchestra and special conductors ran the bills up and the profit down.

“What?” John Forsythe quipped, to his wife, Julie. “Why, right at these two tables you will get a half-million dollars.”

The $500-a-seat rows of up-front boxes were crowded with a sparkly cross section of local bright lights, who seemed both happy and relieved to have arrived--since VIP parking meant at least a half-hour traipse from the freeway to the Bowl. No one was more upset at being late than Joan Collins, who thought she was so early that she had stopped by Tower Records with her buddy Jeffrey Lane and “picked up 20 tapes for the South of France this weekend.”

Cramer shared the enthusiastic kudos with his co-chair Allan Carr--but was lavish in thanking the benefit committee co-chairs, Lenore Greenberg and Terry Stanfill. “You can put on a show,” Cramer said, “but if those women don’t sell the tickets, it’s nothing.”

More than enthusiastic was the 17,000-plus crowd, which, in the high-priced boxes, included a lot of new faces. This is just the kind of younger and affluent assembly that the opera is hoping to attract when the real stuff starts this fall.

Chowing down on Rococo’s elegant picnic baskets--occupants of $2,000 boxes got supper and a post-performance party--were opera chairman Tom and Music Center president Esther Wachtell, opera general director Peter Hemmings, agent Bill and Carole Haber, Peggy Parker and Walter Grauman hosting Georgia Frontiere, ABC’s Gary Pudney with benefit-committee member Cristina Ferrare, Rogers and Cowan’s Dick Taylor talking business with Guttman and Pam’s Linda Dozoretz, Garry and Barbara Marshall hosting Bette Midler and Martin von Haselberg, Fred Hayman, Dr. Armand Hammer with Occidental’s Rosemary Tomich, political maven Joe Cerrell with Councilman Richard and Sharrill Alatorre, First Boston’s Ed and Carol Robinson.

Now is this tough work?

Consider Cramer, making his last-minute stop backstage and taking a second to wish Emmy-winner Bea Arthur good luck. He apologized for the lack of rehearsal time--but got a quick smile and a “It’ll be on your head.”

That’s show biz.

OPENING NUMBER--When is a store opening more than a store opening--even if it’s not a fancy-party store opening? When it’s the opening of Giorgio Armani on Rodeo Drive.

The boutique--with former columnist Wanda McDaniel heading up Armani West Coast operators--did send out invitations for the all-day inaugural event. The party atmosphere wasn’t heavy--waiters in customized Armani outfits passed beverages--but it was a shopping party.

Upstairs in the private showroom (the lines had formed outside the dressing rooms), Barbara Sinatra bought up a storm, purchasing at least 15 pieces of Armani apparel.

Seen shopping--Audrey Wilder, Chase Mishkin (her Blue Ribbon welcoming tea is set for October), Shirley Baskin Familian, Jane Nathanson shopping with daughter Nicole, a cigar-chomping Arnold Schwarzenegger (Bermuda shorts showing off his great legs) chatting with Michael Chow, who designed the under-$5-million store. (Hey, white gold leaf costs a little cash.)

Look in on the “Sunday Today” show for the bright rose suit Schwarzenegger’s wife Maria Shriver purchased. They made sure to make the opening day at her close friend McDaniel’s merchandising debut before heading off to Hyannisport, Mass., for the Labor Day weekend.

The first customer: That would be last week, when movie exec Dawn Steel bought her Armani’s straight from the Carson warehouse.