Last Monday night The Dramatists Guild Fund and Dramatists Guild of America held their annual gala dinner and Guild awards ceremony to benefit the Fund. John Guare was the master of ceremonies and Kathleen Marshall was the director of the evening’s program at the Hudson Theatre in the Millennium Broadway Hotel at 145 West 44th Street.

Co-Chairs were Kate Betts, Debra Black, Claude Wasserstein, and Richard Mishaan. The Producing Committee was John Guare and John Weidman and they did a superb job of giving the audience what it came for. There were performances from “Sweeney Todd,” “The Color Purple,” “Jersey Boys,” and “Ring of Fire,” along with a salute to Wendy Wasserstein by Meryl Streep and Mamie Gummer who read from “Third”, and a scene from August Wilson’s “Fences,” performed by original cast members James Earl Jones and Courtney B. Vance.

This year’s Guild award winners include Harvey Schmidt, recipient of the Frederick Loewe Award for Dramatic Composition, presented for his body of work; Robert Waldman, recipient of the Flora Roberts Award; and August Wilson, recipient of the Dramatists Guild Award for Lifetime Achievement. The finalists for the 2005 Hull-Warriner Award, the only award given by dramatists for a dramatic work, were William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin for “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee;” Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty for “Dessa Rose;” Christopher Durang for “Miss Witherspoon;” Austin Pendleton for “Orson’s Shadow;” and Michael John LaChiusa for “See What I Wanna See.” The winners were Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas for “The Light in the Piazza”.

Guettel and Lucas were both in attendance along with Edward Albee, Alexandra Shiva, Robert Waldman, Bettina Zilkha, Lorne Michaels, Marcia Mishaan, Andre Bishop, Linda Janklow, Eric and Fiona Rudin, Bruce and Claude Wasserstein, Chip Brown, Silas and Celia Chou, Jay and Tracy Snyder, Lauren Bush, David Lauren, Chris Durang, Marshall Brickman, Elisa Lipsky-Karaxz, Arthur Kopit, Virginia Coleman, Michael Vollbracht, Terence McNally, and Liz Robbins.

A number of weeks ago The Cinema Society held a celebrity-studded glittering premiere of “Ask the Dust” at packed Tribeca and Soho Grand hotels.

Salma Hayek

The Paramount Classics film, which is based on John Fante’s masterpiece, was written and directed by Academy Award winner the great Robert Towne (who wrote “Chinatown”, “Shampoo”, “Mission Impossible 1 & 2” and who worked on “Bonnie & Clyde” with Robert Benton, though Towne went uncredited).

The film stars Salma Hayek and Colin Farrell, as star-crossed lovers in Depression-era Los Angeles.

Piaget sponsored the glam gathering, and those decked in Piaget included Iman, supermodel Petra Nemcova, and Cinema Society founder Andrew Saffir, who welcomed swarms of celebrities to the screening and to the private dinner in the Soho Grand Penthouse afterwards.

Among those in attendance were cast members Salma Hayek, Idina Menzel ("Rent") and Eileen Atkins, writer/director Robert Towne, along with Ed Norton, Clive Owen, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Lindsay Lohan, Lenny Kravitz, Patricia Clarkson, writer/director Michel Gondry, Bridget Moynahan, Michelle Monaghan, Amy Sacco, Sante D’Orazio, Damon Dash and Rachel Roy, Nan and Gay Talese, Hamish Bowles, Brooke de Ocampo, Narciso Rodriguez, Cynthia Rowley and Bill Powers, Terry George, Robert Benton, Rufus Albemarle, Janice Combs, Dennis Basso, Debbie Bancroft, Daniel Benedict, Peter Davis, Christian Leone, Andrew Black, Bettina Zilkha, Tiffany Dubin, Helen and Tim Schifter, Allison Sarofim, and Piaget North America President Larry Boland. The night was so star-studded that many compared it to the whirl of Oscar parties.

The much-talked about evening benefited Martin Scorcese’s Film Foundation.

Last Monday night BOMB Magazine celebrated its 25th Anniversary with a spring gala honoring artist Elizabeth Murray, poet Bob Holman and Whitney Museum of Art Director Adam D. Weinberg. The evening began with cocktails and dinner at The Park and ended with a silent auction featuring the work of 52 artists, and raised more than $400,000.

Participating artists included Marina Abramovic, Jennifer Bartlett, Ross Bleckner, Robert Gober, Mona Hatoum,Mary Heilmann, Kerry James Marshall, Raymond Pettibon, Robert Rauschenberg, Dana Schutz, Richard Serra, James Siena, Luc Tuymans and Terry Winters.

After dinner, Founding Editor-in-Chief Betsy Sussler talked about the course that the magazine had taken over the last quarter century.  “Imagine yourself in New York City in 1981. A couple of artists, writers and actors are sitting around a kitchen table, and I say, ‘Let’s start a magazine, one where artists are able to speak about their work the way in which we speak about it among ourselves.’ And everyone says, “Great idea, let’s do it,” Betsy said.

Elizabeth Glaser was infected with the AIDS virus through a blood transfusion in 1981 and unknowingly passed it on to both of her children. Mrs. Glaser was the wife of television star Paul Glaser. AIDS in those early days of its public exposure was surrounded by dread and ignorance. Many called it “gay cancer” and diagnosis was a death sentence that seemed to infiltrate a large section of the Hollywood community. Many of us who lived in New York and Los Angeles during those years knew many many people who died tortured hideous deaths from the affliction. When Mrs. Glaser got sick, it hit the community like a bombshell since it was theretofore regarded as an almost exclusive male (and homosexual) disease. Mrs. Glaser’s daughter Ariel lost her battle in 1988. It was then that Mrs. Glaser and her two closest friends Susan DeLaurentis and Susie Zeegen created the Pediactric AIDS Foundation. She too had a death sentence but she gave her last days and months her best.

The desperate urgency that permeated the community about AIDS has faded away mainly because medical science has provided pathways for long term survival, but the battle is far far far from over and until it is over, we are all at risk.

A couple of weeks ago they held a Kids For Kids cocktail party for the Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

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