Opening Statements

Among the many celebrities who came out for the opening was Laura Linney, who had two films open last week: Man of the People and Driving Lessons.

Also on hand were director Jim Simpson, who’s currently helming A.R. Gurney’s Post Mortem at his artistic home, The Flea, and his lovely wife Sigourney Weaver, who can be seen on the big screen as Babe Paley in Infamous.

Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, best known for Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine, was another notable in the audience.

Academy Award winner Marisa Tomei was also a member of the starry crowd.

So was the great actor Brian Cox, one of the stars of the film Running with Scissors, which opens on Friday.

And here’s the sublime Marian Seldes, a welcome prescence on any opening night.

The Drama Dept. is back in business with the hilarious four-part soap opera The Cartells, which is playing Monday nights at the brand new club Comix on West 14th Street. After the show’s first episode on October 16, Cartells author Douglas Carter Beane (left) caught up with Tom Everett Scott, who’s starring in Beane’s new Broadway comedy The Little Dog Laughed.

Tony Award winner Joanna Gleason steals The Cartells with her divinely delicious portrayal of witchy wife Titsiana. Here she is flanked by husband Chris Sarandon (left) and former Into the Woods co-star Chip Zien.

After the show, actor Greg Lauren posed with wife Elizabeth Berkley, who plays dumb-blonde daughter Gamine.

The fabulous Peter Frechette (left), a scream as patriarch Craven Cartell, was joined after the performance by boyfriend David Warren (who helmed this Sunday’s edition of Desperate Housewives and is about to direct The Voysey Inheritance for the Atlantic Theater) and Cartells director Carl Andress.

Here’s Peter Hermann, who plays sleazy “media heir” Dank Sellers, with the equally hunky Cheyenne Jackson.

On Thursday, October 12, Manhattan Theater Club offered the American premiere of Simon Mendes da Costa’s Losing Louie at the Biltmore Theater. At the after-party at the Boathouse at Central Park, lovely leading ladies, Jama Williamson, Rebecca Creskoff, Patricia Kalember, and Michele Pawk posed for the camera.

Alexander Gemignani, who’s about to star as Jean Valjean in the Broadway revival of Les Misérables, came to the party with girlfriend Erin Ortman.

And here’s a first look at a new fab foursome from MTC’s upcoming Off-Broadway show The American Pilot: Josh Casaubon (who co-stars on ABC’s One Life to Live), Aaron Staton, Geoffrey Arend, and Brian Bielawski.