It’s not often something is such a spectacle that Anna Wintour, the artistic director of Condé Nast, takes off her sunglasses.
But even she needed bare eyes Thursday to take in the auditorium of the Al Hirschfeld Theater in Times Square, which has been transformed into a fin-de-siècle Parisian nightclub for “Moulin Rouge! The Musical.”
The maximalist show is an adaptation of Baz Luhrmann’s frenetic 2001 film. Everything about it is over the top: the sets, the acting, the roughly 70 pop hits sampled during its two and a half hours.
“The emotion is wrapped in a lot of energy,” Mr. Luhrmann said on the red carpet before opening night. “It gets your attention, it disarms you, and then, boom! You hit the audience with a psychological truth.”
“Bigger is better,” said Candy Spelling, a producer of the show, who was once known for living in the largest house in Los Angeles County.
Among those getting glitter bombed in the audience were Catherine Martin, Mr. Luhrmann’s wife and collaborator, who won Best Costume and Production Design Academy Awards for her work on the film; Jordan Roth, the Broadway producer, his hair in an elaborate double man bun; Zac Posen, the designer; David Byrne, whose music is in the show; Billy Eichner and John Mulaney, the comedians; and Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bernadette Peters and Gloria Estefan, the show folk.
After the final bow, guests repaired to the Hammerstein Ballroom for a vaguely Frenchified après-fête with charcuterie, chocolate éclairs and beignets served hanging from a parasol.
Alex Timbers, who directed the musical, joked that his next project might be something quieter. A drama by Harold Pinter, perhaps, with pauses long enough to hear the creaky floorboards?
“It’s so much fun to work on this scale, but I come from downtown,” Mr. Timbers said. “It’s also fun to create something with a couple of lights, two actors and chair.”
Wentworth in Wainscott
The shade from the trees; the smell of the grass; the bird song: In the Hamptons, even things that are free feel expensive.
Friday evening, on the lawn of a gorgeous mansion in Wainscott (whose owners are so fancy, members of the press were admitted only on condition that the owners’ names not be sullied by ink or pixels of a news organization), 70 guests stood behind easels at a fund-raiser for the New York Academy of Art.
Around them, waiters ferried trays of champagne and lobster rolls, white roses bloomed, and willow branches brushed the stone chimney of an outdoor fireplace connected to the pool house.
Nude models posed, arranged in the center of two circles, as the artists — including Nicole Miller, the designer; Bob Colacello, the writer; Steven Gambrel, the interiors man; David Kratz, the president of the academy; and Eric Fischl, the painter — sketched furiously with charcoal sticks.
“All it takes for me to get naked is one ginger ale,” said Ali Wentworth, the comedian and author, sloshing the liquid in her glass.
Brooke Shields, the actress and an academy trustee, wore a short sundress, flat sandals and a Band-Aid on her left knee. She said that although early roles gained her a reputation for often being nude on camera, in fact the skin belonged to stand-ins.
“I was underage. My mother may have been formidable, but she got me body doubles with really good bodies,” she said, referring to her late manager-mom, Teri Shields, with whom she had a complex relationship.
Many guests wore light-colored linen, which turned out not to be a great choice for a charcoal-drawing party. As the sun set, fireflies floated around the garden, dialing up the enchantment several notches.
The models, now off duty, donned shorts and practiced capoeira on the lawn. Something about having their modesty restored gave people permission to gawp a little more openly at their bodies.
Ms. Shields then mimed using a telephone and said she needed to call her husband and ask him to turn into one of the male models.
