Yesterday afternoon, I took a break from work and trudged through the rain to go down to the Minskoff Theater and attend Broadway Cares' Annual Easter Bonnet Competition.

I have to admit, while I've always been a sucker for those big MGM Technicolor musicals, I've never been much of a Broadway goer. But after everyone was seated and the lights went down, I have to say that there was something rather magical in that cavernous theater, with all eyes expectantly turned towards the stage.

I'm sure that that feeling would have been magnified tenfold if it had been a real musical production we had come to see. Not that this wasn't. But because this was a competition of sorts, the performances were more variety act. Then again, they were acts from some of the biggest Broadway and off-Broadway productions currently on stage.

Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights AIDS Easter Bonnet Competition raised an impressive record-breaking $3.7 million. No matter how many of these events I attend, I guess every single time, I'm always sort of overwhelmed by the sense of beneficence and compassion that these events arouse.

The highlight of the event was a performance by Doris Eaton Travis, who at 104 years old, is a true Ziegfeld Girl. (She really is, actually. Doris performed in the Follies from 1918-1920.)

When the show ended, after sitting in the dark for nearly 2 1/2 hours, I blinkingly made my way out of the theater onto 44th Street. The clouds had broken at last after several days of bad weather and it was tumbling down sunshine.