Celebrities have been packing New York's Central Park the past few weeks to see Meryl Streep and a star-studded cast perform Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull," under the director of the stellar Mike Nichols. This is despite the fact that the park's Delacorte Theater is an outdoor venue that falls prey to the withering heat that's overcome the East the past week and, on Sunday's opening night, a torrential rain. While Ed Norton, who caught the show with Selma Hayek two weeks ago, remained dry, on Sunday umbrellas went up over Meg Ryan and her date, Mike Myers; Warren Beatty and Annette Bening; Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick; Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue; and opera star Jessye Norman, who also protected her head with one of her trademark turbans. More than a few times on stage, the stars -- Christopher Walken, Marcia Gay Harden, Kevin Kline, John Goodman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, among them -- had to stop what they were doing and take shelter in their dressing rooms, for 10 and 15 minutes at a time. But the crowd (which also include Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and his friend Judith Nathan) withstood the delays, though as one first nighter told PEOPLE.com, during one dry spell they were requested to put down their umbrellas. It seemed that the sight of them distracted the cast.