Lots of reasons, starting with five TV-related ones:

Neil Patrick Harris from CBS's How I Met Your Mother. Stephen Colbert from Comedy Central's The Colbert Report. Martha Plimpton from Fox's Raising Hope. Jon Cryer from CBS's Two and a Half Men. And, as the surprise knockout from the TV contingent, Christina Hendricks from AMC's Mad Men...

No strings, good times, just chums, Company!

Before the summer is over, this New York Philharmonic concert version of Company, starring Neil Patrick Harris as a bachelor confronting his love life and future while surrounded by married friends at his 35th birthday, is tentatively scheduled to be a special offering in select movie theaters -- so, somehow, it'll find its way to TV eventually.

But on Thursday's opening night at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, there were no cameras in sight. No doubt, since most of the players had yet to rehearse in the same space, that was considered an unnecessary additional distraction and complication. And while opening night did indeed play as a grand-scale dress rehearsal, the energy, and the 1970 show's durable delights, were evident, and very enjoyable.

In addition to being generously populated with TV stars, the company in this Company also was bolstered by some Tony Award-winning ringers.

Katie Finneran (a winner for Promises, Promises) plays the fast-talking nervous bride, Amy, who panic-sings her way through "Not Getting Married."

Anika Noni Rose (who won for Caroline, or Change, and also has a TV connection as senatorial candidate Wendy Scott-Carr on CBS's The Good Wife) plays Marta, the wide-eyed New Yorker who gets to sing "Another Hundred People."

And the diva in residence, Patti LuPone (winner for both Evita and Gypsy), takes over Elaine Stritch's classic role of dour Joanne, who gets to belt one of the era's biggest musical anthems, "The Ladies Who Lunch."

That doesn't even count other players -- such as Craig Bierko, known on Broadway for his Music Man revival and on TV as a late-arrival attorney on Boston Legal; Aaron Lazar, from last year's revival of Sondheim's A Little Night Music; Jennifer Laura Thompson from Urinetown; and Jim Walton, who last year appeared in Sondheim's New York Philharmonic birthday concert. That concert, like this one, was conducted by Paul Gemignani and directed by Lonny Price, and is every bit as much a triumph.

So, without question, it's a terrific cast, with wonderful collaborators.

On opening night, the whole didn't quite add up to the sum of its parts, as there was a lot of nervousness (some missed or mis-timed vocal entrances, for example) and too little in-the-moment vocal or acting magic. LuPone, predictably, killed -- but she'd already sung the same show-stopper, on the same stage, at Sondheim's birthday bash.

Colbert was charmingly sincere, and obviously enjoying himself, as Harry, who gets to kick off "Sorry/Grateful," Sondheim's amazing song about marital ambivalence. (When I saw the original production of Company, that song hit me like a punch in the gut -- as did many of the others that followed. And I wasn't even married.)

The Act Two opener, when the various couples get together with Harris' Bobby to sing "Side By Side By Side," was the first time the cast effectively strutted its stuff as one, with a winning vaudevillian number where they had to hit the dance steps as well as the notes -- and succeeded at both.

On Thursday night, Act Two was much more polished than Act One. LuPone nailed "The Ladies Who Lunch," and Harris dug nicely into the emotional depths of "Being Alive" -- though I suspect his singing already is even more powerful, and nuanced, on this closing number as he works his way through later performances.

The surprise standout of Act Two, though, was Christina Hendricks, already a favorite as proud, curvy Joan on Mad Men.

In Act One, she had succeeded already as one-third of the Andrews Sisters soundalikes in "You Could Drive a Person Crazy."

But in Act Two, as the not very cerebral airline stewardess April, she got to deliver a long story about a butterfly, and did it beautifully -- then sang, with Harris, the comic "Barcelona," and did that, beautifully, too.

I knew she was great in Mad Men -- but I didn't know she could sing that well, and had no idea she was that funny, either.

By the time the wives in the story gathered around April in a literal chorus of disapproval, I was already thinking:

In the not too distant future, Christina Hendricks will be starring in a musical revival of her own. Or should be.

Long Story Short:
Colin Quinn's Still Very Dry, And Very Funny

Now, about the Broadway production you don't have to wait months, or more, to see on screen...

Colin Quinn: Long Story Short (Saturday night at 10 ET, HBO) captures the former Saturday Night Live "Weekend Update" anchor at center stage of Broadway's Helen Hayes Theatre, where he held court delivering his comic history of humanity -- and noting, for the record, very little measurable progress.

"Comedians should be running the f***ing world," Quinn says at one point -- then makes a good case why. (Jerry Seinfeld, unseen but not unfelt as the show's director, is another persuasive argument.)

I was there for one of the two performances taped by HBO, and it ran straight through: no stops, no retakes, just Quinn running at full speed, pausing at various points in history to toss out casual, often cutting observations.

Discussing the Catholic church, Quinn suggested it might be time to rethink the rituals asked of the faithful, which included kneeling with mouths open. "At some point," Quinn said with furrowed brow, "it's entrapment."

And at some point, very early on, it's clear that Colin Quinn: Long Story Short is entertainment.