Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck is cooking a special chicken pot pie for partygoers at this year’s Governors Ball.

HOLLYWOOD — We’re just hours away from the big Oscar-cast, with many questions yet to be answered.

Will Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin doing double hosting duty double our pleasure or make for an evening that feels twice as long as it usually does?

Will first-time Oscar co-producer — Hairspray director-choreographer Adam Shankman — make good on his promise to deliver some killer dance numbers, or make us pine for those hokey, cringe-inducing Debbie Allen routines from back in the day?

Will Brangelina put in an appearance?

This much we know for sure — it’s going to be one swell after-party.

We got the goods for Cheryl Cecchetto, whose company, Sequoia Productions is once again (for the 21st time) responsible for every last detail of the Oscars’ annual Governors Ball, and this time around she just may have outdone herself.

Over the years Cecchetto has faced her share of potential mood-killing obstacles while planning the bash to end all bashes, from 9/11 to the start of the war in Iraq, from the disruptive Writers Guild strike to the recession.

The 2010 edition has been no exception, what with the still-crummy economy and those earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, but the show must go on, and, just like the way each year brings its own unique set of challenges, Cecchetto isn’t one to ever repeat herself.

Where last year’s fete transformed the cavernous Kodak Theatre ballroom into an Asian-inspired, very Zen oasis of serenity, this year Cecchetto has turned to late ’30s Hollywood and the Streamline Moderne Art Deco style for inspiration.

“We’ve curved the entire ballroom,” says Cecchetto, with some frantic-sounding hammering going on in the background.

Borrowing design elements from Paul Williams — not the diminutive singer-songwriter, but Hollywood’s Golden Age architect to the stars, Cecchetto and her team will transport the Ball’s invitation-only guests into something out of a vintage Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie.

“We have a magnificent, 850-foot spiral chandelier in the centre that twists and turns and ends up at a dramatic grand spiral staircase with fabulous violinists standing on it, serenading the arriving guests” says Cecchetto.

Before they get that far, those with actual awards in tow will first be stopping by at an Oscar engraving station, allowing them, for the first time ever, to get their statuettes personalized while they wait.

Violinists aside, musical entertainment will also be supplied by a 20-piece, all-female orchestra and chanteuse singers wearing gowns created by Oscar-nominated costume designer and Governors Ball chair Jeffrey Kurland, who also designed all the cocktail dresses and jackets for the wait staff.

And just what kind of grub will they be serving up, you ask?

In addition to his usual, delectable hors d’oeuvres, Wolfgang Puck has cooked up a very special chicken pot pie with black truffles baked into the crust, while pastry chef extraordinaire Sherry Yard has created a very dramatic Baked Alaska with espresso glace, and actual, colour-changing klieg lights at the bottom.

Even with 1,500 table settings to deal with, Cecchetto thinks she’s got everything under control, with one exception.

“Of course my biggest challenge right now is, will it or will it not rain?” worries Cecchetto.

Maybe Kurland should whip up a bunch of Streamline Moderne umbrellas, just in case.

Michael Rechtshaffen, a Canadian entertainment writer based in Los Angeles, appears Wednesdays and Sundays