Broadway After Dark

The OBIE Awards the other night at Webster Hall in the East Village brought out a lot of Broadway as well as the Off Broadway people and places for which the OBIES are named - a sign, no doubt, of the fact that they - and the performances and dramas which they represent - are increasing in popularity at the same time the more affluent theater award shows are losing ground as well as popularity with viewers.

This year's OBIEs were hosted by Daniel Breaker, who took home an OBIE last year for his role in "Passing Strange," and now is on Broadway in "Shrek: The Musical" as the Donkey, and Martha Plimpton, who won an OBIE herself a few years back (2002) for her role in "Hobson's Choice" and was in this season's musical revival of "Pal Joey" on Broadway.

Presenters included Anne Hathaway, looking gorgeous as usual; Brian d'Arcy James, looking clean and healthy and very un-Ogre-ish, having scrubbed his face - and probably the rest of his body - of the green makeup he wears as the Ogre in "Shrek"; Gavin Creel, John Shea, Karen Olivo, Kate Mulgew, Marc Kudisch and Nilaja Sun. There were lots more in the audience, including Raul Esparza and Phylicia Rashad.

The list of winners and their categories can be found below, but there were some lovely moments during the evening. One was when the actor Earle Hyman was given a Lifetime Achievement Award, and few would ever deserve it more. Now 82, and probably best known for his role as the elder Huxtable on TV's "The Bill Cosby Show," he has a list of credits that could take up a full page in even the largest Playbill, he's worked onstage, in film and TV and there's hardly a medium that hasn't used him - from Shakespeare to Disney and back again. He's worked in Central Park and in Hollywood, and there isn't anyone who has worked with him that wouldn't describe him as "an absolute sweetheart."

Hyman is 83 now and needs a walker to help him get around, but he gets around just the same. He had to be helped up and down the stairs to the stage at Webster Hall, but when he was facing the audience, he was a straight as an arrow and his voice was as strong as a man half his age. He talked about his early life in North Carolina, how he was influenced by actors like Stepin Fetchit, Manton Moreland, Willie Best. And he ended his little speech by saying, "To be an actor is the most glorious thing in the world. And don't you ever forget it!" then was helped down the stairs, clutching his citation, to the cheers of the crowd, and seated in the front row, center.

Stephen Sondheim was also honored. While he has been mostly noted as a Broadway musical genius, his most recent musical, Road Show, was seen Off Broadway, at the Public Theater. He seemed very happy to get his award, thanking everyone and making a special note of the fact that the book for his "Road Show" musical was written by John Weidman, his frequent collaborator (he worked on "Pacific Overtures," "Assassins" and others. At the end of his short speech, he almost leaped down the stairs and stopped in front of Earle Hyman to hug him. Hyman seemed delighted, and could be seen singing the words to a song ("No One Is Alone" from the Sondheim musical "Into the Woods") into Sondheim's ear. It was a lovely moment.

Other awards went to:

PERFORMANCES:

Francois Battiste - in "The Good Negro" (Public Theater)
Quincy Tyler Bernstine - "Ruined" (Manhattan Theater Club)
Kevin T. Carroll - sustained excellence of performance
Saidah Arrika Ekulona - "Ruined" (Manhattan Theater Club)
Jonathan Groff - "Prayer for My Enemy" (Playwrights Horizons) and "The Singing Forest (Public Theater)
Birgit Huppuch - "Telephone: (Foundary Theater)
Russell Gebert Jones, "Ruined" (Manhattan Theater Club)
Aaron Monaghan - :The Cripple of Inishman" (Atlantic Theater Co.)
Sahr Ngaujah - "Fela" (37 Arts)
Lorenzo Pisoni - "Humor Abuse" (Manhattan Theater Club)
James Sugg - "Chekhov Lizardbrain" (Pig Iron Theater Company)
John Douglas Thompson - "Othello" (Theater for a New Audience)

MUSIC and LYRICS:

Stephen Sondheim - "Road Show" (Public Theater)

DIRECTING:

David Cromer - "Our Town" (Barrow Street Theater)
Katie Mitchell - "The Waves" (National Theater of Great Britain/ Lincoln Center Great Performances "New Visions" series)
Ken Rus Schmoll - "Telephone" (Foundry Theater)

DESIGN:

Toni-Leslie James - sustained excellence of costume design - special reference to "Wig Out" (Vineyard)
David Korins - sustained excellence of set design - special reference to "Why Torture is Wrong. . . " (Public)

SPECIAL CITATIONS:

Sarah Benson (director) and Lousa Thompson (set designer) - "Blasted" (Soho Rep)
David Esbjornson (director) and Christian Camargo (actor) - "Hamlet" (Theater for a New Audience

ROSS WETZSTEON AWARD (cash prize of $1,000)

HERE Arts Center

OBIE GRANTS ($10,000 divided equally among three theaters)

The Classical Theater of Harlem
The Chocolate Factory
Lark Play Development Center

Theater with Pat O'Haire

ANDREA'S MOM

Andrea Marcovicci, actress and internationally-known cabaret and café singer, wasn’t able to spend Mother’s Day with her Mom, Helen, this year.

Unfortunately, it was impossible. Andrea and her Mom were about 3,000 miles apart last Sunday, one at the western end of the United States, the other at the eastern. But they’ll make up for missing that day this Saturday (May 17), when they take to the stage together in concert at Town Hall, along with several old friends and guests – Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the Broadway musicals, “Godspell” and “Wicked,” songwriter John Bucchino, who’ll sing a duet with Andrea from his last musical, “A Catered Affair,” Grammy winner Julie Gold, and a lot of old friends.

They’ll be holding a double celebration then – not only Mother’s Day, but this year marks Andrea’s 6oth birthday and her mother’s 90th. Two women unafraid of letting the world know their age. Andrea is quite at home on a stage wherever she goes (she can often be seen singing at the Oak Room at Manhattan’s famous Algonquin Hotel, where she marked her 20th anniversary there last fall); her mother is equally at home on the small stages of cabaret rooms. In the 1940s, she appeared throughout the war years at such well-known New York clubs as Bill Bertolotti’s, The Glass Hat, La Vie Parisienne and the fabled Maisonette of the St. Regis Hotel, singing under the name of Helen Stuart.

She was even tempted by the movies – Paramount Pictures invited her to go west and make a screen test. Instead, she opted for marriage and a family, and married Eugene Marcovicci, a doctor of internal medicine.

Now she’s back in front of an orchestra, mike in hand, and ready to sing some of the songs she sang back then as well as plenty of new ones, either alone or with her daughter. She’s also just made a new album, her second – the first, which came out in 2000, is self-titled (“and it’s sold very well,” she said with some surprise in her voice, the other day). The second, which has just been released, is called “seems like old times.”

She doesn’t mind letting people know her age, either. She’s proud of it, and of what she has done and can still do. “Listen,” she said over the phone from her home about 50 miles upstate, where she was busily trying to choose her clothes for the Town Hall concert. “I’m in good health – a little problem with my sight, but nothing else. For years, your age was something you didn’t discuss. But really, once you hit about 85, you might as well say oh, the hell with it! And get over it!”

She’s never let her voice grow stale, either. “I have a lot of songs in my repertoire,” she says proudly. “At this age, you’re better off doing the things you’re used to. I’ve been singing all my life and I do some concerts every year and a lot of benefits for different charities” – like Meals on Wheels, for example, one of her favorites.

And she’s been a semi-regular at her daughter’s shows, sometimes touring with her, sometimes having a regular gig of her own, like at the Algonquin, where she often appeared with Andrea on Thursday nights.

“I took her along on my tour the year her first album came out,” Andrea says, with some pride. “We went from Florida to California and it was great.” For Saturday’s concert, Shelly Markham, her longtime music director and composer in his own right, will lead the five-piece band and perform two of his own numbers.

Andrea’s new CD – her 17th – is entitled “As Time Goes By,” and highlights that song, naturally, along with such familiar numbers as “These Foolish Things” and Maury Yeston’s “New Words,” a now-standard from her collection of the same name

Andrea does keep busy, also. And she hasn’t given up her role as an actress, either. She has appeared on the daytime TV series, “Love is a Many Splendored Thing,” made it to Broadway in “Ambassador,” a musical adaptation of the Henry James novel, and in several Off Broadway and regional shows as well, including appearing with Anthony Newley in “Chaplin” and playing all the actor’s wives, and in Henry Jaglom’s film, “Someone to Love,” with Orson Welles in his last film appearance, among others.

In recent years, she has decided to share some of her secrets of performing. She has been teaching Master Classes on the art of cabaret in several cities. This year, she’s returning to teach at the Perry-Mansfield School in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. But before that, when her Town Hall concert is over, she’ll be co-hosting the 23d Annual Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs Awards on Monday (May 18) at BB King’s in New York, then finish preparing “Skylark: A Centennial Tribute to Johnny Mercer,” which she was commissioned to write and perform by the Savannah Music Festival, the songwriter’s hometown. She plans to bring it later this year in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Mom isn’t going to be part of that show – but who knows? – now that she’s caught the virus spread by that performing bug, she may turn up in one of the key cities along the way.

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Theater with Pat O'Haire

CAROL HALL

Singer-songwriter Carol Hall has her own idea about her chosen profession.

“A song is not a song until somebody sings it” is how she looks at it.

Well, considering that when she’s finished writing a song, she can go to her Rolodex and pull up the phone numbers or e-mail addresses of people like Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Chita Rivera, Lesley Gore, Barbara Cook, Scott Coulter, Bobby Gosh, Amanda McBroom, Bill Evans, Olivia Newton-John, Maureen McGovern, Johnny Rodgers, the Broadway Inspirational Voices and plenty of others, to make her songs sing loud and clear. And her songs cross all boundaries – even Kermit the Frog from TV’s Sesame Street, has sung one of her numbers.

Some of those people are on the latest album just released by Hall and called “Hallways,” whose cover has a photo of the lady in question superimposed on a long corridor where the walls are empty. But the record itself is far from a barren wall – it’s decorated by her singing, playing piano and performing, sometimes alone, but mostly with other performers, most of whom are old friends. The songs are both old and new friends, too, and they include her “Jenny Rebecca” (her song that Streisand – among others - recorded), and “Hard Candy Christmas” (originally recorded by Dolly Parton).

And so far, the album has garnered three nominations for MAC Awards – in the categories of Best Recording, Best Song (“Change in Me”) and Best Special Material (“This is My Birthday”). Winners will be announced May 18 at a huge celebrity party at BB King’s Blues Club in Times Square.

Not bad for a little girl from Abilene, Texas, whose mother was a classical musician who dreamed her daughter would perform one day with the New York Philharmonic.

She was reminiscing a bit about that part of her growing up the other day at Joe Allen’s restaurant in New York’s theater district. She’s from Texas, from Abilene and Dallas, has lived in New York now for more than a few years and has the qualifications to get a table without a reservation at that actor’s hangout – she’s one of the few pop songwriters to sit down long enough to write a Broadway musical.

She wrote both music and lyrics for “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” which opened on Broadway in June of 1978 and ran for almost five years – a very respectable 1,584 performances – even picked up several nominations for the prestigious Tony Awards that year, winning two – for Henderson Forsythe and Carlin Glynn, both for Best Performance as a Featured Actor in a musical. (The show became a film in 1982, starring Bert Reynolds, Dolly Parton and Charles Durning, who was nominated for an Oscar for his singing and dancing of “The Sidestep,” as the Governor of Texas trying to explain why he doesn’t close the infamous brothel for which the musical was named).

“When I was growing up, my reward for playing and learning my music – it was being given a dessert, really,” Hall continued “my mother would let me buy some pop music of the day. If I learned the Taccata, I could buy ‘Tenderly,’” she says with a smile. “I think I was 10, maybe 11, when I wrote my first song. It was after our dog died. I guess I had some idea of harmony after all the lessons, so I wrote it on the ukulele.

And she remembers her first encounter with musical theater. It was the movie, “The Wizard of Oz,” which she says her mother took her to see when she was “maybe six. I loved it. But I think it wasn’t until later, maybe when I saw “Snow White,” that I think I learned – or at least began to understand – how songs could come out of the characters, how they could explain their thoughts characters, what was happening.”

She kept right on writing, even when she was sent to Virginia to go to school. “Sweetbriar,” she says. “It was a girl’s school. But there was a boy’s school nearby and they’d put on shows, so I wrote songs and skits for them. That was real hot stuff at the time.”

Later, she started performing herself – playing piano and singing some of her own songs, a few by other writers. Hall played one gig in New York City around that time. It was at Max’s Kansas City, a club in the Chelsea area and one of the hottest places in town at the time. She was hired as opening act for Waylon Jennings and she remembers it well.

“It was a mean crowd there that night,” she says. “Real mean. I remember Waylon looking out from backstage, turning to me, saying ‘Is this your crowd?’ I was pretty nervous, but I looked at him and smiled, ‘No, Waylon. I think they might be yours.’”

Back in Texas, she began hanging out at Houston’s famous Alley Theater, where she and actress Carlin Glynn had apprenticed as college students. It was then that she began to think of writing a musical about Texas. “The Last Picture Show” seemed a possibility, but she was discouraged when she was told, “You’ll never get the rights.”

Then someone showed her a piece that was in Playboy Magazine, written by fellow Texan Larry L. King, about the famed Chicken Ranch, a brothel in Texas which had operated quite openly for over a century, but then became a political liability when a reporter wrote about it, and it finally was shut down. The Playboy piece chronicled the politics of the shutdown.

Hall and an old friend, actor-director Peter Masterson, began to talk about that story, and while he ended up co-writing and co-directing, to her surprise, she soon learned that Larry hated musicals, claimed they were nothing but “tippy-toed dancers stomping all over the words.” But that was before another Texan, Tommy Tune, joined the show as co-director and choreographer and designed a real foot-stomping dance for the football teams who visit the Chicken Ranch after their games.

That was okay with Masterson; the rest is in theater history archives.

So – besides the album, what else has she been doing? Any chance of a revival of “Whorehouse”? Just about everything else has been revived, why not that?

“Well, I don’t know,” she says about Broadway. “There was one revival a few years back, but it didn’t make it. Still, the show seems to have a life of its own. It’s done in colleges, it’s done in summer stock.

“It’s funny, how times have changed. When we first opened, there was such controversy about the use of the word ‘Whorehouse.’ We couldn’t use it on the radio or TV. The New York Times refused our advertisements until we showed them they had used the word in another ad – for the theater classic “’Tis Pity She’s a Whore.” Then they gave in. We were banned and we were picketed and all that – and now Emerson College in Boston, of all places, is putting it on this month.

“So things are always changing. Maybe it will be revived on Broadway. Anything can happen.”

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Theater with Pat O'Haire

KING DAVID

The only thing most people know about David, the legendary King of the Jews in ancient times, is the story of how he, a teenaged soldier in a war against the Philistine invaders, met up with and confronted Goliath, biggest and baddest member of the enemy’s army, and, armed with his faith in God and nothing more than the most primitive of weapons - a slingshot and a few stones - slew the nine-foot-tall giant.

It was an action so unexpected that the enemy was thrown into panic, threw down their arms, turned around and ran away.

It is an awesome story as related in the book of Samuel, one of the earliest books of the Bible, and has been repeated often through the years in books and shown in many films, taught in schools and told so often that it has become legend.

But David was more than just a lucky youngster able to win a war with a slingshot. He quickly became a popular leader of his people, the Jews of ancient times, and eventually one of their greatest kings. Far from frivolous, he managed to unite the often-warring tribes of Israel, coerced them into a peaceful union, established Jerusalem as their capital, rescued the Ark of the Covenant and built a sanctuary for it. He was also a musician, played the lyre, composed hymns and sang them and wrote many of the psalms that made their way into the Bible.

It is that David that is being depicted in an unusual one-man musical show, acted, co-written, sung and danced by actor-singer and mimic David Sanborn, now at the Promise Theater, a handsome Off Broadway venue which, by day, is the Full Gospel NY Church, on 91st St., between First and Second Aves.

What Sanborn and his director and co-writer (who is also his mother, Ellen) have done is populated the stage with the voices of some well-known, easily-identified stars, whose words come from the Bible but whose voices come from the young Sanborn – Goliath, for example, sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger. The elder Samuel, the reporter covering the events, sounds like Jimmy Stewart; the prophet Nathan has Sean Connery’s Scottish burr and one of the King’s servants sounds like Keanu Reeves.

It’s an interesting, quite original, way to tell a story, as the narrative leads its way through peace and war, marriage, the birth and loss of a son, through politics, assassination attempts, celebrations, questions of faith and reconciliation with God.

It is an ambitious undertaking, and, for the most part, it succeeds. Sanborn is an engaging actor with a pleasant voice; the songs, all written by him, fit the mood of the period and his impersonations are accomplished. The use of well-known voices to replace live characters is an interesting concept, but unfortunately, it is difficult to remember exactly who the characters are when they all come from the same throat. He does well with all of them, but the concept might work better if there were fewer.

The stage is bare, for the most part, except for a large chair which seems to have been made of stone and covered by a single stretched-out canvas, which seems to be ready to set sail at any moment. The simple stage and costume design is by Elizabeth Richards, Bernard Fox did the sound design and Matthew Miller handled the lighting, all of which worked very well. The Sanborn family, it would seem, has managed to do everything else, and they did it with apparent ease and dispatch.

Theater with Pat O'Haire

Terry Schreiber

Just about the last place anyone in New York City might look to find a theater is in an office building on West 26th St., on the fringe of the Garment District, just about a mile south of the Broadway Theater District. But that's where a handsome, good-looking, clean, well-lighted place is the present home of the T. Schreiber Studio, a well-known acting school, has finaly found its headquarters - and its theater, a place where his students can show the world what they have learned.

The Schreiber Studio has been like one of those gambling joints so aptly described in the musical, "Guys and Dolls" - "the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York!" After all, it's the Studio and its founder, Terry Schreiber, are celebrating its 40th anniversary this year and in those four decades, they have moved and moved and moved, from a basement level studio to space above a friendly bar (they were burned out of that one) to just about any place else they could afford to set up their school - and its requisite theater.

Now they've settled in on W. 26th St. - the school is running smoothly, there are enough pupils, there is space for a 99-seat theater. Terry has his own private office, there are computers for keeping records and people passing through the space just like they do in any other office in that building. But come 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and mid-afternoon Sundys, the curtain goes up on the 99-seat Off Broadway theater, where presently, the attraction is Tom Stoppard's award-winning play, "The Real Thing."

"The Real Thing" opened on Broadway in 1984 and starred Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons, Christine Baranski, Peter Gallagher and Cynthia Nixon; Mike Nichols was its director. Those same lines are now being spoken by members of the T. Schreiber Company, directed by Terry Schreiber.

Schreiber is slim, grey-haired and grey-bearded. He has an impish look but when he talks of his work, there's no nonsense in his speech. When he came to New York from the Midwest half a century ago, he had plans of becoming an actor. And while he had some success at that, he discovered that his main enjoyment was in directing others, and it opened up another career and it got him to the Broadway stage. His career there began with a play about climbing a mountain ("K-2"), then "The Trip Back Down" in 1977, starring John Cullum as a washed-up race car driver, among others.

He'd found his niche - he's a natural teacher. So he and his wife put together all the money they had and all they could beg and borrow from family and friends and opened the school. Two decades later, they're still at it, and their studio has become well-known among young actors. But while his studio takes up most of his time, he's also found time to direct at regional theaters across the country and abroad, helming many American plays in Japan, for example, as well as teaching his technique and discipline to students at workshops in Los Angeles, Paris, Istanbul and Chile.

In addition to "The Real Thing," recent productions at his studio have included "Night of the Iguana," "Sweet Bird of Youth," "Hedda Gabler" and the four-play Chekov cycle ("The Seagull," "Uncle Vanya," "The Three Sisters" and "The Cherry Orchard"). The plays he chooses to direct are often classics; what they have in common is a universal appeal or truths, shedding light on problems held by everyone, high-born or low, and showing how some people cope with them.

Schreiber is also an author - he's written a book entitled "Acting: Advanced Technique for the Actor, Director & Teacher," now in its third printing; he's just finished a second book, dealing with two decades of producing and directing Off and Off-Off Broaday. He'll be happy to autograph his first book for anyone who brings it to the theater.

"The Real Thing" can be seen at the Schreiber Studio, 151 West 26th St. Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3. A fee of $25 is suggested.

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Theater with Pat O'Haire

MEADER

Now that all the pomp and circumstance of the inauguration is over and locked in some delightful safe deposit box in our minds, what are all those George W. Bush imitators going to do for material? The most recent ex was a great source of material for comics with – besides his diplomatic bungling – an odd, sort of nervous laugh and a smile that only lit up half his face, some horrible speech patterns delivered with a Texas twang, and a habit of looking like a deer startled by a bright light – plus his distinctive cowboy style of dress and gestures.

President Clinton had his imitators, too, but they were pikers compared to those of Dubya.

But those of us who’ve been around long enough to remember President Kennedy with his distinctive Boston accent and his beautiful aristocratic wife, Jackie, should remember another name that will be forever linked with his – Vaughn Meader.

Meader was a stand-up comedian, a singer and pianist, who, like Kennedy, was from New England, and had the accent down pat. He and a couple of joke writer friends, Bob Booker and Earle Doud, crafted an album making wonderful, light-hearted fun of the President, his wife and family, his brothers, sisters and pets. It was called “The First Family.”

From the day it hit the stores, it was a phenomenon. Sold 7.5 million copies the first year in the U.S. alone, and was the fastest-selling album in the country, winning a Grammy in 1963 as Album of the Year.But it was so good-natured that the whole world, it seemed, was listening to it and laughing – even the President. Meader became a phenomenon. From a mediocre stand-up entertainer, overnight he had morphed into a star, with gigs on TV, radio, concert stage, personal appearances, honored guest at red-carpet parties – the money just kept rolling in. Everybody wanted a piece of him and he obliged as best he could. Even the President acknowleged the album. He opened a speech one night with the words, “Vaughn Meader was busy, so they sent me,” ánd usually claimed with a laugh.that the record sounded more like brother Teddy than himself.

His star kept rising until that mid-November day in 1963. Meader and his writers were working on a second album, hoping to match the success of the first, when the news broke that the President had been killed. Lee Harvey Oswald’s bullet might just as well have been aimed at Meader. He was devastated, his career – his life – in ruins. In a gesture of mourning, record stores took the album off their shelves and many never put it back, and he fell into a deep depression which he tried curing with drugs and alcohol.

They didn’t help much, so he picked up his original career as a country-style singer-musician and played gigs in bars and clubs in and around his home town in Maine, with little success. He died in October, 2004, a footnote to history – but he made people smile.

So what are some of these imitators going to do now that Dubya is out of the picture? Fade away? Not bloody likely. Before Will Ferrell opened on Broadway in his good-natured spoof of the recently retired Chief Executive – a spoof he has been honing for years on his Saturday Night Live gig – so he’s always had a day job.

Now no one is thinking the same thing could happen to either Dubya or Ferrell, but it is worth imagining where the comics and imitators will look for their next subject. So we went recently to see “Political Idol,” a musical revue put together by a small troupe of five politically-conscious actors at the Triad, a club on W. 72d St., between Broadway and Columbus Ave. (it has since closed, but that’s what we’re writing about).

In this spoof, actors played Barack Obama and John McCain square off over the economy and foreign policy while running mates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin discuss their qualifications to be leaders of the free world. Others play other Presidential candidates and political figures past, present and future, all with things to say and all set to parodies of popular songs written by Marc Emory and with Robert Yarnall, his co-author of the book and lyrics.

So we talked to Yarnall after the show to find out what his future plans were. And they are plenty. He’s a member of the advanced BMI Musical Theater Workshop as a lyric ist and actor and has performed on and off Broadway in “Angels in America,” “The Wild Party,” American Buffalo” and others and has written an inauguration spoof which he hopes will be on soon.

“I’m not worried about running out of characters now that George W. has gone off the stage,” he said. “He was a natural, yes. But there are plenty of others around. Think Sarah Palin – she’s a gift to comedians everywhere. And there are others. Dubya left a legacy we can tap in, and I’m sure the next administration will have plenty of rich characters.

“We’re not going away. Neither are the rich characters. There will always be plenty of them.”

Good. We can always use laughs.

* * * *

There’s a more serious side to the political scene as it connects with show business at the moment. According to a Jeremy Gerard column in the Washington Post recently, the new President has tapped a number of high-profile show business boldface names – names like Broadway producer-director Harold Prince (“Sweeney Todd”) and producer Margo Lion (“Hairspray”), musicians Eugenia and Pinchas Zuckerman, Hollywood director, producer and writer George Stevens, Agnes Gund, Museum of Modern Art president emeritus, novelist Michael Chabon and Robert L. Lynch, president and chief executive officer of the Washington-based arts advocacy group, Americans for the Arts. Apparently, President Obama called on them before he even had the nomination in hand and wanted their advice.

The committee's mandate was more or less to develop a program that would create an "Artists Corps" of young artists trained to work in low-income schools and communities, according to Gerard, to expand the public-private partnerships to increase cultural education programs, to assist in finding increased funding for the arts budgets in various states, where cuts have been deep - totalling almost $100 million in the last two years. They also considered commitments to a "cultural diplomacy" and a program to attract foreign talent in the arts. Most important, they discussed providing health care to artists.

* * * *

Another interesting sidelight on the political scene - there is now in the works a new musical that should get some major attention. It’s called “Abe” and it’s about an earlier president – the one whose last name was Lincoln. It’s being written by Kenneth Jones. And the rumor is that Liam Neeson is trying to decide if he can sing. Otherwise, he seems perfect - physically - for the role. . . . And a second musical in the works but this time it's about a musical icon. It’s to be called “Lena,” is based on the life of Lena Horne and Leslie Uggams may inherit the role of the fabled beauty, if everything works as expected. Or so we may all hope.

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Theater with Pat O'Haire

December 8, 2008

A woman leaving the Palace Theater after Liza Minnelli's performance the other night was bubbling with excitement, grabbing anyone who would listen to her. "Wasn't this great?" she said, barely containing herself. "Just wonderful! I paid $176 for a ticket to see this show. And it was worth every penny!" Taking a breath, she continued. "I don't care about the cost. I paid $300 to see Madonna. This was better. Much better," she said as she went off smiling, ready to buttonhole someone else to tell them the same story.

That just about summed up the audience reaction to "Liza's at the Palace," which opened for a limited engagement at the Palace, where her mother, the legendary Judy Garland, scored some of her greatest triumphs some 40-odd years ago.

Liza herself has played the Palace before, and while this production is quite different from her last here (about a decade ago - that one was dedicated to her father, the Hollywood musical film director, Vincente Minnelli), its theme was still her own usual bubbly mixture of sentiment, memory, nostalgia, charm - and sentimentality.

She's had her share of troubles over the years with husbands, relationships, physical problems like knee replacements and others as well as well-publicized addictions and rehabs, so everyone was interested in seeing how she looked, how she sounded and what she might have to say.

Well, she said plenty - mocking her marriages (including one number from the musical, "Chicago," in which her character tells and re-enacts shooting a husband and finally kicking him - as the audience cheered wildly), talking of her problems in a lighthearted manner as if she knows everyone knows them all and anyway, they're long behind her.

And as for her looks - well, from a mezzanine seat, she looked as if she could still pass for a teenager, though probably not up close. She makes fun of her age (62) and her health problems, like getting a chair to sit on during the first act ("I used to wait till the second act" but no more she says). And she seems secure enough in her own skin to make jokes about her own messy life - chapters of which are apparently behind her now.

And how did she sound? Excellent. No matter what she says about her physical problems, she still has the energy to belt out numbers with the same fierceness she showed in the past. She made the high notes easily; her voice now seems mellowed, the tones more shaded, darker for the ballads, yet when she takes on the John Kander-Fred Ebb song, "Cabaret," the enthusiasm is palpable. If she was carrying a banner, leading an uprising, the audience would probably drop into line behind her.

The show is divided into two very different acts. In the first, she reprises many of her well-known songs ("New York, New York," "Maybe This Time," "Cabaret" and others) as well as a medley that stirred memories of her mother, paying tribute to some of the famous names who had worked the Palace (Fanny Brice, Nora Bayes, Sophie Tucker and the like) even before she was born.

For the second half, she brought out four male singers and recreated an act that had originally been done by the well-known cabaret star of the 40s and 50s, Kay Thompson and the Williams Brothers (singer Andy Williams was one of the original four). And while Thompson, one of her mother's best friends and Liza's godmother, is mainly remembered these days as the author of the noted children's book, "Eloise," she was a major singer/songwriter/actress who toured all over the world, playing in the best hotels in the country, back when hotels actually had big rooms where major entertainers would perform.

Some may wonder why there are no new songs in her act. She doesn't need them. She already has a repertoire of so many well-known numbers that her fans can happily song along with just about any number she decides to do.

Liza's fans went into the Palace singing her best-known numbers. And they left singing them still.

She is backed by a wonderful 12-piece orchestra who sit on the stage; he has them stand up and take bows with her at the end of the show. Her favorite pianist, Billy Stritch, is at the piano, while her long-time drummer, Michael Berkowitz, lays down tempos that make one want to dance. And her costumes - there are three: white, black and red - are very much "in the style of Halston," her designer for many years.

She's in for a limited engagement, which has already been extended once (it now runs through the end of this month) and may be extended again. But it seems to be shaping up as something unusual, unique - just as her mother's Palace engagements were talked about for years after they happened.

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Theater with Pat O'Haire

October 27, 2008

Good news for lots of theatergoers this week - First of all, TKTS is back - reopening up shop at the booth in Times Square, where discount tickets for Broadway, Off-Broadway, music and dance shows can be purchased for as much as 50% off the face value. It's back at its original site at Duffy Square (and if you don't know where that is, it's a triangular traffic island that is made when Broadway crosses Seventh Ave. between 46th and 47th Sts. and named after Father Duffy, a priest who served as a chaplain for a New York City regiment during World War I; his statue dominates the island).

The booth has been operating out of temporary quarters in the Marriott Marquis Hotel while the site it had occuped since opening in 1973 was given a cleaning and remodeling, including a complete overhaul of the Father Duffy statue - he's been showered, shaved and given a complete uniform cleaning.

There are several amenities, however. First of all, there will now be 12 selling windows open, each of which will be equipped to accept credit cards as well as cash or travelers checks. And there will be a special "Play Only" window where those who aren't waiting for musical productions can be served quickly. Hours of operation remain the same - 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. for evening performances on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; Wednesdays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. for matinees and Sundays from 11 to 3 p.m. for matinees, 3 to 7 for evenings.

TKTS is operated by the Theatre Development Fund, a not-for-profit service organization for the performing arts. TDF also operates two other discount booths, one at the South Street Seaport at the corner of Front and John Sts., the other in Downtown Broolyn, at 1 MetroTech Center, at Jay Street and Myrtle Promenade. In the 35 years they have been operating, the booths have sold over 51 million tickets at discount prices to millions of customers who might never have been able to attend live shows. And that 51 million tickets represent some 1.4 billion in revenue returned to thusands of productions.

So it helps build audiences and gives money back to the theaters at the same time. Seems like a good deal all around.

*****

More good news for theatergoers: Angela Lansbury has decided to return to Broadway. The four-time Tony Award winner will start riding her bicycle early next year when she takes on the role of Madame Arcati in a revival of Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit."

It has an opening date of Feb. 26, though no theater has been announced as yet. She'll be working this time with Tony winner (for "Grey Gardens") Christine Ebersole, in the role of Elvira, the returning spirit of a dead ex-wife and Rupert Everett, the British actor from "My Best Friend's Wedding" and "Another Country" as the widowed husband. Michael Blakemore, who directed Lansbury (and Marian Seldes) in "Deuce" most recently, has signed on as director.

"Blithe Spirit," first performed in 1941, is probably Coward's best-known play, and it has been revived many times, most recently in 1987. It was directed by Brian Murray and starred Richard Chamberlain, Blythe Danner, Judith Ivey, Geraldine Page and others. Guess who was Madame Arcarti in that one!

*****

Looks as if the public is finally going to get to see "Road Show," the new title of the Stephen Sondheim-John Weidman musical about the brothers Mizner, who were noted in the early part of the last century - one, Wilson, an architect who designed and built several of the mansions that face the Atlantic Ocean along Palm Beach, Florida. and his brother, a con man (name to come) who headed northwest to the Yukon, where people were finding gol, ,nd he knew they would have money to give to him.

Sondheim and Weidman previously collaborated on both "Pacific Overtures" and "Assassins" and have spent considerable time working over this one on the Mizeners. It spans about 40 years of American history in its two-hour, no-intermission work, which was tried out a few years back, though never opened on Broadway after a long and angry squabble between the authors and the producer, Scott Rudin, which ended in several lawsuits.

Whatever differences there were seem to have been settled, amicably or not, because now the musical is set to open at the Public Theater, to run Nov.18 through Dec. 28. Michael Cerveris and Alexander Gemignani will play the brothers; John Doyle, who most recently directed Sondheim's controversial "Sweeney Todd," will again be working this one.

The Public Theater is located at 425 Lafayette St. in lower Manhattan.

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Theater with Pat O'Haire

September 3, 2008

Father's Day in September?

Most of the country celebrates Father’s Day on the third Sunday of June every year.

Jane Friedman begins her Father’s Day celebration Sept. 4 this year.

And the way she has it figured, it should last for the rest of her life and even longer.

After Sept. 4, more people than he ever knew in his lifetime will be calling out his name nightly forever, starting that day. That’s the day she’ll be on the sidewalk in front of the historic old Biltmore Theater, on W. 47th St., just off the corner of Eighth Ave., when the fabled Biltmore Theater will be no more. That day, the marquee lights will spell out her father’s name, as the historic site is renamed the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, in honor of her father, one of the unsung heroes of the Broadway theater. The first show under the new name will be the Manhattan Theater Club’s world premiere of “To Be or Not To Be,” an adaptation of Ernst Lubitsch’s 1942 movie comedy which starred Carol Lombard, Jack Benny and Robert Stack. It begins previews Sept. 11 for an Oct. 2 opening.

And just so his colleagues aren’t forgotten, right after the new sign is unveiled, there will be a second ceremony – the theater’s lobby will then be dedicated to two press agents who worked with Friedman, Shirley Herz and Bob Ullman.

Sam Friedman, who died in 1974, was a Broadway press agent who could have easily stepped out of the pages of a play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. He certainly seemed bigger than life – all his life. He was tall, well-built, with black hair combed back from his face and a small mustache. He wore glasses, loved a good story and always seemed restless, like an athlete who wants to get into a game but can’t, for whatever reason. Born in New York City in 1912, he could barely wait to finish school to get started in the theater. By 1932, he had a job with the Shubert Organization and started working on the Cole Porter musical, “You Never Know,” starring Clifton Webb, Libby Holman and Lupe Velez.

After World War II, he and another publicist, Bill Doll, opened their own office, National Press Agents, and added films to their roster of plays, representing both United Artists and Billy Rose Enterprises. Among the films they publicized was Mike Todd’s famous spectacle, “Around the World in Eighty Days.” They loved over-the-top stunts, extravagant ideas – they even rented Madison Square Garden for the party after “Around the World” and caused a traffic jam around the old Garden when hundreds of people lined up outside hoping to get in, or at least see some of the celebrities who had been invited.

But he never abandoned theater. Over the years, he worked with such legendary stars as Gypsy Rose Lee, Montgomery Clift, Jackie Gleason, Josephine Baker, Bette Davis, Lotte Lenya, Jerry Orbach, Victor Borge, Marcel Marceau, Tammy Grimes, Claire Bloom and many, many others.

He represented plays and musicals like “Finian’s Rainbow,” Eugene O’Neill’s “A Moon for the Misbegotten,” “Golden Boy,” starring Sammy Davis Jr., “The Subject Was Roses,” which featured an unknown Martin Sheen, “Oh, Calcutta,” “The Rothschilds,” “The Me Nobody Knows” and such classic films “Moulin Rouge,” “Bridge on the River Quai,” “The Ten Commandments” “West Side Story” and even the Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey Circus.

The new Friedman Theater is a fitting tribute. The Biltmore, as it was called, had a long history of great shows and even greater neglect since it opened in 1925; it housed a play called “Brother Rat” starring Jose Ferrer. Its last plays included Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park” with Robert Redford and Sandy Dennis and then the groundbreaking musical, “Hair,” when it moved to Broadway from its home at Joe Papp’s Public Theater downtown. After that, it was neglected, an ugly mess that nobody wanted to see – or be seen near.

After a devastating fire in 1987 which caused the roof to cave in, it was finally closed and stayed that way until the Manhattan Theater Club, which had some smaller off-Broadway theaters and were looking for a Broadway outlet for its roster of plays, showed up with mops and buckets and vacuums, and gave the place a $35 million bath, complete with new makeup and hairdo. It reopened in 2003, all bright and shiny, new seats, new carpeting, new painting – the works. They did a beautiful job and the works it has housed has done it credit.

In the last five years, the MTC has presented at the theater the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Rabbit Hole,” by David Lindsay-Abaire, Conor McPherson’s “Shining City” and a world premiere of a musical by Kurt Weill-Alfred Uhry, “LoveMusik” directed by Harold Prince and starring Donna Murphy and Michael Cerveris, among others. The MTC was always a force to be reckoned with Off-Broadway with its productions earning a total of 16 Tony Awards and five Pulitzer Prizes as well as many, many others.

It is easy to see why actors are happy to work with them – and in such a good-looking theater with a brand-new name.

* * * *

William Peterson, the Chicago-based actor who can be seen on TV in the “CSI” series, will take a hiatus from the small screen to appear in Conor McPherson’s “A Dublin Carol” at the Steppenwolf Theater Nov. 16 to Dec. 21. John Mahoney, whose role in TV’s “Frasier” is still seen in reruns, is also a Stppenwolf veteran; he’ll be back onstage there in McPherson’s “The Seafarer” Dec. 4 to Feb. 9. Might be worth a trip to Chicago, even if the weather out there is frightful, as it usually is in winter.

* * * *

Now for a little holiday news: “White Christmas,” a musical fashioned from the well-known 1954 film that starred Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen singing and dancing to Irving Berlin’s music, will be live and in person at the Marquis Theater for a limited run (Nov.23 to Jan.4). Walter Bobbie is directing the revised book by David Ives and Paul Blake, with choreography by Randy Skinner. Those who remember the movie will be able to sing along with the score, which includes such numbers as the title song, “I Love a Piano,” “How Deep is the Ocean,” “Sisters” and “Count Your Blessings.” Makes you want to start thinking about holly and ivy and Chrstmas cards, doesn’t it?

And guess what? Another reminder of the coming season – Kathy Crosby, wife of the late singer, will perform for one night at Feinstein’s, the club in the Regency Hotel, on Dec. 15. The show is called “Christmas with Bing and Kathryn Crosby.”

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Theater with Pat O'Haire

July 24, 2008

Ever think of Liam Neeson as presidential?

Well, get used to it.

The tall, thin and dark-haired actor, who won an Oscar in 1993 for his role in the Stephen Spielberg film, "Shindler's List," has been onstage in New York recently in Lincoln Center's Summer Festival, where Dublin's Gate Theater was brought over to do a series of plays by Samuel Beckett. He performed in the one-man show, "Eh, Joe," an hour-long piece in which he did not say one single word of dialog. The words were all a taped stream-of-consciousness narration, recalling a man's guilty actions, read offstage by an actress, while he sat quietly, hardly ever moving, on a bed. A TV camera focused on his face and his reactions to the dialog, and showed those reactions in a larger-than-life projection on a huge screen.

It was quite a remarkable performance, and at a reception the next day, Neeson was talking about what he's up to next and guess what? He'll be playing President Abraham Lincoln in a new Stephen Spielberg film about him, written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and Tony Kushner, who also won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony for his massive play, "Angels in America." The Irish-born Neeson is tall and thin and quite capable of growing a Presidential beard. And he's looking forward to working with Spielberg again on this, which starts up early next year.

But meanwhile, he won' t be out of the public eye. Another film, "The Other Man," in which he's starring with Laura Lnney and Antonio Bandares, comes out around Christmastime, and another, "The Red Circle," described as an "action" film, will be out early next year. In that, he'll be appearing with Orlando Bloom and Alain Delon, the noted French actor. Well why not? The movie is a remake a French film with the same title - only in French, of course.

Theater with Pat O'Haire

July 18, 2008

John Patrick Shanley is a playwright with plenty of awards to back up that description, from a Pulitzer Prize for drama and a Tony in 2005 for his drama, “Doubt,” starring Brian O’Byrne and Cherry Jones and an Oscar for “Moonstruck” with Cher and Nicholas Cage in 1987. Most playwrights would be satisfied with either one of those. Not Shanley.

The Bronx-born, NYU-educated author has a work ethic second to none. He never stops writing. He even advertises his e-mail in his Playbill bios so anyone who is interested can write to him (it’s shanleysmoney@aol.com), praise or criticize his work, tell him what’s wrong or right with what they saw or read, or anything else – and he says he answers all his mail. So when we found out he had a new play in the works, being performed this summer at the theater at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., we tested him. We sent him an e-mail asking about it and within a couple of hours got an answer.

Not bad. Especially not bad since trying to reach people of his status you have to go through their press people, secretaries or agents and you rarely get to contact them directly – and this is a guy who publishes his private e-mail so anyone can reach him.

Even so, nice as he is, he didn’t turn up much news about his project. This is his answer: “’Veronica’ is a new play, and at this point, it’s a one-act one. It’s in an early stage and I don’t really have much to say about it yet.”

Okay, that’s fair. But we’ll be waiting to hear more about it when he gets around to e-mailing us again.

Dylan McDermott, the heart-throb lawyer from David Kelly’s TV series, “The Practice” and a Golden Globe winner and Emmy nominee, is another New Yorker headed back to the stage. He’ll be working this fall at Playwrights Horizons in a new play by Nicky Silver called “Three Changes,” and he’ll be co-starring with another TV refugee, Maura Tierney from “ER.” McDermott began his career in “Biloxi Blues” all those years ago and was last seen onstage here in 2006 in Eve Ensler’s play, “The Treatment” for the Culture Project.

While here, he’ll probably be listed in the gossip columns as having been seen in a popular bar in Greenwich Village. He’ll certainly be there often. His father owns and runs it. And his father is now married to a very successful playwright whose name just happens to be Eve Ensler, best-known probably for “The Vagina Monologues.”

Horton Foote, the 92-year-old playwright, will be on Broadway again this fall. He’s another man who has won a Pulitzer and an Oscar – the Pulitzer for “Young Man From Atlanta” in 1995 and the Oscars for writing the screenplay of “Tender Mercies” and adapting Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird.” He’s written lots more – from “A Trip to Bountiful” to his latest, “Dividing the Estate,” which opened Off Broadway earlier this year, and now has a new address. It opens in November at the Booth, with Lincoln Center producing. The play, about a family arguing over an inheritance – a house – stars Elizabeth Ashley, Gerard McRaney and Hallie Foote, who naturally, is the author’s daughter and a well-regarded actor in her own right.

Another familiar Broadway name, Tommy Tune, is climbing back into the spotlight again. He’s directing a new play, opening in Chicago’s Goodman Theater in September. It’s called “Turn of the Century,” and that’s what it’s about. It’s starting off well – it’s being written by Marshall Brickman, Woody Allen’s collaborator on many of his earlier movies, and most recently, he wrote the book for the prize-winning musical, “Jersey Boys.” Added pluses: Its cast includes Jeff Daniels and Rachel York, with Liz McCann producing.

Whoopi Goldberg’s really come a long, long way, baby. Comedian, actress, writer, TV talker - now add Broadway producer. Her name will be up above the play’s title (along with the Dream Team Entertainment Group) when “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” opens at the Circle in the Square Theater next month. Hinton Battle, noted actor-dancer is the choreographer this time around for the ground-breaking Ntozake Shange play, and the leading lady will be none other India.arie, who won a Grammy for her album, “Voyage to India” in 2005.

“For Colored Girls” originally opened at the Public Theater Off Broadway in 1976 and won several awards. One it should have won -Longest Title for an Off Broadway Play.

And yet another TV star back to Broadway – the newest King Arthur in “Spamalot” is none other than Stephen Collins, who’s been most recently seen as a pastor and father of several children in “Seventh Heaven.” His credentials are solid enough – besides “Moonchildren,” he’s been in “No Sex Please, We’re British” and “The Loves of Anatol.”

Theater with Pat O'Haire

June 3, 2008

For a man who can neither read or write music, John Bucchino has come a long way, baby.

His songs have been sung in cabarets, clubs and theaters by the likes of Patti LuPone, Barbara Cook, Art Garfunkel, Kristin Chenoweth and Harvey Fierstein.

And Julie Andrews.

And now, after 30 years of work - transforming words and music that only he hears in his head into songs that singers love to sing and people love to hear - he's finally beginning to get the recognition he deserves. He's not yet become one of those celebrities written up in gossip columns who can't walk down city streets without being noticed, but the music industry are finally sitting up and taken notice of him. About three years ago, he composed the music for a play Julie Andrews and her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, wrote for young people and then, in a complete U-turn, turned in the score for a new Broadway play, "A Catered Affair," which was adapted by Harvey Fierstein from a 1955 Paddy Chayefsky TV show about a Bronx family trying to decide whether their hard-earned banroll should be used to buy the father a new taxi or give their only daughter a wedding she'll never forget.

It was made into a film the following year, this time adapted by Gore Vidal, starring Bette Davis and Ernest Borgnine and directed by Richard Brooks. This time around, it stars Tom Wopat and Faith Prince as the warring parents, and Leslie Kritzer and Tom Cavanagh as the engaged couple. Harvey even wrote himself into the play - as the family's gay uncle, a role that suits him as beautifully as an Armani suit might - if he ever thought of wearing one.

"Harvey did a lovely job working it out," Bucchino said one night recently at Bar Centrale, the new hangout for Broadway actors located one flight up from the original Joe Allen's on W. 46th St., a short walk from the theater where "A Catered Affair" is being performed (at the Walter Kerr theater, on W. 48th).

The tall, slim songwriter, who is always seen with his glasses on, talked about his background - he's a Philadelphia native whose family moved to Palm Springs, California when he ws 12. When he finished college there, he headed straight to Los Angeles and started knocking on doors at recording companies.

He was always writing songs then, just like now - things would come to him - melodies, lyrics - while he was studying for exams. At the same time, when he wasn't studying, he was checking out the L.A. music scene, making friends and writing, always writing.

"I really just wanted to be a singer-songwriter, like the people I admired - Billy Joel, Elton John, Joni Mitchell and such," he said. "I didn't have much ambition beyond that. That would have been too much to imagine. I knew I could play piano, even if I couldn't read the music." So he put together an act of his own songs and started to look for work.

Somewhere on his route, he met Steven Schwartz, composer of "Gospell" and Broadway's "Wicked" and the two became friends. Happened again when he met Art Garfunkel, who listened to him play a number one night called "Grateful," and immediately said he wanted to add it to his club act - and still uses it as his closing number.

Through Schwartz, he met Kristen Chenowith, the original Glinda in "Wicked." She, too, has recorded some of his songs. Patti LuPone, now starring in "Gypsy" on Broadway, did an entire concert of his music and lyrics at Lincoln Center for several nights. Daisy Prince, daughter of the legendary producer/director, Hal Prince, was so impressed, she took him to meet her family. He's made several records of his own tunes, the most noticeable being "Grateful," which has his songs sung by a whole group of his friends.

And then he met Julie Andrews, and his life took another course. She asked him to write the music and lyrics for a show for young people that she and her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, had written for the Bay Street Theater, in Sag Harbor on Long Island, that Emma and husband, Steve Hamilton, run. It has also been turned into a book, published by Harper Collins. And that brought him to "A Catered Affair."

"I can hardly believe I'm here," Bucchino said, finishing off a Coke with lots of lemon.

He'd better start believing. Looks like he'll be around a long time.

* * * *

New Yorkers always have plenty of theater to choose from - Broadway, Off Broadway, Off Off Broadway and who knows what else, but come Monday nights this year and hopefully next and the next and the next and so on, they'll still be able to go to one of the plasantest, informal stage performances in years.

It's "Project Shaw," a series of readings of various plays by that crusty old curmudgeon, George Bernard Shaw, performed one Monday night a month by fami. liar Broadway actors on the stage of the Players Club, the beautiful old landmarked building on Gramercy Park that was once the home of actor Edwin Booth, brother of the notorious John Wilkes. In his will after he died, Booth decreed the house should become a place for actors to come, meet with friends, play some cards or billiards, use the library or all the other things a club is used for.

On one Monday night each month, the club's dining room's tables are cleared out and rows of seats are set up for the evening's entertainment.These are readings, and while they are often acted out, the actors perform with scripts in hand - there's rarely a shortage of good actors for the series - actors recognize good, meaty roles when they're available, and there are plenty f good, meaty roles in Shaw's plays. The nextperformance will be June 23 at 7 p.m. and there will be two short plays (if any of Shaw's plays could be considered short).

One is "Great Catherine," Shaw's take on Russia's most infamous Empress, and Tyne Daly will be her. John Cullum will play a dissolute Russian prince who tries to maneuver his way around her while a shy British emissary tries to tell her about the newly begun American Revolution. Matthew Arkin, Alison Fraser, Nick Wyman, Lacey Kohl and a few others complete the cast. The second play is "Annajanska," with Daly again as a Grand Duchess and Culllum as a general. The Russian Empire is crumbling and the Empress is trying to convince the general that she really wants to join the Revolution that's going on. This has never actually been performed in the U.S., so Shaw fans are in for a treat.

Thee two plays are the 28th in the Project; David Staller, an actor as well as being a Shaw-oholic, is the producer of the series. Besides Daly and Cullum, Staller has managed to lure such Broadway names as Marian Seldes, Brian Murray, Blair Brown, Malcolm Gets, Marc Kudish, Paxton Whitehead, Tovah Feldshuh, George S. Irving, Matt Cavanaugh, David Garrison, Michelle Pawk, Fritz Weaver, Charles Busch, Simon Jones, Boyd Gaines, Matthew Arkin and more.

And the toll is only $20 a show.

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