October 1996 ONCE (MORE) UPON A MATTRESS: Director Gerald Gutierrez, who won two back-to-back Tonys for reviving The Heiress and A Delicate Balance, will next bring back to Broadway the Jay Thompson-Mary Rodgers-Marshall Barer-Dean Fuller musical that made a stage star of Carol Burnett, Once Upon a Mattress. Sarah Jessica Parker (above) will be Carol-ing this time out. The show, of course, is right out of Hans Christian Andersen: The Princess and the Pea.

ANDERSEN REVIVAL?: The Dodgers, who are producing the Mattress revival, have apparently been inspired to consider the source. Word is they're preparing to place on a Broadway stage the Hans Christian Andersen movie that Frank Loesser musicalized for Danny Kaye. A new book will replace the Moss Hart screenplay.

CABARET CABARET: When Cabaret comes back in the spring, it will come back in a real cabaret, a la the recent hit revival of it in London. Director Sam Mendes, who did it at the Donmar Warehouse there, will do it here for Roundabout at the Supper Club in Manhattan. Natasha Richardson has signed aboard to play Sally Bowles.

DUNAWAY HITS THE ROAD: While Patti LuPone continues her triumphant run in the Broadway company of Terrence McNally's Master Class, Academy Award winner Faye Dunaway hits the road in the national company of this Tony-winning play. Dunaway will begin performances as the legendary Maria Callas Oct. 29 at Boston's Wilbur Theatre.

BOTTOM TO TOP: When A Midsummer Night's Dream ended on Broadway, and just before its brilliant Bottom, Desmond Barrit, returned to Britain, he let it be known that he'd gladly follow Nathan Lane into A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (either here or there). . . . Manny Kladitis and Elliott Gould, currently producer and star of the Deathtrap national tour that could well come to Broadway, have another thing in common: Both did time as unknowns in 1961's Irma La Douce (albeit, in different productions). Kladitis, for one, doesn't regret the career switch. "Producers," he reasons, "get their names above the titles much more than actors do."

-- By Harry Haun