Elsa Maxwell and J. Edgar Hoover will be unlikely bedfellows in Bob Kingdom's Elsa Edgar, which will begin performances at Off- Broadway's Primary Stages Dec. 1 for a run through Jan. 2, 2000.

In this solo show of two monologues about the way the media handles rumor and private information, author-actor Kingdom looks at gossip columnist Maxwell and FBI director Hoover. "They invented the forms of control that we're still living with," said Kingdom in a statement. "In their world, gossip becomes surveillance and surveillance gossip."

Kingdom penned the solo works Dylan Thomas: Return Journey and The Truman Capote Talk Show, which played in repertory at NYC's Perry Street Theatre in 1994.

Elsa Edgar is directed by Casey Childs.

Here's the Primary Stages remaining 1999-2000 season line-up: * March 8-April 9, 2000: An Empty Plate in the Cafe du Grand Boeuf by Michael Hollinger, directed by John Rando. Rando, a Primary Stages veteran, helmed David Ives' Mere Mortals there. He also staged Ives' Lives of the Saints in Philadelphia, the Encores! staged reading of Do Re Mi and Merton of the Movies at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.

* May 3-June 4, 2000: TBA.

For Primary Stages tickets ($30-$35; Subscriptions $130 and up), call the box office at (212) 333-4052. Primary Stages is located at 354 West 45th Street.

--By Robert Simonson