In a throwback to the days when theatre journalists would get together, rent a theatre and put on an evening of sketches for the entertainment of theatre pros, The New Yorker, in celebration of its 75th anniversary, will stage "I Say It's Spinach," a New Yorker humor revue. The one-night only May 7, 8 PM, event will take place at Town Hall in Manhattan.

Assembled by playwright Wendy Wasserstein (An American Daughter), the revue will feature work from New Yorker scribes Robert Benchley, Ian Frazier, Veronica Geng, Steve Martin, Ogden Nash, Dorothy Parker and others. Producer and director Gregory Mosher will helm the evening.

In addition to being theatre critics, both Benchley and Parker dabbled in the theatre, Parker as a sometime playwright (The Ladies of the Corridor) and Benchley as a sketch artist and comic actor (The Treasurer's Report). Nash wrote the books for several musicals, while Martin is the author of the play Picasso at the Lapin Agile.

The New York Festival will run May 5-7 and takes place at several locations across Manhattan. Other theatre-related events include a John Lahr lecture (featuring Elaine Stritch) on playwright-actor-composer Noel Coward, May 6, at 3 PM, at the Morgan Library. Lahr will also host a "Broadway Brunch" at the Grand Ballroom at the Manhattan Center, May 7, at 11:30 AM. Attending will be actress Kristin Chenoweth, lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green, playwright Arthur Miller and director George C. Wolfe. Proceeds will benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

For festival information, call 1-877-847-TNYF. --By Robert Simonson