By Harry Haun
23 Mar 2012

	Chilina Kennedy
	photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

McAnuff is winding down his tenure as Stratford's artistic director with Henry V and a solo show he is developing with the newly Oscared Christopher Plummer called A Word or Two. When he returns to the states and "civilian life," he'll do a show with a member of a band called the Flaming Lips.

"His name is Wayne Coyne, and he's from Oklahoma City, and we're doing a show called Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. We put out a press release from La Jolla Playhouse in the last couple of weeks. We'll launch it in La Jolla."

Though born in Illinois, McAnuff claims Canada. "I was born of Canadian parents and raised in Canada so I'm very much a Canadian. I have dual citizenship, actually."

He recently got a note of appreciation from the Canadian who helmed the movie version of Jesus Christ Superstar: Norman Jewison "was very gracious and sent us a beautiful note after he saw the production. He really loved it."

It wasn't a difficult show to bring off, McAnuff declared, although it sure looks it. "I don't want to say it was effortless — nothing is effortless — but this really got traction early. I think we all bought into these ideas. First of all, I've been working with these actors for four years so we're very familiar with each other. That gave us a head-start. The most difficult thing was that we did this in repertory with The Grapes of Wrath and The Homecoming. That set had to get dismantled every day and rebuilt. Taking on a production this ambitious in rep is a challenge."

These days, McAnuff qualifies as The Mayor of 52nd Street. Directly across the street from the Neil Simon is his Tony-winning Jersey Boys at the August Wilson. Marshall Brickman, who co-wrote the latter, headed the big parade of first-nighters, along with Edie Falco, The New Group honcho Scott Elliott, Tony-winning book writer Thomas Meehan, Heather Randall, director Moises Kaufman (in the middle of casting his upcoming Roundabout revival, The Common Pursuit), Roberta Maxwell, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Alfred Uhry, NBC's gloriously gracious Meredith Vieira with husband Richard M. Cohen, and CBS's unflappably affable Charles Osgood with wife Jean and Douglas Carter Beane with his Lysistrata Jones Patti Murin.

	Tom Hewitt
	Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

A Follies gaggle, bound for L.A.'s Ahmanson April 24 — Jan Maxwell with son Will Lunney, Ron Raines with daughter Charlotte Vaughn Raines and Danny Burstein with wife Rebecca Luker — bopped by to check out their Tony competition for Best Revival of the Year.

Megan Hilty, with her Carnegie Mellon co-star in 2003's Two Gentlemen of Verona Alexander Cendese, and "Smash" colleague Jamie Cepero rode into the theatre on a wave of good news: their "Smash" series has been renewed. "We just wrapped on Tuesday," said Hilty, "so Gentlemen Prefer Blondes for Encores! will be my next focus." That should cinch her Marilyn Monroe image, all right.

Richard Kind ran out of luck with his "Luck" series for HBO, flagged down by three horse fatalities, but he snagged a spot for next season's Prince of Broadway, joining a splashy, starry cast fit for a Hal Prince.

In keeping with the clipped Brit accents was Tim Minchin, the songwriter of Matilda who just happens "to be in New York visiting all my friends who worked on Ghost as well as Matilda. Those shows share the same director in Matthew Warchus and the same musical supervisor in Chris Nightingale and the same designer in Rob Howell and a whole lot of the crew. We don't know when it'll be coming, hopefully next year. It's doing really well on the West End, and it has got a lot of good will." (He was being coy — producers announced in late February that Matilda will be in Broadway in early 2013.)

Another songwriter at the opening was Johnny Rogers, who's working on two new theatre pieces, I'll Be Seeing You: The Liberace Musical and Motherhood: The Musical. The latter will be directed and choreographed by Lisa Shriver, the choreographer of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Eddie Izzard, who had — and gave — a good time in David Mamet's Race recently, said it'll be a while before he returns to Broadway: "I've just signed up something in L.A., a TV series. Actually, it's a repositioning, a reboot of what was 'The Munsters.' I'm Grandpa, but I'm not going to that place — you know, like 'The Addams Family,' when they made a film, it wasn't like the series, and ours will not be like the original. Ours will go to some dark, hellish place."

Zaftig comedienne Lisa Lampanelli arrived at the theatre with all engines going: "I love this show. I love the producers. I love the director. I love it all. I'll sing for you if you want. That's how I roll. Do you know Adam Hetrick? He did a big story on me for Playbill, about my one-person show. It's hopefully going to open in the fall. We don't know where it'll open yet, but it will be on Broadway rather than off, honey. Look at me. I'm a big celebrity. I'm not sure what it's called yet, but I think it'll have 'Fat' in the title. That's the last curse word left on the planet."

Others spotted: Steve Rosen, Heather Randall, Evita director Michael Grandage, Lucy Simon, Tommy Mottola and Thalia.

View Playbill.com's highlights from Jesus Christ Superstar here: