By Harry Haun
03 Jun 2005

An energetic live-wire hoofer, Blum stands ready to make the musical moves when Korbich can't. He was last seen in New York in Golf: The Musical. "I did a Bob Hope turn in that, and they want me to do a one-man show on him so I'm writing that," he said. "I actually did a version of it in Peoria, IL. It went very well, but it needs more work. My dad, Al Blum, was a vaudevillian who knew Hope so you could say it's an early calling."

Marx also has some impressive dance credits—as recently as 42nd Street, working with Skinner ("When Michael Arnold went to choreograph Bounce, I finally got to do my dream part: Andy Lee, the dance captain.")—but he didn't get the dancing role here. "They thought I was too attractive for that part," he quipped, giving his slick dome a narcissistic swipe. "I'm understudying the two leading men [Kerwin and Burns], thank you very much. I've never understudied before in my life, but it was [director] Daniel Sullivan."

It was also a chance to cozy up to the co-director of Singin' in the Rain. "I told Donen I was the original Cosmo Brown on Broadway, and he said, 'You mean that Twarp thing?' I said, 'Yeah,' and I told him all the things Donald O'Connor told me during previews at the Gershwin. We talked for hours. He told me it took two weeks to shoot 'Make 'Em Laugh,' and, after the first two weeks, he had to go into the hospital he was so beat up. He said, 'I'm lying there, and Kelly came in, and he said, "Don, we didn't get it all." And so we went back and shot some more." Donen looked at me and said, 'It never happened.'

"O'Connor's the one who said, 'You can't do "Make 'Em Laugh" live.' I said, 'Believe me, I'm learning that quickly.' He was right, too. I sprained both of my ankles trying."

The chronically employed Sullivan is becoming Manhattan Theatre Club's favorite Broadway season-starter. He lifted off last season its Sight Unseen, returned after the start of the year with its Brooklyn Boy and went on to helm Denzel Washington's Julius Caesar, finally returning to MTC's Square One slot for After the Night and the Music. "It was particularly lovely to work on that first piece," he said. "It sorta gave me the feeling that I'd like to work with Elaine on something else that's a little larger than that."

But first—Third, the new Wendy Wasserstein play set for Lincoln Center in the fall. "Dianne Wiest is starring," he said. "Right now, we're recasting the role of her father. Tom Aldredge's not doing it. He's doing Arthur Laurents' play over at George Street Playhouse. We will start rehearsing Third in August, and we will open in October."

Two of Aldredge's fellow jurors from Twelve Angry Men—Kevin Geer and Byron Jennings—were among the celebs attending the unopening-night performance and party.

Geer noted the jury had just been dismissed after protracted deliberation at the American Airlines Theatre. "Now, we'll do our voting at Radio City Music Hall," he cracked (meaning he expects the show to cop the Best Revival of a Drama Tony on Sunday).

Jennings, who rated a Tony nomination this season for Sight Unseen, was as usual with his wife, Carolyn McCormick, who had likewise just finished a theatrical run—in Paul Weitz's Privilege at Second Stage—but she was still singing the praises of her younger son in that play, 12-year-old Conor Donovan, who won a Theatre World Award for his adult-level acting. "Never mind child actor—he's a terrific actor, period," trilled "Mom."

Also in attendance were some of MTC's pet playwrights from the past (and, hopefully, the future)—the pre-Tony John Patrick Shanley (Doubt), the Tony-winning Richard Maltby Jr. (Ain't Misbehavin') and Terrence McNally (Love! Valour! Compassion!) and the yet-to-be-Tonyed David Lindsay-Abaire (Fuddy Meers, Kimberly Akimbo) who'll try again next season at MTC with the Daniel Sullivan-directed Rabbit Hole.

McNally and May go back to his second play, Next, which she directed. His next is at Primary Stages (Aug. 18-Sept. 18): Dedication or the Stuff of Dreams with Marian Seldes.

Berlin may well be her Mom's best mouthpiece, articulating the off-center humor with an inherited inflection that's practically pitch perfect. "It was even more pronounced in Power Plays, when they were on stage together," McNally observed. "It's astonishing."

May's own take on the night's merriment was scientific. "It's odd about laughs," she said. "Laughs just mean that people understand the story. In a comedy, that's all it means."