By Harry Haun
23 Mar 2007

Sarah Jessica Parker and a nicely graying Matthew Broderick arrived late like stars and sped through the press line. The show had just started, but they and Cindy Adams didn't have to wait with the late-comers. Annie's Charles Strouse and Damn Yankees' Richard Adler, veterans of the vintage Broadway scene being spoofed, were in attendance, as were Nathan Lane (sporting a new goatee — not for a role), Jane Krakowski, Ross Perot, Tyne Daly, Charles Busch ("best opening I've been to in 48 Hours" — when his Our Leading Lady bowed at Manhattan Theatre Club), Susan Stroman, Mark Consuelos with Kelly Ripa (who plugged the daylights out of the show the morning after), Victor Garber (who professed to know no one in the cast: "Where do they get these people?"), Eartha Kitt, Gabriel Barre, Elizabeth Berkley, Jeff Daniels, Marian Seldes, "Grey's Anatomy" actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan with Mary-Louise Parker ("I just had a play deal fall through, so I'm hunting for another one"), Michael Cumpsty, Andrea Martin, John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molaskey, Ted Hartley and Dina Merrill (very much on her toes, having already seen Curtains three times), Amy Fine Collins, "Men in Trees" actor Mario Cantone, Donna Murphy (with a lotta Lenya to go on LoveMusik) and Shawn Elliott (Mr. Mom for their new two-year-old), Dana Tyler, Brian Stokes Mitchell (visiting the scene of his biggest hits, Kiss Me Kate and Man of La Mancha), Alex Baldwin, composer Andrew Lippa (who expects to have the first act of his Jules Feiffer musical, The Man in the Ceiling, ready for Disney Theatricals by the end of April and the first draft read by the end of June) and Marin Mazzie and Bill Tatum (both there in support of their respective spouses, Danieley and Ziemba).

And how about that David Hyde Pierce? He sings! He dances! He acts! He does a terrific Boston accent! Who knew? Not the people who know him only as Niles Crane.

The former Sir Robin of Spamalot is just the man to address himself to the troubled Robbin' Hood — and, almost incidentally, mop up a murder case on the backstage premises. He's the show-savvy sleuth who steps from a sepia-toned police-homicide beat into a Technicolor theatrical world, and he does it with such grace and charm, we go too.

How does he come so convincingly as a singer and, especially, as a dancer? "I really worked hard," he said directly, "both with a vocal coach and a dance coach before the show, and then of course with the choreographer, Rob Ashford, and his assistants, Joanne Hunter and David Eggers."

Yes, but you but have Special Sparkle, I told him. "Do you know what else happened? I'll tell you. Every single member of the company, all of whom have been dancing since they were fetuses, at some point or other was able to come up to me and give a little piece of advice because, for me, I'm learning it backwards. I'm learning the choreography. And then, in order to execute that choreography, you have to learn a dance technique. You can't just do it. You have to know how to hold yourself and all this amazing technical stuff, and they all had the generosity to help me. Someone would say, 'You know, when I do a turn like that, all I think about is lining up my skeleton, and, when you do that, suddenly things fall into place.' And you try it and think, 'God, that really works.'"

Another thing that really works is conductor Loud, who shattered the fourth wall and the funny bone when he turns around and starts singing to the audience. And Patty Goble, who, as the detested leading lady, is snuffed out in the show's opening moments but returns as another character just in time to sing at her own funeral.

Set in Boston's Colonial Theatre, a place rife with red herrings, Curtains has John Bolton drop in backstage as a saber-toothed critic to report on showfolk played by Jill Paice, Megan Sikora, Noah Racey, Michael X. Martin, Michael McCormick and Darcie Roberts.

(Thank you, Rogers Berlind and Horchow, for filling the stage with such familiar faces.)

At one point, David Hyde Pierce turns to an unholy trio and says, "You three are my first official murder suspects." Edward Hibbert, who plays the haughty director whom Holmes has handed a full quiver of zings and arrows, replies "It's an honor just to be nominated." It's a line both he and Hyde Pierce will be repeating this spring right up to the Tony podium.