By Harry Haun
28 Apr 2008

Anna Camp, who last season won a Lortel nomination for her performance in The Scene, makes the big step up to Broadway as the airhead ingιnue Elgin contends with. And what could be better than having your debut directed by Mike Nichols? "He is so wise and has a fantastic sense of humor. Every day in rehearsal was just wonderful. He told me to twirl a lot. He likes twirling. He mentioned a little bit about Katharine Hepburn flitting in and out whimsically in her early films."

Nichols also steered Chip Zien to a different take on the not-very-nice producer. "Right from the get-go," he said, "Mike was saying, 'The producer is always the cigar-smoking, bald, angry guy. Let's find some other way to go.' So we tried to show a history between my character and Bernie Dodd — that we'd done shows together, we love each other, we fight with each other. That's why he's reaching in my pockets all the time for a lighter — tapping me on the forehead — doing things. We were trying to find ways in which it would show that we've had some sort of relationship. Little things like that became sorta the whole kind of idea of what my little part is."

The poster art for The Country Girl marked the return to show business (from advertising) for artist Paul Davis, whose broad-stroked theatrical posters provided the distinctive look for The Public for two decades (The Cherry Orchard and Sam Waterston's Hamlet come immediately to mind). Returning to Tavern on the Green was something of a sentimental journey for him and his wife Myrna. They got married at Tavern 42 years ago.

Playwright Jon Robin Baitz gets Playbill credit for "Material Revisions" to The Country Girl. "Sorcerer's Apprentice," perhaps? "Friend of the Court," he countered. "I was an extra pair of eyes. Mike and I did some tiny adjustments here and there, tiny curatorial ones. And I came to rehearsals occasionally and said wonderful encouraging things as though there was a living playwright."

As for his own writing, he is just putting the finishing touches to the book of a big musical. He was so excited about it he couldn't contain himself — but did, dammit.

Bob Boyett, who is producing The Country Girl with Bill Haber, The Shuberts, Daryl Roth / Debra Black and more money bags than you can shake a sawbuck at, said he has dibs on the Jacobs Theatre next: "We'll do 13, Jason Robert Brown and Dan Elish's new musical. It'll come to this theatre the first week in September."

The show, directed by Jeremy Sams and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli, plays an engagement in May at Goodspeed Musicals' Norma Terris Theatre. Boyett expects to use basically the same cast and crew. True to its title, he says, "It's about a young man who's 13, about to have his bar mitzvah and living in New York with his mom and dad. His father leaves with an air hostess and his mom moves to a small town in the Midwest, and he has to reorient his whole life. Essentially, it's sort of a coming of age story."

The most pronounced British accent among the first-nighters belonged to David Grindley, who helmed last season's Tony-winning Best Revival (Journey's End) and this season's Pygmalion. "I'm just here for some meetings at the moment," he said. "At Manhattan Theatre Club, I'm hoping to do the Richard Greenberg play, The American Plan, which will happen in the fall. I became acquainted with Richard's work when I saw Three Days of Rain at the Donmar Warehouse in London with Colin Firth, David Morrissey and Elizabeth McGovern — and I was quite blown away. Then when I bought the collected works of Richard's, this was a play I really thought was great. I've been trying to do it for a couple of years so we'll see what happens."

And speaking of Three Days of Rain, the star of its Broadway production — Julia Roberts — returned to the scene of her drizzling debut (back in '06 when it had been freshly christened the Jacobs). It was a show of support for Nichols, who helmed her recently in "Charlie Wilson's War." The paparazzi went into eye-popping ecstasy.

Her co-star in that flick, Amy Adams, also got the flash bombardment. "I'm here for Mike and for Frances, who I just worked with in 'Miss Pedigrew Lives for a Day.' It was a blast. She's a wonderful lady, and I'm just so happy to be here." Enough to seriously consider doing some theatre? "Oh, I would love to. It's always something on my mind."

Natalie Portman motored into the theatre as if she was on a moped, indifferent to the pleas of the fotogs, and Steve Martin similarly slipped in unnoticed, hiding his signature white locks under a hat. Who says people don't wear hats anymore?

Also attending: Stanley Donen and Elaine May, David Hyde Pierce, Denis Leary, Joel Coen, Barry Dillon and Diane von Furstenberg, Ellen Barkin, Tina Louise, Lily Rabe, Jan and Tony Walton, Michael Greif, Jack O'Brien and Marsha Mason, Celia Weston, Rob Ashford, Heather Randall, John Benjamin Hickey, Jamie deRoy, Liz McCann, Peter Shaffer and the luscious-looking Diane Sawyer.