By Harry Haun
05 May 2008

Hahn was the production's newbee, Broadway-bowing in disbelief: "Are you kidding me? I couldn't believe it. Just standing backstage before the curtain went up — I have the first line of the play — I was just standing there for a while, trying to soak it in, trying not to cry because I knew it would be bad for a farce, and just being so overwhelmed that I was able to be in this company with these people."

	Glenn Close, Meryl Streep, Jane Kaczmarek, Jim Dale, Katie Finneran, Harvey Weinstein, Max von Essen, Mischa Barton, Howard Stern with Beth Ostrosky and Larry Storch.
	photo by Aubrey Reuben

Mrs. Whitford — Jane Kaczmarek, a seven-time Emmy nominee for "Malcolm in the Middle" — fairly beamed with wifely pride. "Bradley's so well known on 'The West Wing' for being a serious actor, but he is a huge comic ham, and he's very physical. There's one time where he was doing a gorilla banging on his chest. Impersonating animals is one of the best things he got out of Juilliard. Thank God, it's come in handy." Kaczmarek plans to continue being a working mom (of three). "I'm working on a new show on TNT called 'Raising the Bar,' a Steven Bochco show, a legal show — I'm a judge — and I'm going to be doing House of Blue Leaves at the newly refurbished Mark Taper Forum — Kate Burton and I, in September. I'm Bunny, and she's Bananas. Kate and I were roommates together at Yale Drama School, and now our daughters are in the fourth grade at the same school in Los Angeles, and, after all these years, we're back together again. Nicky Martin is directing it."

Uncommon Women and Others led the big parade of celebrities: Meryl Streep and Glenn Close, who were not in that play at the same time — or in any play — but were at this play. Streep showed as a sign of support for Baranski, her best-friend Tanya in the "Mamma Mia!" movie opening July 18. Her future son-in-law in that flick — the hottie of The History Boys, Dominic Cooper—was also a Baranski camp-follower.

SIRIUS Radio's Howard Stern, a rare first-night sighting, came out for McCormack "because she's a good friend of mine. She was in my 'Private Parts' movie, so we come and support her." A happy consequence: meeting Larry ("F Troop") Storch. "My father worked for you," Stern told him. "When you guys did 'Tennessee Tuxedo' and all the cartoons, he was the engineer on it."

Another opening-night mirage was The News' "cultural tourist," Howard Kissel, heeding a last-minute invite as he was preparing his evening's chopped steak. He and Whitford just happen to be old West Side dog-walking pals, and the actor pops up several times in Kissel's latest Applause tome, "New York Theatre Walks."

Needing a good laugh, Les Liaisons Dangereuses' Sian Phillips and The Country Girl's Frances McDormand raced over from their respective shows, as did Laurie Metcalf, who supplies her share of merriment to November. Ditto Lenny Wolpe from Wicked, John Treacy Egan from The Little Mermaid and Ed Dixon from Sunday in the Park with George.

Christopher J. Hanke and Tory Ross dropped by after their Cry-Baby matinee — and after she gave Max von Essen a gander at her redecorated dressing room. ("I'm doing a little bit of an Asian flair.") Von Essen will soon be running a summer-stock gamut from Anthony (in Sweeney Todd in Sacramento) to Tony (in West Side Story in Pittsburgh — "my final Tony, I think"); come fall, he'll participate in a series of Kennedy Center concerts — as Buddy in Side Show and Danny in Girl Crazy.

Performer-songwriter Jeff Blumenkrantz also has his immediate future mapped out: "I'm off to Wyoming to write in a log cabin with my collaborator, Beth Platt. We're going to this writers' retreat called Ucross." (That's a berg in Wyoming.)

The Drowsy Chaperone's Casey Nicholaw said he'll be wearing two hats in Los Angeles in a few months (directing and choreographing Minsky's) and only one for Manhattan Theatre Club (directing the nonmusical version of Jack Benny and Carole Lombard's "To Be Or Not To Be." Too bad he can't find a place for the Polish "Sweet Georgia Brown" that Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft pranced out in the movie remake.

A pre-Tony baton duel didn't materialize at intermission between the season's two top conductors: Patrick Vaccariello of Gypsy and Ted Sperling, looking for some enchanted evening on his night off from South Pacific.

"None of the announced Ks came," said one flack, meaning no Kristin Chenoweth, Kelli O'Hara or Kerry Butler — a vocal rest was had by all.

One unexpected guest at the party was Yasmina Reza, whose Art was directed to a Best Play Tony by Warchus in his Broadway debut. She's in town, huckstering her new Knopf book, "Dawn, Dusk or Night: A Year with Nicolas Sarkozy" (on the campaign trail for the French presidency). Her current London hit, The God of Carnage starring Ralph Fiennes, she hopes to have on Broadway next season.

Before Boeing-Boeing, celebrity photographer Tom Gates bopped by the Waldorf to catch Daryl Sherman's farewell set on Cole Porter's piano in the hotel lobby and said, in the rush of well-wishers, a gentleman extended a business card to her and said, "Dear Miss Sherman, I represent the Hampshire House, and we would love for you to play in our hotel."

Also attending: Liz Smith, Liz McCann, Liz Callaway, Leap of Faith helmsman Taylor Hackford, Kristen Wiig of "Saturday Night Live," Jim Dale and his wife Julie, The Seafarer's Drama Desk-nominated Conleth Hill (who'd seen the London Boeing-Boeing and proclaimed that the American version is its equal), Katie Finneran (aglow in a glo-green gown), Rob Lee Savin, Harvey Weinstein (betraying his true producer status, telling folks at intermission "The second act is even funnier"), film writer-director Richard LaGravenese, Mischa Barton, Catch Me If You Can's director (Jack O'Brien) and choreographer (Jerry Mitchell), the playwrights of The Scene (Theresa Rebeck), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Jeffrey Lane) and Is He Dead? (David Ives), Grey Garden's Bob Stillman, Tracy Ullman and eight elderly Pan-Am ex-stewardesses who may or may not have had layovers in Paris.

The cast of Boeing-Boeing at curtain call.
photo by Aubrey Reuben

View article on single page

Previous Page   1 | 2 Next Page