Andrea Marcovicci
There is a bit of irony in the idea of a Musicals in Mufti presentation of the Alan Jay Lerner-André Previn musical Coco — which celebrates the life of Gabrielle ("Coco") Chanel, one of the fashion world's most celebrated icons — since Mufti stagings are presented "in street clothes, without the usual trappings."

But as Andrea Marcovicci — the glamorous cabaret favorite who is starring in the title role of the York Theatre Company presentation, which runs Sept. 10-12 — joked to me earlier this week, "I made the [cast] laugh [when] I said, 'This is supposed to be in street clothes, but you haven't seen Andrea Marcovicci's street clothes! So I may wear something a little fancy. My street clothes are not quite the same as normal people's street clothes."

Perhaps the acclaimed singing actress, who has done as much as anyone to keep the American popular song alive — and may know as many of those classic tunes as any singer out there — could borrow a costume from the 42nd Street Moon Theatre's spring 2008 production of the little-seen musical Coco, in which she also starred. That production, like the current York mounting, was also directed by Mark Kaufmann with musical direction by Michael Horsley.

"Now, of course, this couldn't necessarily be going the way it's going if we didn't have the same director and musical director from San Francisco, because this score was completely lost, and our musical director from San Francisco, Michael Horsley, was the one who found the bits and pieces and reconstructed it from scratch," she adds. "So without that, I'm not so sure that something as huge as this could be done in five days."

Marcovicci says she was initially attracted to the role because "it's a lost piece." "I have done Lady in the Dark," she adds, "so I'm not necessarily afraid of vehicles that are attached to historic figures like Gertrude Lawrence or Katharine Hepburn, because I'll always go back to the bare bones of a piece and see what was written, and when you do, you find that in the original script and in the original songs, there's still something that the author has put on the page that's there for you to find that can make it specifically touching to you. When I read the piece — of course, I didn't get to see Katharine Hepburn, and I certainly didn't get to see Gertrude Lawrence — my tendency is to see what's there from scratch. The melodies in Coco — since I hadn't heard it, I read the score before I heard it — are beautiful melodies, so I was very, very attracted to the piece. And then I read the book, and it's a really terrific, snappy book. It's got terrific lines and great humor, and it's Lerner all the way through. It's Lerner lyrics, and it's Lerner book."