By Harry Haun
06 Dec 2004

Unquestionably, one of the sweetest things about calling your own tune is that you get to name your own producers. Crystal picked his wife of 34 years and a foresighted club-owner who believed in him before he even made it to the starting gate.

"Janice and I have produced a lot of things together—two beautiful girls and a great life together. To have her by my side with one of my oldest friends, Larry Magid, who was the first guy to headline me—in a nightclub in Philadelphia called The Bijou—when I really had no credits, no TV, no nothing, but he liked what I did, and he made an audience happen to me there. I kept coming back and back, and soon there were people in line. I never forgot that. It meant so much to me. That's why I wanted him to do this show."

Zeibel was particularly "well cast" for this bleed of comedy and pathos. He is best remembered in these parts for the Off-Broadway show about his friendship with the late Gilda Radner (Bunny Bunny), and he was already familiar with Crystal's emotional cornerstones. "Billy has been one of my best friends—if not my best friend—for 30 years, and we'd been talking about doing this for years. I just said, `Let me know when you want to do it,' and finally he called and said, `Let's go,' so we dropped everything and we rehearsed and we wrote and we went to La Jolla for 12 shows, and then we went down and I did a pilot and he did something else, and then we regrouped and worked our butts off steadily for six or seven months, trying to get this thing ready for Broadway."

Zeibel is thinking of giving his young comic/old comic (read: Morty Gunty) one-acter, Comic Dialogue, "a revisiting" and has two books about to be published: a novel, The Other Showman by Random House and a children's book Our Tree Named Steve by Putnam's.

Like Zeibel, director McAnuff is slightly euphoric about the Crystal collaboration. "He's fantastic, a wonderful human being, and you have to be sensitive, I think, when you're directing a story about somebody's life. Not that I would say it requires kid gloves, but I think so much of this is about his openness and his confidence, being able to go up there for two hours and open his soul. I've really encouraged him to play those moments totally and to trust the story. It doesn't all have to be funny. He is very transformative."

McAnuff is the only director who has two shows on Broadway right now—Dracula is the other—and he has another warming up in the wings at his La Jolla Playhouse which he hopes to bring in early next season: Jersey Boys, a bio musical about Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Famers The Four Seasons (Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Bob Crewe). "The fact is it's already the biggest success we've ever had at the Playhouse. It has just now surpassed Rent, and Rent we did after it opened on Broadway. We opened the tour out there. I think it touches a nerve. It's the story of these guys. It's not a typical anthology show. It's not fictionalized. It's actually their story, the story of the band."

There was a distinctly California cast to the first-night contingent, people like superagent Bernie Brillstein and "The Practice" Emmy winner Camryn Manheim. The actress said she has four movies en route to movie theatres, one by way of Sundance, so she's taking the time to try on some stage work. "I'm here to do a reading of a play at Manhattan Theatre Club. If it feels good and jells, maybe I'll come back and do it. It's by Jonathan Tolins, who wrote Twilight of the Golds. It's called The Forgotten Woman right now."

Another temporary California transplant, Robin Williams came with his wife, Martha. It didn't bother him a whit that his "Comic Relief" partners have one person shows now on Broadway—Whoopi Goldberg and Crystal. "Two out of three is fine," he piped. He hasn't ruled out Broadway, by any means, though. "If I ever find a show that I feel enough about doing, I'll do it," he promised. "But standup comedy—it's a nice living."

Dana Reeve, widow of Christopher Reeve, was present as a friend of the court. "Billy was lovely to my husband and me, but I'm really here with Martha and Robin." (Williams was Reeve's roommate at Juilliard.) For the present, Dana is giving her acting career a rest. She had done the new Donald Margulies play, Brooklyn Boy, when it premiered at South Coast Rep and was planning to appear in it next month at Manhattan Theatre Club. "Rehearsals were to start at the end of the month, and I asked to be released from my obligation. I'm going to stay home and devote myself to family right now. (Polly Draper replaced her in the play, which bows at the Biltmore with Adam Arkin Feb. 3.)

The Tony-winning tunesmiths of Hairspray, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, took the night off from work. "We're actually making headway," said Shaiman of the film-inspire project, Catch Me If You Can, they are working on with Terrence McNally.

Tovah Feldshuh did not have a tough commute to the opening. She crossed the street, from the Helen Hayes where she is nearing the end (Jan. 2) of her 17-month run in Golda's Balcony. After a month's break, she resumes performances in L.A. Feb. 1.

Next on Andre DeShields' horizon is a return stint at The Classical Theatre of Harlem, where he did Dream on Monkey Mountain in 2003. "We're going to do Caligula in the spring. Rehearsals start March 1. Alfred Pryser, artistic director of the theatre, directs."

But first he must lance that lovin' feeling, which he'll do with two Monday night gigs at Joe's Pub—on Feb. 7 and Valentine's Day. "I think of the two shows as mixing a good martini," he said. "On Feb. 7, it will be shaken, and, on Feb. 14, it will be stirred."

Jeremy Piven, until late of the movies exclusively, said he's bracing for his Off-Broadway debut in the new Neil LaBute, Fat Pig, which opens Dec. 15 at the Lortel. "I play a tragically flawed Everyman who falls in love with this very heavy woman and then can't honor his love because he cares too much about what society—and his friends—think of him. It's very Neil. You kinda tell the truth and run. I don't know how else to do it."

Crystal looked pretty exhausted for most of the party but posed patiently for pictures with his guests. It's not science fiction to suggest—as did Variety's Robert Hofler—that the comic will host the Tonys for his newfound community, but he waved the notion away as if he couldn't think that far in advance. (True, perhaps.) "I gotta go to my party," he said.