By Harry Haun
04 Mar 2005

The good vibes extended beyond the cast to the creatives in command—director Jack O'Brien and choreographer Jerry Mitchell, who are about to start the film version of their Hairspray, and songwriter David Yazbek, with whom they did The Full Monty.

"Writing the book for a musical is something I always wanted to do, and, to do it with Jack and Jerry and David, is a real trip," admitted the debuting book writer, Jeffrey Lane, a five-time Emmy winner recruited from television ("Mad About You," "Ryan's Hope," "Lou Grant"). He and Yazbek were in sych even before they started collaborating, he said. "MGM had a list of properties they were looking to license, and, for some reason, this hit me. When I first met with them, they said, `Who would you like to do the music and lyrics?' And I said, `Well, the one person that seems right in my gut is David Yazbek.' Turns out, David had called them about six months before asking about the same title. So we met and, right away, we realized that we want to write the same show."

Yazbek's lyric-driven songs are shows in themselves, but, when he's told that Sondheim started that way, he can't quite get his head around that. "Mention me and Sondheim in the same sentence is not something that I would agree with. He's just so far above everybody else. Frank Loesser, in terms of musical theatre, was my biggest inspiration."

Mitchell, who is turning into a hyphenate (director-choreographer) for Legally Blonde, seems to be spending the whole 2004-2005 theatre season on the French Riviera—first with La Cage aux Folles and now with Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. "I thought this is really such a wonderful opportunity for contrast. One's wild and crazy. One's about elegance."

The opening-night audience gave off an inordinate amount of glitter: Dina Merrill, Tina Louise, Joan Collins, Joan Rivers, Noah Racey, Noah Emmerich, Edie Falco, John Selya, Jeff Goldblum, Rocco Di Spirito, Phoebe Snow, Ron Lee Savin, Judith Ivey, Adriane Lenox, Marc Shaiman and Scott Whittman, Rob Fisher, Adam Pascal, Joyce De Witt, Terrence McNally, David Henry Hwang, Frank Wildhorn, Karen Ziemba, Charles Busch, Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Flaherty, Tovah Feldshuh, Kathleen Marshall, Ann Richards, Audra McDonald, Helen Gurley Brown.

The cast gives their opening night curtain call
photo by Aubrey Reuben

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