By Harry Haun
21 Oct 2005

Hanke, who has a lot to act as the staggeringly afflicted lead, did his homework. "I chose to read rather than watch people with Tourette's Syndrome," he admitted. "The biggest thing about Tourette's Syndrome is that it's very different in each case. There are different clicks, different vocal tics, different mannerisms, different compulsions—it's very different for every person. Consequently, instead of observing people, I mostly read so I could discover what those feelings were inside of me. I discovered J.T. through that. Joe has a personal history with Tourette's Syndrome in his family, and that gave him the impetus to discover what that is. He knew that would make a great palate for an interesting love story. I'm glad he put it on paper, and I'm glad he hired me to do it."

It's his Broadway bow—and "it's everything I wanted it to be. A dream come true. I'm happy and humbled to be here." Navarra, 13 going on 34, is likewise marking her Broadway bow, but at the opening-night party she was taking the whole thing in cool and collected like an old pro. No, she said, she wasn't at all nervous because "it was such a pleasure to work with everyone in the cast—really fun to play the game of make believe."

Technically, Halling wasn't making his Broadway debut. He understudied Hugh Jackman in The Boy From Oz, but who knew? Jackman never missed a performance, the bitch! "He's coming back apparently next year, as Hugh Jackman in that show he took to Vegas, so if they hire an understudy for Hugh Jackman as Hugh Jackman I'll get a shot."

Turner had had his turn on Broadway, too—but also very inconspicuously. "I had a small ensemble role in The Invention of Love and understudied Michael Stuhlbarg and eventually got to play that role," he said, "but this is my big starring debut. This whole experience for me has been ticking off the childhood dreams. I really like my name in a Playbill—that was a biggie. And then—well, I'd like to be on Broadway instead of Off-Broadway. Check that off. I love singing the song 'Secrets.' I love to be funny and dance at the same, that sort of Buster Keaton physicality. And then the costumes I wear. And the flying. I'm in hog heaven."

The heaven that Brooks and scenic designer Allen Moyer envisioned eschews the cloudy cliches and instead is represented by rows upon rows of filing cabinets. The costumes and the lighting are by two-thirds of the Tony winning triumvirate for The Light in the Piazza, Catherine Zuber and Christopher Akerlind. Zuber said that Lincoln Center was hooking them up with the third Tony-winning member of their design team, set designer Michael Yeargan, and Piazza director Bartlett Sher, for a revival of Clifford Odets' 1935 Awake and Sing at the Belasco April 17. Much more immediate for Zuber—like, Nov. 21 at the Booth—is a Lincoln Center revival of Edward Albee's 1975 Seascape.

And what are the well-dressed lizards (Frederick Weller and Elizabeth Marvel) be wearing this season? She wasn't telling, beyond saying "They're going to be lizards. Albee was very specific about what he wanted so I really had to listen very carefully."