Dinner premiered the National Theatre's Loft on Nov. 18, 2002. Harriet Walter starred. The author's sister, Fiona Buffini, directed. A recent New York Post item notwithstanding, there are presently no Broadway plans for Dinner.

The play is about an unexpectedly nightmarish evening around the dinner table. An artist, a scientist and a sexpot are coming to dinner. Paige (the Baranski part), a hostess extraordinaire, is celebrating the publication of her husband's best-seller about the psychological apocalypse. The arrival of Mike, who has crashed his van, provides an unexpected addition to the evening's entertainment. A silent waiter, sourced from an obscure website, completes the picture.

Baranksi has not appeared on Broadway since 1991's Nick and Nora and hasn't made a sustained New York stage appearance since Terrence McNally's Lips Together, Teeth Apart Off-Broadway, though she did perform in Sweeney Todd at the Kennedy Center in May 2002. Since her last Gotham stage work, she has found success in film ("The Birdcage," "Bowfinger," "Chicago") and television ("Cybill," "Welcome to New York").

In other Baranski news, the actress will in the week beginning Dec. 6 take part in a Roundabout Theatre Company reading of a new Wallace Shawn adaptation of Threepenny Opera. Shawn will also star, as will Edie Falco. Scott Elliott will direct.

A new revival of Threepenny Opera has long been in the works for the Roundabout.