WORDS, GLORIOUS WORDS
At the end of the last Sunday matinee before Stanley bowed at Broadway’s Circle in the Square, title-player Antony Sher got The Word--three little words, actually, from the actress playing his first wife. As he helped Deborah Findlay down from a ladder at the back of the stage so they could collect their curtain calls together, she whispered in his ear, "We both won." Her agent had flashed her the news in mid-performance that she and Sher landed Olivier Awards and that their play, by Pam (Piaf) Gems, was named best of the year. The set decorator who took the show's fourth Olivier jetted to New York to hand deliver their prizes in time for their Broadway debuts. Findlay, in fact, posed with hers at the opening-night party at The Supper Club. She and the two other Brits brought over to reprise performances that complete this eccentric love-rectangle--Anna Chancellor and Selina Cadell- constitute a terrific Tony race all by themselves. NO GOLDEN AT THE GOLDEN
The latest work of Tony-winning wordsmith David Henry Hwang, Golden Child, is a no-go at the Golden this spring; it must wait till fall because the special music Dixie Carter is making with last season's Tony-winning words (Terrence McNally's Master Class) has brought a rosy boxoffice bloom back to the show. She celebrated that achievement at Barbetta's with hubby Hal Holbrook, who has his own word-work cut out for him on Broadway, playing the senatorial dad of Kate Nelligan in Wendy Wasserstein's An American Daughter .

WILL LIGHTNING STRIKE TWICE, TWICE?
At The Copacabana where the producers of The Last Night of Ballyhoo pitched their opening-night party, I found myself at the same spot on the dance floor repeating a prediction I'd made to Dana Ivey months ago--that she'd be Tony-nominated. That was then and for a supporting role (Sex and Longing ); this was now and for a starring role (Ballyhoo ); in neither did she need music -- nor did Amanda Plummer when she achieved that feat in 1980 for A Taste of Honey and Agnes of God. The only other person to get two Tony nominations in a single year did it with words AND music ( Heartbreak House and Sunday in the Park with George ) in 1984. Her name was, and still is, Dana Ivey--but that statistic spooks her. "Don't tempt the gods!" sez she.