Phyllis Newman, the theatre veteran who last appeared at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey in that theatre's mounting of Follies, stars in the Jewish Repertory Theatre's revival of Leonard Spigelgass' 1959 drama A Majority on One. The show began previews Jan. 16 and opens Jan. 24, 1999 in New York. No closing date has been announced.

Newman won a Tony Award for her performance in musical Subways Are for Sleeping . She received another Tony nomination for Broadway Bound . More recent work includes a turn as a suicide hotline operator in Nicky Silver's The Food Chain.

Joining Newman on stage is Randall Duk Kim, perhaps best known for David Henry Hwang's Golden Child , which played briefly on Broadway last season. He also appeared in the Public Theater's Cymbeline and the Broadway revival of The King and I.

Kim plays a retired Japanese businessman to Newman's Jewish widow. When the two meet on an oceanliner just after the close of World War II, an unlikely romance blossoms. A Majority of One 's original 1959 Broadway production starred Cedric Hardwicke and Gertrude Berg. An 1961 film starred Alec Guinness and Rosalind Russell.

Also in the JRT cast are Ako, Konrad Aderer, Julia Dion, Danny Gurwin, Mio Takada and Elaine Grollman. Richard Sabellico directs. For more information, call (212) 831-2000.

-- By Robert Simonson