As reported by the Associated Press, actress Julie Harris underwent surgery, April 3, to drain fluid from her brain resulting from a fall she'd had when The Gin Game tour was playing in Stamford, CT, in mid February. She'd apparently fallen off a stepladder when signing her name on a backstage wall.

After Connecticut, the show took a week off, then went to Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale FL before coming to Washington DC, April 6-May 2. Co-star Charles Durning will perform until Harris' return with understudy Natalie Norwick, who subbed for Harris when the show was on Broadway as well. The ten-time Tony nominee is expected back in the show the week of April 13, according to spokesperson Charlie Siedenburg of the Springer/Chicoine press office. A release by tour spokesperson Dennis Crowley quoted doctors as saying Harris was making "an excellent recovery."

The Washington Post quoted Harris as saying, "I'll just be a few days late opening in Washington." The tour finishes up May 4-16 at Boston, MA's Colonial Theatre. After the summer, Harris is expected to start work on Scent of the Roses, a Broadway or off-Broadway-bound South African drama that Harris first performed in Seattle in summer 1998.

Harris is one of Broadway's most distinguished actresses, having won five Tony Awards -- the most ever won by a single actor. Her roles have included Sally Bowles in I Am A Camera (later musicalized as Cabaret), St. Joan in The Lark and as Emily Dickenson in The Belle of Amherst,, also directed by Charles Nelson Reilly. She appeared opposite Durning on Broadway once before, in The Au Pair Man at Lincoln Center.

Durning won the Tony for his Big Daddy in 1990's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and has had major roles in That Championship Season, Indians plus many other plays, TV shows and films.