Variety On the Town

Geffen Gala Gabfest

Tawdry tales were told Monday night at the Geffen Playhouse's annual fundraiser "Backstage at the Geffen" in Westwood.  Thesp Roma Downey dished on a former inebriated co-star; Julie Andrews recalled the time Rex Harrison accidentally passed gas on stage during their performance of "My Fair Lady," saying, "he was a windy fellow"; and comedian Bruce Vilanch told of a near Oscar show disaster in 1993 involving Dolly Parton's well known assets.

On a more serious note, the evening honored Annette Bening and Disney's Robert Iger. Angelica Houston presented Bening with her award and director Julie Taymor was on hand to give Iger his kudo. When accepting his accolade, Iger took a moment to honor Taymor saying, "No one deserves more credit for where Disney is in the theater today than you," he said. " 'The Lion King' has been seen around the world, the stage play, by over 45 million people in the last ten years. I don't think anyone has done more for this art form than you have on a global basis." (M. McNiece)

- Pictured above: Julie Andrews; left: Annette Bening and Warren Beatty (FilmMagic)

Parker Picks Up 'Cell Phone'

Starring as the shy heroine of Sarah Ruhl’s Off Broadway play “Dead Man’s Cell Phone,” Mary-Louise Parker gives her latest legit role a distinctive stage presence, complete with mousy voice and fragile walk. They’re typically bold acting choices for the thesp.

“Some of it is organic. Some of it is intellectual,” Parker said after the show’s opening at Playwrights Horizons on Tuesday in Gotham. “Sometimes something just happens when I stand up, and it sticks.” Next month Parker is off to shoot the next season of Showtime skein “Weeds,” but the actress still considers legit her true home. “I’m always looking for a play,” she said.  (G. Cox)

Pictured: Sarah Ruhl and Mary-Louise Parker/  (Bruce Glikas/ FilmMagic.com)

'Mommie' Lives On

It was a herd of leading ladies paying tribute to one of their own. At the Off-Broadway preem of Charles Busch’s "Die Mommie Die!" the opening-night aud at New World Stages was chockablock with legit actresses who had either appeared in Busch’s other plays or co-starred with him or simply enjoyed his talent: Anna Deavere Smith, Sutton Foster, Julie Halston, Michele Lee, Kate Mulgrew, Joan Rivers, Marian Seldes and Karen Ziemba. Busch had preemed his Gothic-thriller spoof “Mommie!” in 1999 for L.A. audiences, but held off from bringing it to hometown turf.
“I didn’t take it seriously as a play,” he opines. There was a 2003 movie version, and then he did an Actor’s Fund perf last year. “It went well and I thought, Well,  maybe….” (R. Hofler)

An 'Overwhelming' opening

“We don’t need something else that says, ‘the Tutsis are good, the Hutus are bad,’” said “The Overwhelming” playwright JT Rogers (pictured with his wife) at the Broadway opening on Tuesday.

The play, which follows a family of naïve Americans through the country in the time leading up the the Rwandan genocide, opened at the Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theater last night.
Rogers said that he had read 15,000 pages of research for his historically meticulous play, and had memorized the maps of Kigali as it was in 1994. “I hope that people go home and ask questions about what happened,” said the playwright.
Rogers and his actors, including James Rebhorn and Linda Powell, hobnobbed with guests like Lauren Bacall and Jefferson Mays at the Millennium Hotel after the show. (S. Thielman)

'Grease' Slides into Gotham

The Roseland Ballroom was packed with Broadway, film, and television personalities who turned out to see the TV audience-selected leads Max Crumm and Laura Osnes at the opening night  of “Grease” on Sunday in Gotham.  Some, like Stephen Colbert, even brought along their kids. Carole Demas (the original Sandy) said she was pleased that the music still holds up so well. “I love ‘We Go Together.’ It’s just joyous, gibberish fun.” (S. Thielman)

Kudos Keep Rollin' in for Mirren

On Monday night the Geffen Playhouse gave Helen Mirren the latest award she’s received this season, bringing her grand total to probably a couple of thousand. But before the actual award was given, a collection of thesps and playwrights spoke of backstage moments that could have been disasters.

Neil LaBute talked of meeting his hero, Harold Pinter, in a London theater. “He asked me if I knew where the toilets were.” David Mamet gave three one-liners including how “Down in the Valley they are making a reality program about the writers’ strike.” But Dick Van Dyke brought the house down by recalling a perf for “Same Time Next Year” with Carol Burnett. There was one evening when the performance seemed to be going really well. The audience was even laughing during the sad final act. That was when Burnett told him his fly was open. “I’ve done comedy ever since," he quipped. (S. Dore)

'Wind' on the Great White Way

So, a newsman, a nanny and a New Jersey housewife walk into a theater... waiting for a good punchline? Well, keep waiting because this simply describes Thursday night's opening of "Inherit The Wind" at the Lyceum Theater in Gotham. Mike Wallace, Fran Drescher and Edie Falco were among the stars who arrived on Broadway to see the production starring Christopher Plummer and Brian Dennehy. Read here to find out how these two stage pros handle the never funny annoyance of a cell phone ringing during a performance.

- posted by Mia Sulpor

What makes Spacey over the 'Moon'

Kevin Spacey may be an Academy Award winner who is now starring as Jim Tyrone in Broadway's 'A Moon For The Misbegotten,' which opened Monday night at The Brooks Atkinson Theater in Gotham. But who knew the guy loved ping-pong? Spacey elaborated on his ping-pong passion in a recent Newsweek interview with Ramin Setoodeh.

"Ping-Pong is one of the greatest games ever! I'm a Ping-Pong nut."

Do you have time to play?
"Constantly. I have a Ping-Pong table in my apartment in London. I love Ping-Pong."

Do you play alone?
"No, no. I've got friends to play."

They come over just to play Ping-Pong?
"Well, not just to play Ping-Pong. I have tournaments. Whenever I'm on location, that's the one thing I always want, a Ping-Pong table. Here's my point. Why is Ping-Pong so much fun? It doesn't matter the rules are the same, it's always a different game. That's what doing a play is like."

What a fun guy. Just don't ask him about America Idol. Find out why.

- posted by Mia Sulpor

The Cutting Edge

The setting of Wednesday’s dinner following Matthew Bourne’s dance rendition of “Edward Scissorhands” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music was a bit ominous.

After the perf, guests were shuttled from Brooklyn to 7 World Trade Center, which opened last May. The 40,000 square foot event space is still under construction and features floor to ceiling windows providing guests with 360-degree views of Gotham as well as ground zero. Attendees seemed more interested in staring out the windows than eating dinner. Luckily, limitless amounts of red and white wine at each table and a delicious looking avocado salad drew guests to their seats.

Bourne, who was surrounded by reporters, BAM board members and patrons for the entire night, managed to take a second to explain why he thought Tim Burton’s 1990 pic would make a good dance-theater piece.

“Somebody asked me what would make a good musical,” Bourne said. “The first idea that came into my head was 'Edward Scissorhands.' Danny Elfman’s (pic’s composer) music made me think of it in a musical way. It hadn’t really occurred to me to do it as a dance piece but then I thought I should. So then we just had to turn it into a good piece of theater and not make the film. There are only one or two bits in the performance that are actually in the film.”

The crowd, which included Sam Mendes, seemed to enjoy the rendition. Bourne and his dancers got a standing ovation. (A. Morfoot)

Sharing Spalding's Stories

Matt Dillon snagged a tortilla chip from an empty table marked 'cast.'  Moby chowed down on (we assume) vegetable burritos. And perhaps somewhere above the West Village Mexican restaurant, Panchitos, at the grand writing desk in the sky, Spalding Gray was looking down and composing a monologue.

Occasion was the Gotham after-party for the opening of Off-Broadway production "Stories Left to Tell," at the Minetta Lane Tuesday night in which actors read from the late monologuist's work, describing his uneasy relationship with fame, family and modern life.

Many of Gray's hallmark bits were there, from his absurdist take on Hollywood (a riff on CAA in which he walked into a meeting to find that the agents "were all ready...there's absolutely nothing going on, but they're ready") to the sentimental ("I understood once I held a baby in my arms why some people have the need to keep having them.") There was even a self-knowing jibe about making ironic observations, shaping them and selling them back to the American people. 

One can only imagine what he would have said about the hundreds gathered to fete him. (S. Zeitchik)