Loose Lips

IT’S NOW OR NEVER
The crew of the hit T.V. series Desperate Housewives got an eyeful earlier this month while watching cast member Harriet Harris practicing her time step in preparation for her co-starring role as Mabel Pritt in the L.A. production of Never Gonna Dance. “I was hoping to do the whole role in a wheelchair — kind of like Ironside, with everyone just pushing me around the stage — but they didn’t go for that idea,” the Tony Award-winning actress says with a laugh.

Harris has no basis of comparison for her take on Mabel, having not seen the show’s Broadway production, which earned Karen Ziemba a Tony nomination. “Just as no one can do what Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers did, I know I can’t do what Karen did,” says Harris. So how did she end up in a role that’s earmarked for a serious dancer? “I worked with choreographer Lee Martino in On the Town and when she asked me to do this, I thought, ‘Let’s see if I can.’ ” Harris also admits that playing Mabel is a challenge in more ways than one: “I think she’s a very hard worker and sort of bright, but she also has moments of stupidity that would stun an elephant — like she can’t seem to divide $50,000 in half.”

The actress, who plays Housewives‘ devious Felicia Tillman, says that no one is as surprised at the twists and turns on Wisteria Lane as she is. “I really know nothing about the plots in advance,” she insists, “and sometimes we get new scenes overnight. Last year, everything about the show was a little overwhelming. We had to scramble a lot. But now we know that scrambling is the status quo.” What’s the biggest change from her previous TV work? “I’m not used to shooting outdoors, and the set at Universal is perfectly beautiful,” she says.

Harris will be indoors again this summer when she takes on the role of Vera Charles in the Kennedy Center production of Mame opposite Christine Baranski. “The only time I saw the show was in 1968, in Fort Worth,” she recalls, “but I played the record all the time. I used to sing along with Angela Lansbury, and I was brilliant. In fact, because the songs were so ‘actable,’ that show was what made me think I could do musicals. I always thought I’d be Mame someday or, if things didn’t work out, Gooch. I never thought I’d be Vera. But I saw Angela recently, and she said it was a great idea for me to play Vera.”

THE CAT’S MEOW
Keira Naughton has three roles in Kenny Finkle‘s charming new play Indoor/Outdoor: two cats and a wacky cat therapist wannabe named Matilda. But her spot-on characterizations don’t primarily come from first-hand experience. “I didn’t do any research for the show, like talking to cat therapists,” she says. “And I’m actually allergic to cats. But when I was growing up in Connecticut, we did adopt this stray cat that we called Spike. Even though I got sick a lot, it was worth having him around.”

Naughton says her biggest contribution to the play was helping to create Matilda’s very idiosyncratic look: “I told our costume designer, Michael Krass, that I wanted Matilda to be dressed in lots of layers — she’s the kind of person who shields herself — and that she had to have a fanny pack. Somehow, I just knew that would make the character come together, and it did. We need to bring fanny packs back. They may not be cool, but they’re very convenient.”

Nonetheless, Naughton says she won’t be wearing a fanny pack when she takes the stage of the Allen Room on February 23 to perform with her famous dad, James Naughton, and brother Greg Naughton as part of the American Songbook series. “This is the first time we’re doing something like this together, and I’m nervous because our singing styles are so different,” she says. “We didn’t want it to be three separate performances, so we’re trying to do some group numbers — and singing harmony is a real challenge. My dad has a really great vinyl collection from the 1970s, so we’re doing stuff like Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder. We even got my dad doing one of Neil Young‘s songs.”

CASTING ABOUT
Jon Peterson will star in George M. Cohan Tonight! at the Irish Rep; Patricia Kalember will head the cast of Shortly After Takeoff at Altered Stages; Jeffry Denman and Alexandra Wailes will star in the Keen Company’s revival of Children of a Lesser God; Pedro Pascal has joined the cast of MTC’s Based on a Totally True Story; Danton Stone and Peter Jacobson will appear in Men of Clay at the June Havoc Theatre; and Christiane Noll will star in the York Theater’s new musical A Fine And Private Place.

MUSIC OF THE NIGHT
Cabaret diva Karen Mason is premiering her new show When You Wish Upon A Star: Music from the Movies at Philadelphia’s Prince Music Theater, February 14-26; Lee Roy Reams, Marni Nixon, and Sarah Rice will be featured in Ménage, an evening of songs about relationships, at Merkin Concert Hall on February 21; Danny Gurwin, Carolann Page, and Stuart Zagnit will head the Melting Pot Theater’s concert version of the musical Terezin at Symphony Space, Februry 23-25.

The sublime Baby Jane Dexter will bring her acclaimed show Time Travel back to Helen’s Hideaway Room on February 25; Anne Runolfsson will perform as part of the Duplex’s Broadway Downtown series on February 27; Kathy Brier,Tevin Campbell, John Hill, Natalie Joy Johnson, and Ryan Link are among those set to sing some of the greatest hits of the 1980s in Guilty Pleasures at Makor on February 28, while the legendary Lesley Gore will appear at the 92nd Street Y that same night to talk with writer Anthony DeCurtis. (And yep, she’ll sing a few songs as well!)

Looking ahead to next month: Another ’60s singing icon, Petula Clark, will concertize at Southern California’s La Mirada Theater on March 4 & 5; Linda Lavin will bring her acclaimed act The Song Remembers When to Feinstein’s at the Regency, March 7-11; Tony Award winner Roger Rees will direct a semi-staged concert production of Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha at Alice Tully Hall on March 9; and the fabulous Ross Patterson and His Little Big Band will begin a weekly Monday night gig at Danny’s Skylight Room on March 13.