Loose Lips

LENDING AN EAR
Playing an FBI agent keeping tabs on John Lennon in Mark St. Germain‘s new two-character play Ears on a Beatle, which officially opens Sunday at the DR2, has Dan Lauria coming full circle in more ways than one. A former marine officer, the 56-year-old actor — best known for playing dad Jack Arnold on TV’s The Wonder Years — has actually taught FBI trainees and still counts Bureau members among his friends.

Moreover, Lauria had a brief encounter with Lennon less than a year before his death. “I was walking by Central Park and saw him, and we nodded. A few seconds later, he came back towards me and said ‘Gus Thompson’ — which was the name of the character I played on One Life to Live. It turns out he was a big fan of the soap.”

Lauria and co-star Bill Dawes first did Ears last summer at Barrington Stage in the Berkshires, and Lauria was amazed at who its fans turned out to be: “I was shocked to see how many young people came — all these 15-year-olds wearing John Lennon T-shirts. I hadn’t realized that he has become an icon like James Dean or Marilyn Monroe. So many of these kids kept coming backstage to ask to see the FBI files that we eventually had to put them in the lobby, which is also the case at the DR2.”

The actor first met St. Germain in Los Angeles, where Lauria has spent the last 10 years running The Playwrights Kitchen Ensemble, which helps develop new playwrights. His commitment extends to young screenwriters too; Lauria recently shot an independent movie titled The Signs of the Cross, in which he plays the father of the main character (portrayed by the film’s writer-director, John Leidy). “When young writers call me, I usually give them a day or two,” he says. “I know how hard that market is.” Should Ears ever become a film, however, Lauria thinks his role should be played by Tim Robbins; he even called the recent Oscar winner personally and asked him to come see the show. “Tim likes to make statements, and this show certainly makes a statement,” Lauria explains. “Even if you don’t like it, it gets the juices flowing. After it’s over, you want to go out and protest!”

Lauria may soon be back on series TV: He just shot a sitcom pilot for NBC called Come to Poppa, in which he plays another father — of the show’s star, comedian Tom Poppa. “Jerry Seinfeld helped with the script,” Lauria tells me. “He’s a really nice guy and so dedicated to comedy.”

NIGHT AND DAYTIME
Lauria is only one of many One Life to Live stars, past and present, who may currently be seen on the New York stage. For example, Kathy Brier has been spending her nights as Tracy Turnblad in Hairspray and her days playing Llanview University student Marcie Walsh, a role that recently earned her a Daytime Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Next month, two of her co-stars will also be doing double duty: Two-time Daytime Emmy winner Heather Tom, who joined the soap this year as Kelly Buchanan, will make her Broadway debut as a young scientist in Mark Medoff‘s Prymate at the Longacre on April 16. Meanwhile, Mark Dobies, who plays D.A. Daniel Colson, will be featured in the Worth Street Theater revival of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, which begins performances at The Public Theater on April 6. (That production is a true boon for soap fanatics, since the cast also includes former daytime heartthrobs Billy Warlock and Richard Bekins.)

OLTL hardly has the moonlighting market cornered. Caroline, or Change leading lady Tonya Pinkins returned earlier this year to All My Children as attorney Olivia Frye Cudahy, and fellow Pine Valley resident Eva LaRue Callahan (Dr. Maria Santos Grey) takes to the footlights on April 2 and 4 in The Women of Nine, a new play about death row inmates that’s being presented as part of the “Songs from Coconut Hill Festival” at Teatro Le Tea. Not to be outdone, As The World Turns veteran Ellen Dolan — who has played policewoman Margo Hughes Montgomery for 15 years — will take on the role of an Elvis fanatic in the Workshop Theater Company production of Graceland, which begins performances on April 15.

OOH, BABY!
Carolee Carmello has something in common with Arlene, the 43-year-old pregnant mom she plays in the Paper Mill Playhouse revival of Maltby and Shire‘s Baby, beginning next Thursday. “I am age-appropriate if not totally life-appropriate,” says the 41-year-old actress. While Arlene has three grown kids, Carmello and her husband — Broadway star Gregg Edelman — have two young children, Zoe and Ethan.

Carmello had no visions of playing Arlene when she saw the original Broadway production of the show — three times. “I was a starving actor, so I have no idea how I afforded that,” she remarks. “But it was one of the first shows I fell in love with and I wanted to grow up and be Liz Callaway [who played Lizzie]. I was so thrilled that I finally got to play that part at Casa Mañana in Fort Worth, Texas when I was 25.”

More recently, she got to sing Lizzie’s big song, “The Story Goes On,” in this month’s Nothing Like a Dame concert: “I called Gregg on the way to the concert and said to him, ‘I’m feeling a little self-conscious. Maybe I shouldn’t do it. It’s like false advertising.’ But he told me to go ahead.” Carmello says that Moesha McGill‘s rendition in the Paper Mill production is very different and adds, “That’s one of the great things about this show. Every actor can really put his or her own stamp on these parts. It’s really a personality-driven musical.”

PLAYING TO WYN
Making your American stage debut opposite Christopher Plummer in Lincoln Center’s King Lear is heady enough, but Geraint Wyn Davies has been practically walking away with the show as the villainous Edmund. At the very least, he’s been getting all the laughs. “I’m lucky enough to be the guy who speaks directly to the audience, to make that connection,” says the stage and TV veteran. “Edmund is probably the most intelligent person in the play, which is one reason why he doesn’t have to be such a downer. Plus, since he’s the bastard son, he realizes that he has to be charming just to get himself into the room.”

One night, however, Davies decided to change his interpretation — and the results were less than felicitous. “I decided to play Edgar very solemnly and really evil. Of course, I got no laughs. Some days, you try something different and, when it’s over, you think, ‘Boy, that was a terrible choice!'”

FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD
Mercedes Ruehl will read the role of Beatrice in the one-act version of Arthur Miller‘s
A View From The Bridge as part of the “Food For Thought” series at the National Arts Club on May 14. She will join Danny Aiello, Robert LuPone, and Barrett Foa (all of whom will do another reading of the piece on Monday, sans Ruehl). On Wednesday, Kathleen Turner and Robert Cuccioli will play Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski, respectively, in six unpublished scenes from Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire.

MEAT AND GREET
Governor George Pataki introduced wife Libby to Steven Van Zandt at the opening night party of Silent Laughter at Keen’s Chophouse in this way: “Honey, never mind The Sopranos, this is the guy from Bruce Springsteen‘s E Street Band!”…Judith Ivey, Christine Ebersole, Byron Jennings and wife Carolyn McCormack, Peter Riegert, and Avenue Q stars Stephanie D’Abruzzo, Ann Harada, and Rick Lyon celebrated Yeardley Smith’s opening night in More at Olives…André DeShields, Abe Vigoda, and writer Deborah Grace Winer were all on the aisle for Sunday night’s “Lyrics & Lyricists” program at the 92nd Street Y.