Loose Lips

BACK AFTER A (GOD)SPELL
Theatergoers who saw the 2000 Off-Broadway revival of Godspell could hardly have realized how many Broadway babies who would soon emerge from that excellent production. Among the show’s ensemble players were Chad Kimball, who recently left Good Vibrations to become one of the principal players in the Broadway-bound Lennon; Shoshana Bean, who is currently starring as Elphaba in Wicked at the Gershwin; and Leslie Kritzer, who plays Shelley — one of the Corny Collins dancers — in Hairspray and who many people swear is the perfect choice for a Broadway revival of Funny Girl, based on her performance in the Paper Mill Playhouse’s production of that show.

But whatever happened to that guy who played Jesus? Well, Barrett Foa has his hands full — literally — playing Princeton and Rod in the Tony Award-winning smash musical Avenue Q. Though Foa was John Tartaglia‘s understudy for over a year and went on for him many times, he’s discovered that being the full-time star of the show is a challenge. “Those first two weeks, I was really exhausted,” he tells me. “I felt like I was running a marathon and didn’t properly stretch.” But he says that he’s now hitting his stride on stage, and he’s particularly excited about next week’s shows: “Alexander Gemignani will be stepping in to play the role of Brian for the week. We were classmates at the University of Michigan and did Anything Goes together. He’s already suggested that maybe we can fit ‘Friendship’ into the show somewhere and have Lucy T. Slut sing the role of Reno Sweeney.”

Foa will be using one of his nights off from Avenue Q to perform a show in the Broadway Downtown series at The Duplex on March 21. His program will span the worlds of pop and theater, including Jason Robert Brown‘s “Moving Too Fast,” Maury Yeston‘s “Unusual Way,” an original song by fellow Broadway star Gavin Creel, and a special version of “The Seven Deadly Virtues” from the Alan Jay Lerner–Frederick Loewe musical Camelot. (Foa played Mordred in the Paper Mill’s most recent production of that show.) “It’s going to be a really fun night,” he enthuses. “We’re just going to rock out! I will be telling some crazy stories about my family and the people I’ve worked with, but I promise it won’t be ‘therapy cabaret.’ That’s my biggest nightmare.”

L.A. LADIES
Oscar winner Linda Hunt is starring in the West Coast premiere of Doubt at the Pasadena Playhouse…Lily Tomlin will be the special guest of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, April 1-3…Wendie Malick will star in Questa, a new play about seven Manhattanites bound together by a vicious crime, beginning April 5…The incredible Chita Rivera will bring her new show The Dancer’s Life to the Ahmanson Theater, beginning June 17.

L.A. LAWYERS
Jill Eikenberry, best known for her starring role as Ann Kelsey Markowitz in L.A. Law, will star opposite Dennis Boutsikaris in the Manhattan Theatre Club production of Jeffrey Hatcher‘s two-hander A Picasso. Other veterans of that long-running NBC series who are showing off their stage chops this month: Democracy star Michael Cumpsty; Blair Underwood, who’ll have the title role in the City Center Encores! production of Purlie; and Twelve Angry Men star Boyd Gaines, who appeared in the first two episodes of L.A. Law way back in 1986.

ISN’T SHE PHENOMENAL?
Another standout of the above-mentioned Godspell production was Capathia Jenkins, she of the amazing voice, who has since shone brightly on Broadway in The Look of Love and as the washing machine in Caroline, or Change. Jenkins recently returned from Caroline‘s well-received San Francisco production and is now taking a break from the Great White Way to focus on other projects, including Phenomenal Woman, which plays Joe’s Pub on March 20 and 27.

The evening’s main attraction, and the source of its title, is a 12-song cycle by composer Louis Rosen, based on the works of the great poet Maya Angelou. “I met Louis about three years ago when someone recommended me to him as a vocalist for his Langston Hughes project,” says Jenkins. “He liked my style so much that he offered to write something for me — and then, a couple of months after that, he invited me to come to the house to hear what he had written. When I got there, he told me that he was setting Maya’s poems to music, and I just lit up. Her poems really sing like lyrics, and her words truly transcend race, color and creed. They’re all about humanity.”

Has Jenkins had any personal contact with the legendary author? “I met her only once, at George Faison‘s Christmas party,” she relates. “I went to find George in the kitchen, and there she was standing over a pot of greens. She was so gracious and kind and warm. After we did some of this music in December 2003, we did a recording and sent it to her, and she gave us the rights to do this piece. She gets so many requests to set her works to music that this is really a coup. My big dream is to go on Oprah and sing some of these poems; I know Oprah loves Dr. Angelou, and I would love as much of the country as possible to hear them.”

WHAT IF WE WENT TO ITALY?
Given the current exchange rate of dollars to Euros, it’s a lot cheaper to see Italy by going to the theater in New York. You can travel there via Woman Before a Glass, which is set in the Venice palazzo of art collector Peggy Guggenheim (played by the fabulous Mercedes Ruehl); the highly anticipated new musical The Light in the Piazza, which tells the story of an American mother and daughter (played by Victoria Clark and Kelli O’Hara) on vacation in Florence; and Eduardo De Fillipo‘s comedy Souls of Naples, which will have its American premiere on April 2. If Ancient Rome is more your thing, consider the Broadway revival of Julius Caesar, starring Oscar-winner Denzel Washington as Brutus.

THE A LIST
Tony Award winner Andrea McArdle will perform a benefit concert for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS at Joe’s Pub on March 13…Funny lady Angela LaGreca will emcee the annual Guild Hall Academy of the Arts Gala at the Rainbow Room on March 14…Ann Hampton Callaway will be the special guest at the MAC/ASCAP Songwriter Showcase on March 16 at the Lighthouse; the 12-time MAC Award winner is nominated this year for two of her songs: “My Answered Prayer” and “Here Come the Callaways.”

And the list goes on! The talented Alison Briner will join cabaret stars Lisa Asher and Barbara Brussell in Woman Exposed for a seven-performance run at The Duplex on March 20…Audra McDonald, who may return to series television next season in a WB series about university life, will sing the work of the-soon-to-be-75-years-young Stephen Sondheim in the superstar-studded Children and Art benefit on March 21 and will also appear as Clara in the Lincoln Center production of Sondheim’s Passion, March 30-April 1…Alan Cumming will receive GLAAD’s Vito Russo Award on March 28 at the Marriott Marquis.

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[To contact Brian Scott Lipton directly, e-mail him at BSL@theatermania.com.]