Loose Lips

SOME ENCHANTED EVENING
Few performers have the vocal power of Linda Eder; but for her upcoming show at Feinstein’s at the Regency, entitled An Evening with Linda Eder, the star will be alternating tunes like “The Music That Makes Me Dance” with songs that allow her to explore her softer side. “I’m getting into more subtle, jazzy interpretations of standards, which I think are also more fitting to this room,” she says. “And while this isn’t a traditional cabaret show, I am trying to have a through line about love. The last couple of years have been about refining my personal life, so some of the songs are autobiographical — and some aren’t. It will be up to the audience to guess which is which.”

When she’s not performing, Eder spends time with her son, Jake, and looks at song possibilities for a new CD. “I think the next one will be a little more pop music,” she tells me. “I can’t do the same type of music too many times in a row. But the most important thing is that I have the luxury of time to get this done. I don’t want to rush the process; I want to be able to record it and then come back a while down the road and hear it with fresh ears.”

Eder hopes to return to the stage soon; she reveals that an original musical comedy is being developed for her but won’t divulge the details. “I learned when I was doing Camille Claudel that I really missed acting,” she says. “What I really miss is the camaraderie of the other actors and the live audience. I don’t miss the tiredness in the morning, especially not when Jake wakes me up.” As for whether or not Camille Claudel — written by her ex-husband, Frank Wildhorn — has a future, Eder says: “I know he’s working on it. It has so many challenges, but it also has so much going for it. I told him that when he gets it right and has someone ready to produce it, he can bring it to me.”

SAFE AND SOUND

In many ways, Amy Irving was the logical choice to star in Marta Góes‘s play A Safe Harbor for Elizabeth Bishop, which opens March 30 at Primary Stages, as the American poet who had a long-term lesbian relationship with the Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares. “We were both involved with Brazilians for 16 years,” says Irving, who is divorced from film director Bruno Barreto. “The play was first produced in Brazil, where I live part-time, and four different people there sent me a copy of the script. So I met with Marta and we talked about what would have to be done to adapt the work for American audiences. Then I never heard from her. A year later, I found out that she didn’t think I was really interested. So I flew to her family’s house, which is just magical, and we began working on the changes, like adding a scene concerning JFK’s death in order to help set the time and place for the audience.”

To prepare for the role, Irving — who is also the show’s producer — has done everything from visiting Soares and Bishop’s house in Brazil to reading Bishop’s letters and poetry, which are archived at Vassar College. “All I have to do is go up there and open a book of her letters, and I’m in her voice,” she says. “It hasn’t inspired me to write, but I do paint watercolors, like she did.”

Another key element to the show is Irving’s director, Richard Jay-Alexander, best known for working with such musical stars as Bernadette Peters and Barbra Streisand. “We’ve been friends since I did Amadeus on Broadway,” says Irving. “He was the stage manager. I sent him the script because he knows Brazil, and I figured he would bring to the language the musicality that we needed.”

HONOR ROLL

‘Tis the season for bestowing honors. This Sunday, TheaterMania columnists Barbara and Scott Siegel will be feted as part of the Roasts, Toasts, and Tributes series at St. Clement’s Church by such folks as Marc Kudisch, Emily Skinner, and Jim Caruso. On April 10, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick will be honored by the American Theatre Wing. On April 17, Betty Buckley will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 20th Annual MAC Awards ceremony. On April 20, Cynthia Nixon and the late Wendy Wasserstein will be honored for career achievement by The T. Schreiber Studio. And on April 28, Victoria Clark and opera diva Aprille Millo will be saluted by the New York Singing Teachers’ Association.

Looking ahead, Marian Seldes will be honored at Symphony Space’s annual gala on May 1; a well known producer gets his due when The Actors’ Fund of America Honors Rocco Landesman with its Medal of Honor on May 8; and, that same night, The Color Purple choreographer Donald Byrd and actor Dan Hedaya will be feted by their alma mater (and mine), Tufts University, at Feinstein’s. Elsewhere around the country, Kevin Spacey will receive the 2006 Will Award from Washington D.C.’s Shakespeare Theatre Company on May 13; Chita Rivera will be given Rhode Island’s Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts on May 22; and Liza Minnelli will receive The Actors’ Fund Julie Harris Award in Los Angeles on June 11.

STAR GAZING
Linda Powell, Keira Naughton, and Jana Robbins will join F. Murray Abraham for a benefit reading of Charles L. Mee‘s The Mail Order Bride at Theater Row Studios on March 27. Bernarda Alba composer Michael John LaChiusa will speak at the Vivian Beaumont Theater on March 29 as part of Lincoln Center’s Platform Series. Kathryn Erbe, Ally Sheedy, and deejay Valerie Smaldone will take part in a special production of The Vagina Monologues on April 1 and 2 at All Souls Unitarian Church. Rabbit Hole star Tyne Daly will speak at Boston University on April 25 in conjunction with a public exhibition of her archive.

After a nationwide search, Jason Celaya has been chosen to take over the role of Matthew in Altar Boyz on April 3. Alison Fraser, Patrick Quinn, and Daniel Marcus star in the George Street Playhouse production of the musical Gunmetal Blues, April 4-30. Kathleen Chalfant and John Cunningham head the 21-person cast of the Yale Rep’s All’s Well That Ends Well, April 21-May 20.

Oscar winner Jessica Lange came to see Alec Baldwin, with whom she co-starred on Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire, in a preview performance of Entertaining Mr. Sloane. Christopher Durang, Carolyn McCormick, and Deirdre O’Connell helped the Edge Theatre Company celebrate the opening of Living Room in Africa.

At the opening night party for The Property Known as Garland last evening, star Adrienne Barbeau and husband Billy Van Zandt (who wrote the show) were greeted by Tony winners Leslie Uggams, Karen Ziemba, Walter Bobbie, and Scott Wittman, not to mention actor Peter Boyle, the very funny Christine Pedi, and Barbeau’s one-time Grease co-stars Carole Demas and Ilene Kristen. Also in attendance were Van Zandt’s brother and sister-in-law, actors Steven and Maureen Van Zandt, and their Sopranos castmates Steve Schrripa, Vincent Curatola, and Dominic Chianese, who entertained the party crowd with his signature song stylings.