Loose Lips

EASTON STANDARD
If it’s true that man makes plans and God laughs, when actors make plans, God guffaws. Just ask Richard Easton. “I was supposed to do Jon Robin Baitz‘s The Paris Letter at the Huntington this spring, but then the producer quit just before we started. Then I was supposed to go into Ed Hall‘s production of Camelot on Broadway. I was going to play both Merlyn and King Pellinore, although in this version Merlyn comes on at the very end so that the audience can be astounded by your transformation. But that’s now postponed,” he says. “Maybe I should have read my horoscope at the beginning of the year.” (For the record, Easton was born on March 22, a birthday he shares with both Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber.)

However, a man of Easton’s supreme talents — he won a Theatre World Award back in 1957 for The Country Wife and a Tony Award 44 years later for Tom Stoppard‘s The Invention of Love — doesn’t stay unemployed for long. At the moment, he’s part of the revolving cast of the Colleagues Theatre Company’s Tasting Memories, where he reads a particularly juicy passage from Ernest Hemingway‘s For Whom the Bell Tolls. Says Easton with a laugh: “When I first came into the theater, out-of-work actors spent their time taking more acting lessons. Now, we do readings. I think this is the better way to do it.”

On July 6, he begins a summer run of the Mint Theater’s Echoes of the War, which consists of two J.M. Barrie one-acts: the well-known The Old Lady Shows Her Medals and the far more obscure The New Word. His co-star will be fellow Tony winner Frances Sternhagen. “Frannie and I did The Importance of Being Earnest back in 1960 and she was the most wonderful, most divine Gwendolyn ever,” he says.

And on June 6, Easton will be doing what most of us will be doing: watching the Tony Awards. Naturally, he’ll be rooting wholeheartedly for all the nominees of Lincoln Center’s Henry IV, in which he played the title role. “I never expected to be in the running for Best Actor. My career has always been that way, very appreciated by the audience if not by the critics. But I really thought Kevin Kline was wonderful,” he says. “Jack O’Brien, our director, is so clever. He doesn’t really impose anything on the play; he just sets it up and watches what happens. I think that’s why the performances are so organic. And I was really thrilled to see all the technical nominations; it was so fantastic to see the stage of the Vivian Beaumont used like that. I think Ralph Funicello‘s set could be used for any William Shakespeare play.”

DAVIS RULES
Essie Davis, on the other hand, won’t be watching the Tonys at home; she will be inside Radio City Music Hall to see if her name is called out for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as the aptly named Dottie Moore in Tom Stoppard’s Jumpers. “It’s very different than London,” says Davis, who won the Olivier Award for this role. “There’s so much more anticipation and build-up of the nomination process and the awards. It’s very exciting.”

Now that the show has been running over a month, Davis — who is performing in New York for the first time — is finding other differences between the two sides of the Atlantic. “New Yorkers laugh a lot louder, and just love the show more openly. It’s really great to get so much back from an audience,” she says. “But it’s a shame that I hear some people are frightened of the show. There’s really something in it for everyone; it’s funny and light, though with a tragic heart. It’s not a competition with the audience to see who’s smarter. You just need to immerse yourself in it and it becomes a very nourishing evening.”

FRANK TALK
Theater aficionados are anticipating the reunion of actor Jim Dale and director Frank Dunlop in Address Unknown, the theatrical adaptation of Kathrine Kressman Taylor‘s World War II novel that begins performances Friday at the Promenade. While Broadway babies may recall their 1975 teaming on Molière‘s Scapino (which earned both men Tony Award nominations), the pair have worked together in England for many decades. Truth be told, Dunlop is responsible for Dale’s acting career. “Actually, it’s Dame Judi Dench‘s fault,” he tells me. “We were doing Macbeth in some theater in Nottingham, and one night we decided to go to this local theater, and there was Jim hosting the show. And I immediately called him the next day and offered him the part of Autolycus in The Winter’s Tale.”

Just in case you think this tale is an exaggeration, Dale confirmed the story for me at the kick-off party for the upcoming New York Musical Theater Festival. “I used to be a pop singer in those days, I worked with George Martin of the Beatles, and I also did some stand-up in my act. And it’s true that Frank called my house the day after he saw me and offered me the part,” he says. “And I not only thought I couldn’t do Shakespeare, I thought I’d prove it to him by having lunch with him the next day. We did and he talked me into doing it, and I’ve playing Shakespeare’s clowns ever since.”

On the other hand, Address Unknown marks the first collaboration between Dunlop and award-winning actor William Atherton. And once again, the telephone is the culprit. “I was looking for someone a bit older to match up with Jim. One day, I was talking to David Fishelson, the producer of the Manhattan Ensemble Theater, and he suggested William [who had starred in their production of The Castle],” says Dunlop. “I remembered him from his heyday, when he was ‘the great white hope’ of New York theater. So I rang him up at home. He sort of knew the book, but he read it again and then said yes. I’m thrilled.”

SHADOW OF A DOUBT
Theatergoers who want an early preview of John Patrick Shanley‘s new play Doubt, scheduled for a full fall production by Manhattan Theatre Club, should head up to New York Stage & Film’s Reading Series, July 23-25 at Vassar College. Also on the star-studded bill that weekend are David Marshall Grant‘s Pen (starring Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden), James Lapine‘s Fran’s Bed (starring Mia Farrow), Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros‘ The Argument, and Douglas Carter Beane‘s The Little Dog Laughed.

HEY THERE, YOU WITH THE SOAP IN YOUR EYES…

Matt Cavenaugh became quite the Broadway sex symbol last season even though the show in which he starred, Urban Cowboy, lasted only 60 performances at the Broadhurst Theatre. Rather than pulling his cowbody hat down over his eyes and sulking, Cavenaugh hopped right back into the saddle and went out on the road, playing Jimmy in a tour of Thoroughly Modern Millie. Now I hear that he’s joined the cast of the ABC daytime television drama One Life to Live in the recurring role of Mark. Cavenaugh is currently taping episodes of the soap that are set to air in June.

In other soapy news: Alice Ripley has joined the cast of All My Children as Pearly, a Las Vegas lounge singer. And Tonya Pinkins, a 2004 Tony Award nominee for her role in Caroline, or Change, is back on the same show as attorney Livia Frye Cudahy after a hiatus.

A TONY CROWD
Playwright Wendy Wasserstein and producer Daryl Roth will be saluted by 2004 Tony Award nominees Swoosie Kurtz and Tony Kushner at the National Foundation for Jewish Culture’s annual Jewish Cultural Achievement Awards on June 7 at the Plaza…Rebecca Luker, David Garrison, and Sheldon Harnick will participate in the 92nd Street Y’s last “Lyrics & Lyricists” of the season, “The Wit and Wisdom of Ira Gershwin,” from June 12-14…Christine Ebersole and Tony Roberts will headline the Bay Street Theatre’s production of Tom Stoppard’s Rough Crossing, beginning June 15…Jonathan Hogan will star in the Keen Company’s production of two Thornton Wilder one-act plays, Pullman Car Hiawatha and The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden, beginning June 19 at the Connelly Theatre.