Loose Lips

Will Cynthia Nixon be adding a Tony Award to her increasingly crowded mantle? “I was hopeful I’d be remembered for Rabbit Hole,” says Nixon of her Best Actress in a Play nomination. “Of course, it would be more festive if the show were still running. But I have to say the experience was kind of perfect, and not many things in life feel that way. It was such a departure for [playwright] David Lindsay-Abaire in that this play was so spare and simple, so much about silence and what was unsaid. And Daniel Sullivan is able to direct without seeming like he’s doing anything at all, but he really steps in when you need him.”

Nixon is thrilled to be in the august company of her fellow nominees, Kate Burton, Judy Kaye Lisa Kron, and Lynn Redgrave. “Even when you’ve been in the theater for so many years, it doesn’t necessarily occur to you that you’ll ever be in this slot with this kind of people,” she says. Does her daughter, Samantha, realize what a big honor this is for her mom? “I don’t know that she really gets it,” Nixon says with a smile. “I told her and she said ‘Yay.’ ”

For her next theatrical go-round, Nixon will star this fall as the legendary school teacher in the New Group’s revival of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. “It will be a change to do something that small,” she says, “although I think Scott Elliott, our director, would like to have a lot of little girls onstage. That would be kind of wild.”

Having showed off her vocal cords earlier this year, belting out “Dance 10: Looks 3” in The Public Sings celebration, is Nixon now looking for a musical to do? “Asking me if I want to do a musical is like asking an alligator if it wants to fly,” she replies. “Of course, it would be great, and I am taking singing lessons. But I don’t see it happening. Then again, 20 years ago, I would never have dreamed I’d be nominated for a Tony. So maybe in 20 years, I’ll be saying “‘Here I am, starring in a Broadway musical!'”

THAT GIBSON GIRL
“I don’t usually get to do new musicals,” says Deborah Gibson, explaining one of the reasons why she’ll be happily starring alongside Tony Award winner Chuck Cooper in the world premiere of Saint Heaven next month at the Stamford Center for the Arts in Connecticut. “Of the 15 shows I’ve done, there wasn’t one that I hadn’t seen before in some form. So it’s exciting to be starting from scratch.”

While Gibson has had leading roles in such Broadway shows as Cabaret and Beauty and the Beast, this time she’s playing a supporting character named Maggie. “I liked the idea that the show didn’t revolve around her,” she says. “But I really relate to Maggie, even though she has no money and is living in a trailer. She’s very self-sufficient and never taken a penny from a man — and I can say the same. Plus the songs sound like country hits to me, and I’m a huge country music fan. I just ran into Reba McEntire on a plane, so I figured that was a good omen.”

When Gibson’s isn’t acting, she’s composing songs, going into the studio every day to work on an upcoming album as well as two new musicals. “One is called Skirts, which Garry Marshall wants to do as a movie,” she says. “It takes place in 1964 and it’s about this family from Scarsdale that has to move in with their Italian relatives in the Bronx. It focuses on the two teen cousins. I’ve been working on it for years; I was going to play one of those roles when I was 19, but now I’m old enough to play the mother. I wouldn’t mind it, but most people don’t seem to buy that idea! The other show is called The Flunkie, about this girl who wants to be a singer and sells her soul to be famous. Jimmy Van Patten wrote it with me, and we’ve got Haylie Duff to do a reading in June in Los Angeles.”

But fret not; Gibson hasn’t given up on performing in classic musicals. “I’m going to play Nellie Forbush in South Pacific at the Fresno Grand Opera in November, and I am so excited,” she says. “I did the show twice as a kid; one time I played Ngana, and once they turned her brother Jerome into Jeannette for me.”

CASTING CALLS

Audiences around the country and around the world will be getting their own chance to see some top-level stars next month in a variety of plays and musicals. Alan Campbell (Sunset Boulevard) will star in the La Mirada Theatre’s production of Johnny Guitar; Mary Testa will headline the Westport Country Playhouse’s new Kurt Weill revue Jam and Spice; Joe Spano, Raphael Sbarge, and Simon Templeman will star in L.A. Theatre Works’ The Real Dr. Strangelove; John Heard will recreate his acclaimed performance in the Steppenwolf Theater’s Love-Lies-Bleeding at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; Lost star L. Scott Caldwell head the cast of The Dreams of Sarah Breedlove at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre; the one and only Mandy Patinkin will travel to Australia for a three-city tour; Tony winner Tom Conti will play the title role in Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell at London’s Garrick Theatre; and Debby Boone, Doug Kreeger, Megan Lewis, and Cheryl Freeman will play major roles in the Barrington Stage production of The Human Comedy.

FOR THE LOVE OF CHITA

Who wouldn’t want to celebrate the legendary Chita Rivera? The New Dramatists’ May 18 luncheon honoring the Tony-winning star served up a who’s who of theatrical royalty; Angela Lansbury, Donna Murphy, Cherry Jones, Victoria Clark, John Kander, Sheldon Harnick, Joseph Stein, Edward Hibbert, Robert Cuccioli, Daphne Rubin-Vega, and the ever-lovely Patricia Morison were just some of the stellar attendees.

The 92nd Street Y’s gala ,Coming Soon to Broadway, was full of surprises. The first was the unannounced appearance of Harry Connick, Jr., who kept to the evening’s theme by singing a number from a Broadway musical that he’s working on (though he refused to divulge any details of the project). The second was the quasi-official announcement that Laura Bell Bundy will indeed play Elle Woods in the upcoming Broadway musical Legally Blonde. Not surprising at all were the fabulous performances of the evening’s special guests: David Garrison, Debbie Gravitte, Lesley Gore, Marin Mazzie and Jason Danieley, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Douglas Sills, and Faith Prince, who concluded the event with a show-stopping version of the evening’s only classic Broadway song: “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.”

Finally, Zoe Caldwell, George Grizzard, Audra McDonald, Angela Bassett, Coutrney B. Vance, and Grey’s Anatomy star T.R. Knight are among the celebrities scheduled to take part in the opening night celebration of the new Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis on June 24. Alas, this is an invitation-only event!