Loose Lips

PETERS’S PET CAUSE
Forget what Michael Riedel thinks: Bernadette Peters doesn’t let a little sneezing stop her. Although Broadway’s leading leading lady is allergic to many dogs and cats, she has been the prime mover behind Broadway Barks, the annual adopt-a-thon that takes place in Shubert Alley. On July 10, Peters, co-host Mary Tyler Moore, and such stars as Kristin Chenoweth, Eartha Kitt, Swoosie Kurtz, Laura Linney, Audra McDonald, and Brad Oscar will help “present” dogs and cats from area shelters for adoption. “My dream is for New York to be a no-kill city,” says Peters. “We’re still euthanizing 40,000 pets a year but that’s a five percent drop from last year, and adoptions were way up. People need to realize these shelters are full of wonderful companion animals.”

Peters got her first dog at age 9 because of her fascination with, yes, Gypsy. She now lives with two adopted dogs, Kramer and Stella. “I know what a womanizer is now, because I am a doganizer,” she says. “I want every dog I see. When they look me in the eye, I go crazy! But I’ve learned that I don’t have to have every one, and having more than my two would probably further impede my breathing.” Because of Peters’s allergies, it took awhile to cast her canine co-star in the recent revival of Gypsy, but the perfect pooch was eventualy found: “Coco was fantastic. We actually had to teach him how to ‘act’ because he was so smart, he would anticipate. One night, his handler Marge missed a cue and Coco was trying to get upstairs because he knew he had to go on.”

The star is using her rare hiatus from performing to catch up on her reading — and she means catch up. “I haven’t been able to read books since I was a child,” she tells me. “When I’m doing a play, I just can’t get out of the zone. This is such a luxury.” Currently on her bookshelf are Carson McCullers‘ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and Leo Tolstoy‘s Anna Karenina — both of which she found at a Wal-Mart in Florida — plus Carrie Fisher‘s latest, The Best Awful. Peters is also reading another book written by an actor: The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin, a former flame of hers. “I’ve always liked his writing,” she says simply.

RYAN’S HOPE
A lot has changed since Roz Ryan started out as a nightclub singer in Detroit. “I was 15 and, at the beginning, I always had a guardian,” she says. “I could only go from my dressing room to the stage and back. But after a while, everyone lightened up. They could tell I wasn’t drinking or doing anything bad so they let me watch the shows. I saw singers like Sarah Vaughan and Carmen McRae, and I take advantage of those experiences in what I do today.”

What she’s doing today is a cabaret show titled All About the Music, which plays Danny’s Skylight Room on July 12 and 19 and Opia on August 16, 23 and 30. Says Ryan, “I couldn’t be happier about this show because, for the first time in my life, I am singing exactly what I want. Most of the songs are standards like ‘Lush Life.’ There’s only one true Broadway song, ‘Home,’ which is one of my all-time favorites. I change my attitude, even my song list, based on the audience; I believe in talking to the people who are there.”

Ryan has seen a lot of different audiences during the six years that she’s been playing Mama Morton in Chicago on Broadway (as now) and all over the world. “What’s fun about this show is you never know who you’re going to work with,” she remarks. “My Billys have included Gregory Harrison, Taye Diggs, and George Hamilton, who is just the silliest thing. And I am definitely staying on Broadway through September to work with Wayne Brady.” She’s also had numerous female co-stars; the current Broaday Roxie is Trading Spaces host Paige Davis. “Paige is a good girl,” says Ryan. “We did the show in Portugal and Las Vegas together. Her first night on Broadway, she was shaking a bit, but she’s doing great.”

COMPARE AND CONTRAST
Ruth Brown, the R&B legend who played Motormouth Maybelle in the film version of Hairspray, makes her first New York City nightclub appearance in five years on July 14 at Le Jazz Au Bar. Her gig runs through July 25…Rosie Perez has been cast as Pooty in the Second Stage/Manhattan Theatre Club production of Craig Lucas‘s Reckless. This is the role that the production’s star, Mary Louise Parker, played in the 1995 film version…Todd Cerveris will play actor Edwin Booth in The Booth Variations, beginning August 5 at 59E59 Theaters. His brother Michael, who won a Tony Award this year for playing Edwin’s brother in Assassins, will make a video appearance as “Wilkes” in this production…LaChanze, Adriane Lenox, and Felicia P. Fields will star in the musical The Color Purple, beginning September 7 at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta. They’re respectively taking on the roles played by Whoopi Goldberg, Margaret Avery, and Oprah Winfrey in Steven Spielberg‘s Oscar-winning film version.

RIGHT ON THE MARK
Anyone who’s seen and heard cabaret star Mark Nadler knows he’s a fast singer, a fast tapper, and a fast piano player. He’s also a fast thinker. When the Algonquin Hotel abruptly cancelled the all-Sondheim show that he and his frequent singing partner, KT Sullivan, had planned for July (because the hotel decided to undergo a massive renovation), Nadler quickly started to put together a new solo show: Songs by People Who Aren’t Dead, which is playing at Opia through July 31, includes the tunes of the very-much-alive Carol Hall, Francesca Blumenthal, Stephen Schwartz, Charles Strouse, Ervin Drake, and yes, Mr. Sondheim. “I’d better learn this stuff because any of these people could walk in at any moment and correct me if I’m wrong,” he jokes. Meanwhile, the all-Sondheim show isn’t dead; he and Sullivan will do a two-night stint of it next month at London’s Pizza on the Park.

REAL PROS
Playing a woman of ill repute has almost always been a sure-fire way to win a big award: just ask Shirley Jones, Lillias White, or Carlin Glynn. So I wouldn’t be surprised if Glynn, who won a Tony for The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and her new co-stars Katherine Helmond, Anita Gillette, Marylouise Burke, and Joyce Van Patten may have to make some room on their mantles: These ladies have been cast as aging prostitutes in Paula Vogel‘s The Oldest Profession, which kicks off this year’s Signature Theatre Company season on August 17.

IT’S MILLER TIME
Maybe young playwrights who are having trouble getting their work produced should place some of the blame on Arthur Miller: That 88-year-old legend seems to be the theater’s flavor du jour. The Roundabout is currently presenting his 1964 drama After the Fall with Peter Krause and Carla Gugino starring, and Houston’s Alley Theater has committed to a separate production of the play next January. Miller’s latest work, Finishing the Picture — also based in part on his ill-fated marriage to Marilyn Monroe — debuts at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre on September 21. And the Williamstown Theater Festival is doing a reading of Miller’s Resurrection Blues, which has had a somewhat rocky reception on the regional circuit, on July 16.