Feature  

Loose Lips

Barrett Foa turns over a new Leaf and Jenifer Lewis finds her Courage.
Plus: Bernadette Peters returns to Off-Broadway!

A NEW LEAF

Barrett Foa (© Joseph Marzullo/Retna)

Barrett Foa had strongly considered taking the summer off after his contract in Avenue Q, in which he played the dual roles of Princeton and Rod, expired at the end of June. Instead, just weeks after leaving that Broadway hit he resurfaced in another one, replacing Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Leaf Coneybear in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. To say that move wasn't in his gameplan is an understatement. "I saw the show Off-Broadway and then a couple of times on Broadway to see my friend Todd Buonapane play Barfee, but I never thought there was a part in it for me," he says. "So I'm glad the producers saw me as Leaf. It's nice to be the underdog, because everyone roots for him in a different way than they root for a winner. And it's so great to share a stage with Celia Keenan-Bolger (who plays Olive), because we've been great friends since we went to college together at University of Michigan."

Foa says there is another benefit to his new role. "It's a lot less physically demanding than Rod/Princeton and I am enjoying not having my arm at a 90-degree angle for two hours every night," he says. "Plus, because Princeton was so eager and naïve and Rod was so uptight, it took a lot of energy to play both those characters. But Leaf is such a space cadet, I can sort of space out when I want to and that's kind of fun."

Still, Spelling Bee comes complete with its own challenges -- most notably, interacting every night with the audience members who are called onstage to be the fellow Spelling Bee contestants. "Having a show where you don't know what's going to happen night to night is great. But there was this one night where this 40-year-old guy ended up next to me, and I offered him a bit of the sandwich onstage. Normally, no one takes it, but he opened his mouth and wanted me to put it in, and so I did it. And then he asked for another bite. After that night, we cut that bit. And don't you know, the next day, the guy sent us his headshots!"

Jenifer Lewis in Mother Courage and Her Children (© Michal Daniel)

THE DIVA IS BACK
Jenifer Lewis knew that her reputation as a diva might precede her on her long-awaited return to the New York stage as the prostitute Ivette in the Shakespeare in the Park production of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children -- after all, her famed solo show was called The Diva Is Dismissed -- so she wanted to make a good first impression on her new collaborators. Alas, fate had other plans. "I got on the wrong subway and ended up in Brooklyn," she says. "I think I may have run over the Brooklyn Bridge just to get to rehearsal and not be so late. And there I come in, sweating like a pig, But everyone was so sweet -- George C. Wolfe, Tony Kushner, Kevin Kline, Jeanine Tesori and, of course Meryl Streep, who was very gracious as only she can be. And I haven't taken the subway since."

Lewis, who has worked steadily in Los Angeles over the past decade, including co-starring in the Lifetime TV series Strong Medicine, got the call from Wolfe, whom she met when The Diva Is Dismissed was staged at the Public in 1994. "One day, I was doing this Shakespearean monologue in his office - I am a classically trained actress - but I think he was laughing to himself while he was listening. But I found out that after he saw a lot of other actresses for this part, he said 'Get me Jenifer Lewis.' I think he remembered that I could handle the language," she says. That said, Lewis has relied on a little help from at least one of her famous friends. "Bette Midler would come over and read lines with me," says Lewis, who was once one of Midler's famed Harlettes. "She also told me to just breathe."

Lewis made her Broadway debut back in 1978 in Eubie!, and then starred in Comin' Uptown and Rock 'n Roll!: The First 5,000 Years, but says nothing in her career has compared to this experience. "I was so scared of doing this part at first, but the reason I'm proud of what I've done, and I rarely say that, is that no one demanded anything of me. George requested, Jeanine allowed, Tony simply smiled." And what about working with La Streep? "Stupidly, I went to see The Devil Wears Prada the night before the first rehearsal and when she shot one of those looks at Anne Hathaway, I thought 'if she looks at me like that, I am going to kill myself,'" she laughs. "But the experience of watching her create this part in a room, and then to be able to go toe-to-toe with her every night, has been life-altering. She is an extraordinary craftsman. But just because of the person she is, Meryl has given me permission to go deeper as an actress. I've been working on a new solo show and kicking around titles, but now I think I'm going to call it Sunday in the Park With Meryl."


A SHORT ITEM
Audiences at the August 23 performance of Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me thought they were in for a real treat. As part of the show, Short's alter-ego, talk-show host Jiminy Glick interviews an audience member, and in recent weeks, he's shared the stage with Nathan Lane, Cynthia Nixon, Jerry Seinfeld, and Tracey Ullman. But even those luminaries paled in comparison to the couple seated house left, with their adorable brood of kids: Warren Beatty and Annette Bening. Alas, neither superstar ascended the stage, nor did former Odd Couple star Lee Wilkof, seated house right. Instead, Glick made short work of random (we think) audience member Michael, a TV news producer.


PICTURE PERFECT

Bernadette Peters (© Francesco Scavullo)

Few photographers of the 20th Century had a greater impact on popular culture than the late, great Francesco Scavullo. He shot every cover of Cosmopolitan magazine for over 30 years - while also working for such periodicals as Rolling Stone, Interview, and Harper's Bazaar. Moreover, he published six best-selling books featuring the many celebrities and models who gazed for his camera, which ranged from Grace Kelly to Brooke Shields to Madonna and Barbra Streisand; and his work now resides as part of the collections at such world-famous museums as MoMA and the Guggenheim.

Starting on September 28, the gallery at Off-Broadway complex New World Stages (343 West 49th Street) will host Francesco Scavullo: A Photographic Retrospective, the largest exhibition of his work ever mounted. The show will include photographs of such cultural legends as the late Janis Joplin, pop singer Sting (posing as Jesus), and Broadway baby Bernadette Peters. Viewers will also be able to purchase limited edition silver gelatin archive prints of Scavullo's work at the exhibition.


TALK THE TALK
Dr. Kimberly C. Ellis, niece of the late playwright August Wilson, will be the guest speaker at the Pasadena Playhouse's August Wilson Day on September 2, to be held in conjunction with their star-studded production of Wilson's Fences. Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis and playwright David Hare will conduct a post-show discussion after the free reading of Hare's Stuff Happens at the Delacorte Theatre on September 6. Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire, author of Rabbit Hole and Fuddy Meers, will speak at New York's Drama Book Shop on September 7, while award-winning British actor/author Simon Callow will be there on September 18 in conjunction with his new book Orson Welles, Volume 2: Hello Americans. The creators of the hit show Altar Boyz will participate in a post-show talkback, moderated by TheaterMania critic David Finkle, on September 10. Tony Award winner Liev Schreiber, set to return to Broadway this season in Talk Radio, will come to Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven on September 11 in conjunction with Yale University's Searching for Shakespeare exhibition, while Minneapolis' Guthrie Theatre will host playwrights Neil Simon on October 8, Alfred Uhry on November 6, and Tom Stoppard on December 18.

 

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