ODD WOMAN OUT
Making one’s Broadway debut is a heady experience, but even more so for Olivia d’Abo, who plays Gwendolyn Pigeon in the revival of The Odd Couple. “It’s been a never-ending journey,” says d’Abo. “We’re still finding spontaneity in moments that one would think were set in stone, and we’ve gotten so much enthusiasm from the audiences who’ve come since the show’s extension last month. Since they’ve been waiting six months to see it; you sense they really want to be there. With some of the earlier audiences, you felt like they were just sitting back and waiting to see what they were getting for their money.”
When the show closes next month, she will miss her castmates — especially Jessica Stone, who plays her sister, Cecily. “We really have become sisters,” says d’Abo. “We’ve even picked each up each other’s mannerisms. But we’re also quite different, much like Nathan [Lane] and Matthew [Broderick], which is what makes our chemistry so special. When we come on, I always feel the audience is happy to see that there are women in the play — that it’s not just about guys smoking cigars and eating bad sandwiches.”
Soon, d’Abo will be heavily involved in promoting her new CD, Turku, which features songs that she wrote herself. “It’s an assembly of all my musical influences — sort of Brit rock meets folk meet techno,” says the singer-actress, who is the daughter of former Manfred Mann lead singer Mike d’Abo and model-actress Maggie London d’Abo. “Turku is an old city in Finland where my family is from; I went to visit it about five years ago.” She worked closely on the album with her husband, Patrick Leonard, a frequent collaborator of Madonna. “He really kicked my tuchas in making the songs better,” says Mrs. Leonard, “but he’s right. Artists are constantly pushing themselves, and there’s always a deeper place to go.”
DON’T RUSSIA ME! Ivan Hernandez has had quite a journey this spring. He’s gone from the Napa Valley — as Joe in the New York City Opera production of The Most Happy Fella — to the frozen tundra of Russia in the title role of the La Jolla Playhouse’s new musical Zhivago. “When I read about the workshop production they did last summer, I though it would be so cool to do the show, because Dr. Zhivago is my dad’s favorite movie and lots of people used to tell him he looked like Omar Sharif,” says the actor. “Also, it’s such a big deal for me to work with [director] Des McAnuff, since I went to school at San Diego State and he’s a legend out there. And it’s always great to play the title role in something!”
Hernandez says it’s been fascinating to learn about the history of Bolshevik Russia while working on the show, although he admits that he couldn’t make it through Boris Pasternak’s classic novel. “I started to read it,” he tells me, “but it’s just so long and boring.” Still, he says, “I did get the sense of how incredible it was for those people in Russia to survive all they went through back then. I don’t think I’d want to be there in the winter even now; it seems miserable and cold.”
He and his castmates are still learning to deal with the heavy costumes required for the show. “We’re sweating our hearts out,” he says. “The soliders are wearing these scratchy wool uniforms, and a lot of us have got these huge fur pieces. At one point Tom Hewitt has to come out in this big bear coat that makes him look even bigger than he is. And I’m trying hard not to lay out on the beach on my off-time; I know they wanted someone dark for the role, but I really shouldn’t get any tanner.”
Sunday night’s opening of the Broadway musical Hot Feet was definitely a family affair for leading lady Vivian Nixon. The gorgeous dancer, who is making her debut in this high-energy R&B-filled tuner, was surrounded by her proud parents, actress-choreographer Debbie Allen and basketball great Norm Nixon, as well as her beaming aunt, Tony Award winner Phylicia Rashad. The lobby of the Hilton Theatre seemed like a family affair as well, with lots of hugging and kissing going on among the many luminaries on hand, including creators Maurice Hines, Maurice White, and Heru Ptah; Emmy Award winners S. Epatha Merkerson and Doris Roberts; music legends Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson; and the one-and-only Ivana Trump.
Also spotted at the opening: Tony Award winner Melba Moore, looking absolutely smashing; the always elegant André DeShields; Tony winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson; and legendary actor-director Geoffrey Holder. The glorious LaChanze dashed right over from her Color Purple matinee to join one of that show’s composers, Allee Willis, who also co-wrote some of Hot Feet‘s songs. Former TV personality and erstwhile Chicago star Paige Davis brought a very young female friend in lieu of her hubby, actor Patrick Page, but confided that she and her better half are considering a new project that would finally allow them to work together. My pal Bryan Batt just had to tell me how brilliant his co-star Nancy Opel is in their new show, My Deah, and the divine Lillias White said she’s so happy playing Mama Morton in Chicago that she has extended her contract through September. White is equally happy with the PBS telecast of last June’s Carnegie Hall concert presentation of South Pacific, in which she was a spectacular Bloody Mary; in fact, she told me that she had watched it backstage at the Ambassador that very afternoon!
INTO THE PAN ASIAN
In case you weren’t aware that May is Asian Heritage Month, The Pan Asian Repertory Theatre’s Festival of New Works is here to remind you. The company is presenting four solo works in repertory, all of which were developed through its Emerging Artists program. “This is the future generation,” says artistic director Tisa Chang. “They represent many different Asian cultures — Vietnamese American, Cambodian American, Korean American — and there’s even an African American woman, Kendra Ware. We included her work Recollections because it’s inspired by Butoh and uses a story by Yukio Mishima as a springboard. It’s a very visually arresting production.”
Chang is looking forward to the company’s 30th anniversary season, which will be celebrated with a huge gala in March 2007: “We’ll be doing the East Coast premiere of Yohen by Philip Kan Gotanda, about a marriage between a Japanese-American woman and an African-American man that has dissolved. It’s a beautiful work. The term ‘yohen’ means pieces of pottery that have been discarded. Philip actually studied pottery in Tokyo.
“We’ll also be doing a new production of our 1999 show The Joy Luck Club,” says Chang. “It deserved to be seen again, and I love the idea of reuniting veteran actors with a new generation of performers. And we’re developing a musical called The Fan Tan King, based on a story by C.Y. Lee, who wrote the novel on which the musical Flower Drum Song is based. It’s about the Chinese gambling industry in 19th-century San Francisco. [Lee] actually sent me a hand-written note asking me if we would consider doing this musical. Can you imagine that?”
These days, you can’t swing a proverbial cat in New York without hitting a celebrity: Singing legend Tony Bennett being gracious to his fans at Awake and Sing!; the ever-fabulous Cybill Shepherd and the ageless Jane Powell and Arlene Dahl joining the standing ovation for Diahann Carroll at her recent gig at Feinstein’s at the Regency; Some Girl(s) star Fran Drescher, who has been named City of Hope’s Woman of the Year, taking in Well; Sherie Rene Scott, Sara Gettlefinger, Jonathan Tunick, and Shuler Hensley celebrating the release of Patti LuPone‘s new CD The Lady With the Torch at Luxia; hunky Adam Rothenberg at a Broadway preview of The Lieutenant of Inishmore; Tim Daly, Chris Bauer, Duncan Sheik, and William H. Macy toasting Emmy Award winner Felicity Huffman at the Atlantic Theater Company’s annual gala.
Also making the scene: Cyndi Lauper, fashion designer Cynthia Rowley, and Queer Eye guys Thom Filicia and Kyan Douglas at Tony’s DiNapoli for the unveiling of Alan Cumming‘s caricature, which has been added to the restaurant’s “Wall of Fame”; Ron Howard, Rob Marshall, Marty Richards, Rocco Landesman, and Terrence McNally attending a performance of The History Boys; and Stephen Sondheim, Lisa Brescia and Mike Wallace at Maria Friedman’s opening at the Café Carlyle.
Over the next several weeks, stars will be shining in various productions around the country: Lynne Wintersteller and George Dvorsky in TUTS’ 110 in the Shade in Houston, May 9-May 21; Jeffrey Carlson and Mike Nussbaum in the Chicago Shakespeare Theater production of Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, May 10-June 18; former WB star David de Lautour in the West Coast premiere of David Rubinoff’s award-winning solo drama Stuck at Hollywood’s Elephant Lab Theatre, May 12-June 4; Arnie Burton, Lisa Datz, and Jim Newman in Craig Wright‘s The Pavilion at Penguin Rep in Stony Point, New York, May 19-June 11; Kristen Bush, T. Scott Cunningham, and Patch Darragh in The Violet Hour at the Old Globe in San Diego, May 20-June 25; film star Sean Patrick Thomas in The Island at Delaware’s Contemporary Stage Company, June 8-21; Charlotte Cohn, Linda Mugleston, Sab Shimono, and Jack Willis in Brecht-Weill’s Happy End at A.C.T. in San Francisco, June 8-July 9.
