Monday, April 28

If getting there is half the fun, I'm in trouble: I flew up this afternoon, and it wasn't much fun at all. The problem was New York weather, USAir said. New York flights were being cancelled left and right, but my 4:05 p.m. flight was one of the lucky ones that made it out, albeit at 6 p.m.

It didn't feel right to take pictures at the Players, so here's a wall of posters at the Marriott Marquis (spot the August Wilson?).

Yes, there was weather! It was one of those smaller planes, a joint flight with Air Keokuk or Mini Aviation or something, and we bounced around for what seemed like forever but wasn't actually that much longer than usual. I think the taxi from LaGuardia went faster than the plane, so I was able to slip into my 8 p.m. show only about 40 minutes late, grateful to have gotten there at all.

The show was a real treat: "Private Lives Revealed: The Letters of Noel Coward," a mixture of excerpts from letters to and from Coward and some appropriate Coward songs, devised and narrated by Barry Day. He's the editor of a nice big thick edition of the "The Letters of Noel Coward."

The show was on the small stage in the dining room at the Players Club, and the lovely cast included Simon Jones as Coward, Patricia Conolly as various English women (Bea Lillie, Gertrude Lawrence), Dana Ivey as various Americans and others (Garbo, Dietrich, Ingrid Bergman) and Geoffrey Johnson (not an actor) filling in. Playing accompaniment and singing some songs was, of course, Steve Ross, and Stefanie Morse added her expressive singing voice on the distaff side.

New name in the environs of (but not actually on) Broadway: Tyler Perry.

The first two are friends, which is how I heard about the event. I first met Jones when he came through Pittsburgh in 1992, playing opposite Joan Collins in a "Private Lives" at the Benedum. He was (and is) forever memorable to me as the voice of the querulous earthling Arthur Dent in the immortal radio version of "The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy." I met Conolly, also in the '80s, when she was playing the great Shakespeare roles in Stratford, Canada.

Mainly, the evening reminded me what a smart, disciplined, hard working man Coward was beneath his carefully contrived image of social flippancy and graceful negligence. It was a great way to start a week of New York theater.

Tuesday, April 29

Today I spent writing, because of course I couldn't finish everything before I left Pittsburgh, and the Thursday Weekend section is insatiable, demanding to be fed every week.

Alison Fraser (left) and Lenora Nemetz, seen here at Angus McIndoe's Broadway eaterie, play Tessie Tura and Mazeppa in "Gypsy" -- see under Tuesday, below.

Then I went to meet Lenora Nemetz at Angus McIndoe's, now a favorite theater district eaterie much patronized by actors. I was seeing her in "Gypsy" that night, and I wanted to find out how it felt for her to be back on Broadway, almost 40 years after she joined the ensemble of the original "Cabaret" as a shockingly young teenager.

My review of "Gypsy" and the interview with Lenora should be in Sunday's paper, but I'll just say here that the wattage of her smile made it clear how happy she is to be back where she belongs. She's really at home on that Broadway stage, like any other stage. Mazeppa is a fine comic cameo, and Lenora looks great up there (but she ought to return those legs to whatever woman half her age she borrowed them from).

Lenora also plays Miss Cratchitt, the tart-tongued mogul's assistant in Act 1 -- and she's the standby (that's an understudy of a higher rank) for Patti LuPone in the lead. More on this to come.