HARVEY Fierstein, the Tony-winning writer and performer, is re turning to Broadway next season in a musical version of Paddy Chayefsky’s gentle slice of Bronx kitchen-sink realism, “The Catered Affair.”
The musical, for which Fierstein has written the book, is based on Chayefsky’s original 1955 television play as well as the screen version starring Bette Davis and Ernest Borgnine.
Fierstein, who won a Tony playing Edna Turnblad in “Hairspray,” will appear in the musical – but not in the Bette Davis role.
“We’ve been talking to some wonderful actresses whom I cannot name because I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings,” he says. “But let’s put it this way: It won’t be me.
“I will be in one of those boy roles of which I’ve become so fond of playing,” adds Fierstein, who won acclaim as Tevye recently in “Fiddler on the Roof.”
The score is by John Bucchino, a cabaret songwriter who’s making his Broadway debut. The director is John Doyle, that critics’ darling whose revival of “Company,” like
his previous “Sweeney Todd,” has the actors playing all the instruments.
But not this time.
Says Fierstein: “I told him, I ain’t playing no damn tambourine. I’m very pro-union. I ain’t taking no jobs from musicians.”
“The Catered Affair” is about a working-class couple whose daughter is about to get married. The mother pushes for a fancy catered wedding, insisting that her husband pay for it with the money he was saving up to buy a taxicab license.
Fierstein will play “the bachelor uncle.”
“He’s gay, of course, but the only person in the family who has a problem with that is him.”
The father has yet to be cast, but word is that John C. Reilly is a strong possibility. The lumpy, Oscar-nominated actor is right out of Chayefsky’s working-class universe, and last year starred in a workshop of “Marty,” another musical based on a Chayefsky movie.
“The Catered Affair” will try out at San Diego’s Old Globe in September, with a Broadway opening planned for next spring.
LAST week, I reported that Lincoln Center was hoping to land opera singer Dimitri Hvorostovsky to star as Emile de Becque in its upcoming revival of “South Pacific.” I wrote that Hvorostovsky was a “hunky tenor.”
Well, I got the “hunky” part right. But as a dozen or so opera fans pointed out in e-mails, Hvorostovsky is a baritone.
What can I say?
I let my subscription to Opera News lapse years ago.
Scarlett Johansson, by the way, is still a definite possibility to play Nellie Forbush. She’d better say yes because, after The Post reported she was in the running, a number of other prominent actresses who were interested in the role withdrew from consideration.
They were miffed, apparently, because Johansson seems to be Lincoln Center’s first choice.
“All hell broke loose here last week,” says a source. “There were a lot of very unhappy starlets.”
Just doing my job, folks!