Entertainment

EVENING UP ‘ADDAMS’

IS this perfect casting or what?

Tony winner Bebe Neuwirth will play Morticia in the upcoming Broadway musical “The Addams Family.” And the role of Gomez has been offered to . . . Nathan Lane.

He hasn’t officially accepted yet, but the buzz around town this week is that a deal is imminent.

“The Addams Family,” a $10 million production based on the Charles Addams’ cartoons and sketches, is slated for the 2009-2010 season. Adam Lippa (“The Wild Party”) is writing the score, and “Jersey Boys” creators Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman – the contemporary George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber (I’ll let you figure out which is which) – are doing the book.

The show will be directed and designed by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch, who created the intensely spooky “Shockheaded Peter.”

Lane had been set to appear in “Catch Me If You Can,” a new musical by his friends Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (“Hairspray”), but the offer to play Gomez, says a source, “is probably too good to pass up.”

By the way, you have until July 13 to catch Lane as the most unpopular president in American history in David Mamet‘s “November.”

The play is hardly top-drawer Mamet, but Lane, who reminds me more and more of the great Lou Costello, manages to get huge laughs even with the lamest “f – – – you!” jokes.

The producers tried in vain to find a replacement for him. At one point, they considered making the president a woman and offering the role to Whoopi Goldberg, Meryl Streep or Kathleen Turner.

But nothing came of it.

So “November” closes when Lane’s contract is up next month.

The man is simply irreplaceable.

SLINGS and arrows:

* I love it when two drama critics are at each other’s throats. It’s like watching a ladies wrestling match.

Last week in this column, Time Out’s David Cote essentially called his AM New York rival Matt Windman an idiot for praising “Grease.”

I promised Matt a chance to slap back, and he’s done so:

“Call me a cockeyed optimist, but critics are hired to review theater, and not each other. Frankly, I don’t care for many of the shows that Mr. Cote has championed, including ‘Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me’ and ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.’ But we are all entitled to our opinions.

“Has Cote ever heard of professional courtesy? I would never insult a press colleague in print. Cote’s extremely unprofessional behavior promotes a culture of fear where critics are ridiculed for expressing their honest opinions.”

Take it outside, girls, take it outside.

* I ran into producer Stewart Lane (“Mr. Broadway”) the other night at a cocktail party for composer Charles Strouse‘s memoir, “Put On a Happy Face.”

Not long ago, I zinged Lane for threatening to sue some chorus kids who were putting on a show for charity that they were calling “Mr. Broadway,” a sobriquet to which Lane holds the copyright.

“I never heard from you about that column,” I said. “I thought you’d call.”

Lane replied: “Do I look like Ira Pittelman to you?”

michael.riedel@nypost.com