The Greasepaint Roars Again

September 11, 1992|by Nels Nelson, Daily News Theater Critic

The stars are coming out again. The new theater season in Philadelphia and vicinity will bring forth a contingent of certified stars of the realm, a bit larger, numerically, than recent seasons have provided, and most certainly open-arms welcome.

JoBeth Williams and Pat Hingle will play Maggie and Big Daddy, respectively, in the McCarter's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," opening in Princeton later this month. (Hingle, one notes, was in the original cast 'way back when, albeit in the supporting role of Gooper).

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Robert Goulet returns to Valley Forge Music Fair next month as King Arthur in "Camelot."

Stephanie Mills and Andre De Shields will reprise their original roles in the revival of "The Wiz," due at the Merriam in late October.

An all-star cast - Philip Bosco, Vincent Gardenia, Larry Storch and Karen Valentine - will spark the touring comedy "Breaking Legs" when it alights at Wilmington's Playhouse at the turn of November and lands at the Forrest about a month later.

Len Cariou has a November date at Plays and Players, portraying Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in the Philadelphia Theater Co. staging of the biodrama "Mountain."

The delightful and versatile Julie Harris essays the Maggie Smith role in the Peter Shaffer romp "Lettice and Lovage," a post-Thanksgiving plum at the Playhouse.

And the X-rated soul singer Millie Jackson brings a musical dramatization of her hit record "Young Man, Older Woman" to the Merriam for a short late- November run.

Elsewhere on the rialto, all manner of goodies of varied vintage grace the theatrical schedule.

The Forrest lights up for the long-awaited Cy Coleman-Larry Gelbart-David Zippel musical "City of Angels" for three weeks in November, followed shortly by "Breaking Legs." "Six Degrees of Separation" is due in mid- February, and "Cats" and "Les Miz" come in later for yet another round.

There will be, quite unintentionally, mini-Tennessee Williams and Stephen Sondheim festivals. In addition to the McCarter "Cat," Williams will be represented by October productions of "Suddenly Last Summer" and "Night of the Iguana." Sondheim devotees may anticipate "Side by Side by Sondheim," in repertory at the Mask & Wig, and a pair of year-end stagings of "Into the Woods," at the Walnut and the Society Hill Playhouse. Check out, too, the Arden company's spring do of "Sweeney Todd."

Here, then, is the season, as it now stands, through the end of 1992 . . .

SEPTEMBER

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