Harry Haun

It's three in the afternoon, and the chairs at The Laurie Beechman Theater, the basement cabaret of the West Bank Cafe, are stacked atop tables awaiting rearrangement by the night staff. But that doesn't stop the proprietor of the place, Steve Olsen, from offering the use of the hall--plus two chairs--so Joe Iconis can get a roots-level interview on his blossoming career.

There's an unfortunate guffaw in the otherwise well-calibrated British thriller of '46, 'Dead of Night,' when Mervyn Johns (Glynis' dad), sensing he's sinking into insanity, brings a shaky hand to his forehead and says, 'I've got to get to a mental specialist.'

Remember Henry Albertson? Sure, you do. He's that ancient, arthritic, fragile/agile but eternally game actor who traveled by stage trunk from scene to scene throughout the longest-running musical of all time, 'The Fantasticks.' You may even remember during one exit, just as the lid was closing, he managed to peer urgently out of the trunk at the audience and implore them, with proper theatrical flourish, 'Remember me -- in light.'

You'd think after Message to Michael-his beautiful first play about love and its second cousin, friendship, during the heart-wrenching onslaught of AIDS-that Tim Pinckney would've bounced right back with another play.

In his third-floor dressing room at the Barrymore Theater, Ari'el Stachel harbors a priceless little trinket: his brand-new Tony Award for Featured Actor in a Musical.

In the black at the back of the Vineyard Theater during one of the final previews of The Beast in the Jungle the other night sat its composer, disguising himself as a member of the audience by dispassionately drinking in the stage action and politely applauding at the appropriate places. This is-typically-the usual battle station for the artist-in-progress. Atypically-in fact, for the first time--John Kander sat alone.

The most honorable of the honorable mentions in 2018's Tony race will likely turn out to be Travesties, Tom Stoppard's 1974 tragifarce which took top Tony honors for Best Play and Best Actor (John Wood) in 1976 and is now putting up a game bid for Best Revival, Best Actor (Tom Hollander) and Best Director (Patrick Marber).

 'You know this is the first time I ever heard of NOT sleeping with the author to get the part,' cracked a profoundly p.o.-ed Phyllis Newman at the fourth of five auditions she had to endure in order to land a big, star-making role on Broadway.