When you see Movin' Out, Broadway's dance musical built around Billy Joel tunes that enters its third year Tuesday, you might think John Selya is superhuman. He soars through the air faster than a speeding bullet and does dizzying, whirling-dervish spins, suspending audiences in a state of disbelief.

The Playbill note on the cast page at the Broadway revival of The Sound of Musicreads: "Michael Siberry is appearing with the permission of Actors' Equity Association pursuant to an exchange program between American Equity and British Equity." That statement usually means quite a fuss went on between producers and American Equity to get a leading man from the U.K. because they feel he's best for the job. And it usually means that actor isn't a star or known by Broadway theatergoers. In the case of Siberry, nothing could be further from the truth. But there's a catch.

EVERY WEEK A NEW STAR! bragged Singular Sensations, composer/music director Glen Roven's series of intimate conversations and songs from "legendary" Broadway stars at the Village Theater [158 Bleecker between Sullivan and Thompson]. Dancer extraordinaire Donna McKechnie, Tony-winner for A Chorus Line, was be in the catbird seat this week [November 10-16, 2003]. She follows the unstoppable Carol Channing, appearing through Sunday. [Miss Channing is preparing to hit the road again -- No!

In her TV and stage career, Jean Smart has alternated regularly between comedy and drama, but her star turn in "a role to die for," as flamboyant stage star Lorraine Sheldon in The Man Who Came To Dinner, certainly proves she was born to play comedy. The Roundabout Theatre Company production of the classic 1939 Kaufman and Hart play, headlining Nathan Lane and directed by Jerry Zaks, debuts their new home, the restored Selwyn Theater, now the American Airlines Theater, on New 42nd Street.

Gay cabaret performer, Don Snell, returns to Dallas at the Theater Three basement, March 23-26, 2003, with his performing partner, Shano Palovich, in A Private Spirit: Noel Coward and his Gal Pals.Palovich will enact the roles of Gertrude Lawrence, Tallulah Bankhead, and Marlene Dietrich.

Ted Sperling made his debut as a stage director in February 2001 at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia and returned in October to direct a revival of the Kurt Weill-Ira Gershwin-Moss Hart musical, Lady in the Dark. With these productions, Sperling completes a theatrical triple crown. He now has been a music director, singer-actor and, finally, a director.

When reading or seeing a play, one always wonders where playwrights get their ideas for plot and characterization. I contacted Jeffrey Stanley, author of Medicine Man, which premiered at Dallas' Theater Three this spring, to find his answers.

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One the of most recognized names in entertainment, Jean Stapleton stands in the wings of "one of my homes away from home," New York's tiny, East Village Classic Stage Company, where she's about to go on as Phoebe, the alcoholic wife in John Osborne's devastating The Entertainer, about the dysfunctional family of fading vaudevillian Archie Rice.

Jim Steinman is nothing if not versatile. Though best known as a rock and pop composer and producer of "power ballads," he's adept at arranging, has been a solo-artist and, a bit ahead of the trend, formed an all-girl band. His numerous worldwide mega-hits include "Bat Out of Hell" and "Dead Ringer" with Meat Loaf, "Falling Into You" with Celine Dion, "Making Love Out of Nothing At All" for Air Supply, "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" (which has found a natural fit in Dance of the Vampires), and "Faster Than the Second Speed of Night" for Bonnie Tyler.

Newsday drama critic Linda Winer's wish has come true. When she reviewed Talking Heads, Alan Bennett's six solo plays, which are being presented in Programs A and B Off Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theater, she raved that Lynn Redgrave was "irresistible," Kathleen Chalfant, "ever-remarkable"; Christine Ebersole, "heartbreaking"; Brenda Wehle, "lovely"; Daniel Davis, "wonderful"; and that Valerie Mahaffey, had "a sweet generosity." But, she concluded, "I kept wanting more!"

A vibrant theater community is waiting to be discovered in Iran's capital.

This is the quick summary of several weeks of theater going last fall. In spite of consistent underfunding, directors and actors succeed in putting on shows that are entertaining and often thought-provoking for large, enthusiastic audiences. Theater operates in the shadow of the Iranian film industry, which has garnered worldwide acclaim. Still, with prices modest (about double an already-reasonable film ticket), theater fans can afford to keep up with current stagings.

There is no explanation for evil, wrote W. Somerset Maugham. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To expose it is childish, to bewail it senseless.

This Is the Army, the theatrical phenomenon of World War II, is back in the news because Decca Records has released the cast album on CD. This phenomenon of its era had become almost forgotten. Some of the surviving cast members complain that everyone talks about Bob Hope's contribution to soldiers' morale when, in fact, many more men in that war were entertained by This Is the Army.

Their career paths have crossed several times. But now a twist of fate has Tony Award-winners Leslie Uggams and, after much too long an absence, James Earl Jones back on Broadway and together for the first time. Along with the loons, they've returned for one more summer On Golden Pond, the revival of Ernest Thompson's hit 1978 play.

Could a water shortage, a tycoon set on forcing the public to pay to use facilities, and a hero out to stop him be the subject matter of a musical? Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis thought so. Their problem was finding producers to agreed. But the happy result is Urinetown: The Musical, the off-beat show that moved to Broadway and was nominated for 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Score. Although it didn't take the Best Musical prize, it won Tonys for Best Book of a Musical (Kotis), Best Score (Kotis and Hollmann) and Best Director (John Rando).

"I'm glad I am getting another crack at playing Rosalind," says former Princeton native Jennifer Van Dyck, who heads the cast of As You Like It, the season opener at the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival. With a growing repertoire of the Bard's heroines under her belt, including Portia (The Merchant of Venice) at the Bread Loaf Theater, Cordelia (King Lear) and Ophelia (Hamlet) at the Old Globe, Van Dyck, however, recalls the "joyous" comedy" as her first experience performing Shakespeare.

 Buckets, fountains, catfuls, neckfuls and bitefuls of red blood have poured out and onto the stages of Broadway and Off Broadway this season.
John Doyle's new, inventive production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Sweeney Todd, a musical thriller, in which actors create their own orchestra as well, led the season off to a deliciously electrifying start.

Howard Crabtree's When Pigs Fly has emerged as one of the biggest hits on Broadway or off (it's at the Douglas Fairbanks on 42nd Street's Theater Row). Critics showered it with accolades, and audiences, who roar with laughter, return in droves. It's a small company, but they pack the wallop of three Broadway musicals. There are no crashing chandeliers or whirling helicopters, but there are some spectacular, colorful and hilarious costumes.

No, I didn't get nominated for a Tony Award as Leading Actress in a Musical, laughed Miss Margaret Whiting, the legendary hitmaker and saloon singer. In fact, I didn't get nominated for a damn thing from any of the awards. Nor did I expect to. And it's not that she doesn't deserve a few nominations. Here's a broad, and she doesn't mind being called one!, who has done it all and done it all memorably. Yes, I have, she says with a howl of laughter, and lived to tell about it.