Dreamgirls is the quintessential show about black singing groups in the Motown era, but the composer, Henry Krieger, is white and Jewish. He doesn't apologize for that:

"You know, the Middle East and Israel are right next to Africa," he jokes. "As a Jewish boy in Ossining and Harrison and White Plains, New York, I grew up listening to Aretha and the Drifters and other black singers. Lots of white people were buying Motown records. We're from the same tribe. African-Americans who sang spirituals like `Let My People Go' were singing about the Jewish experience."

Over the course of her career, Barbra Streisand has made some very odd choices of songs to record, from "Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf?" to "Guava Jelly." That said, the diva's first Christmas album -- released some 40 years ago -- still ranks as the strangest item in her discography. Sure, she sounds at home in such secular numbers as Mel Torme's "The Christmas Song," and her custom-tailored version of "Jingle Bells" is lots of fun.

When singer Nancy LaMott died at age 44 on December 13, 1995, music lovers lamented the loss of an excellent performer in her prime. A smaller circle of people realized there was an even greater tragedy, knowing that LaMott had just recently overcome a long bout with another crippling disease that made her success as a performer even more remarkable.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas is the slogan used by the fast-growing Nevada city. It implies sin and secrecy as it brings ever-increasing numbers of visitors. This report will violate the town slogan and tell what actually happens in Vegas. To East Coast Americans, some of it is surprising.

Overheard the other day backstage at the Music Box Theater, where the "new" The Diary of Anne Frank is playing: Someone to Natalie Portman, the young film star ("Everyone Says I Love You," "Beautiful Girls") who's making her Broadway debut as Anne: "Those two hours onstage are quite intense, don't you ever get out of it (character)?"
Portman: "Whenever I get out of it, I just look at Linda, because she's always in the moment."

At one point in one's life, one should do a A Christmas Carol, says eminent set designer Ming Cho Lee. Evidently Lee has arrived at this precise point in his long and distinguished career. Lee's artistic vision - one that has brought him accolades for almost half a century - will frame McCarter Theater's brand new production of Charles Dickens' classic story, celebrating the 20th year that the perennial favorite has been presented in Princeton. Performances continue at McCarter to Thursday, December 24.

This week, in the midst of the surprising announcement of the March closing of Sunset Boulevard and the "scandal" involving that audience member and Rum Tum Tugger of Cats, speculation ended on another headline-causing maneuver. Producer Cameron Mackintosh and director John Caird (who co-directed with Trevor Nunn) released the cast lineup for the 10th Anniversary company of Les Miserables.

Over the last twenty years, Chicago's Lifeline Theater has essayed mysteries by Raymond Chandler (The Little Sister, 1993) and Donald Westlake (Trust Me On This, 2002), in addition to such seemingly impossible, page-to-stage transformations as Jules Verne's Around The World In Eighty Days, Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, and, between 1996 and 2001, all three books of The Lord Of The Rings.

Ada Lynn reigns supreme as the Grande Dame of Dallas theater. Currently appearing at Theater Three as Frieda Tuchman in The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, the meddlesome, farbissina mother from Hell, she has an impeccable sense of timing, and each line she delivers is a zinger that connects solidly. Ada began her acting career at age seven in her native Chicago by winning a talent contest leading to a Hollywood screen test. She appeared in two Shirley Temple movies and was a member of Our Gang. Said Ada: "I was a has-been at nine."

Lypsinka is, briefly, back in New York, and beginning January 27, 2000, for two weekends (six performances only), she revives her spoof of a classic Lana Turner four-hankie in Imitation of Imitation of Life at Westbeth Theater Center (151 Bank Street, between Washington and West Streets).

George W. Bush ou le Triste Cow-Boy de Dieu ("George W. Bush, or God's Sad Cowboy") an improvised satire by director Attilio Maggiuli, is back on stage at his Comedie italienne in Paris: No thanks to two unknown thugs who beat him into unconsciousness Sunday morning, May 4, 2003, four days after the opening. Thanks, however, to moral support as well as the appearance and promise of protection by such artists as Ariane Mnouchkine and Jean-Jacques Beineix, Maggilui reversed his decision to shelve the production.

Nearly everybody knows that Kurt Weill's last name is pronounced vial -- nearly everyone except Weill himself.  He pronounced it with a W -- after he came to America, that is. In 1935 he decided never again to speak German.  He put aside the Deutsche where w's are pronounced as v's, and he told people his name was wile.  Similarly, he abandoned the German music hall idiom that made him famous and started composing in a Broadway style.

Marsha Mason has taken a brief "vacation" from her recurring role as Sherry, John Mahoney's brassy girlfriend on NBC's hit "Frasier," to return to what she loves best: live theater. What she loves best, that is, when she's not farming sun-drenched acres in New Mexico or bravely racing souped up NASCAR doozies. With all the Oscar madness, Mason, a four time Academy Award nominee (not to mention two Emmy nominations), is highly qualified to speak of being in close-but-no-cigar situations.

Shakespeare's three-part Henry VI is a chronicle of ambition, intrigue and bloodshed. But Edward Hall, director of the production — subtitled Rose Rage — at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, chose for his conceptual metaphor a slaughterhouse.

Liza Minnelli didn't dodge the question Sunday night in the Tony Awards press room. When she visited on the arms of Michael Nouri in her rather unusual Halston gown, she was asked if she had plans to return to Broadway again soon? "Sooner than you think," she said, "but I'm sworn to secrecy."

I really wanted to be an actor, says Reggie Montgomery who is currently directing Suzzanne Douglas in Lady Day at the Emerson Bar and Grill,at the George Street Playhouse (October 2000). But, Montgomery also could have gone down a different entertainment route. He was the first African-American to be trained and hired as a clown for Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus. Learning to be funny and making people laugh was not a bad first step, although an unusual one, for a young black man back in 1970 with his hopes pinned on a very different kind of theatrical career.

Brian Murray is that rare artist who's always working, whether on Broadway or Off, whether acting or directing. He's currently stealing the show as dasha landlord and Professor Serebryankov in Roundabout Theater's revival of Uncle Vanya, also starring Derek Jacobi, Laura Linney, Roger Rees and the Tony-nominated Amy Ryan. And, once more, he's nominated (Drama Desk, Featured Actor, Play); then, not. Surprise permeated the air at last week's Tony Award nominations when Murray's name, incredulously, wasn't announced (nor Jacobi's).

They're either too young or too old. They're either too gray or too grassy green The pickin's are poor and the crop is lean. So go Frank Loesser's lyrics to an Arthur Schwartz melody in the 1943 film, "Thank Your Lucky Stars." And the sentiments could well serve as the perennial theme for the stage actor's audition.

he Seventh Annual New York International Fringe Festival has come to a close, and descriptions of it as "fun," "saucy," "wild," "kinky," "funky," "weird" and "awful" were apt. Over 20 days (August 8-24, 2003), four more than in 2002, and with more than 200 presentations (including outdoor performance art), selected from more than 740 submissions from across the country and 10 nations, the '03 Fringe was the biggest ever. And the hottest.