On Stage, and Off

On, Off and Around the Ballot

The Tony administration committee yesterday held its penultimate meeting before the Tony nominations, with two interesting, if not unexpected, results.

The 24-member committee decided that for this year only, the category of best revival would be split into best musical and best play, the fallout, obviously, from a season when the number of revivals (17) nearly equaled the number of new shows (19). The other decision was not to modify the rule specifying that the eligibility of performers is determined by the program on opening night, when the nominating committee members see the show. This means that F. Murray Abraham, who replaced Ron Leibman as Roy Cohn in "Angels in America"; Cynthia Nixon, who replaced Marcia Gay Harden in the same show, and Michael Moriarty, who replaced Richard Chamberlain as Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady," are ineligible for awards.

The ruling creates a conundrum, because Tony voters have only just been invited to both shows. "Perestroika," Part 2 of "Angels," opened in November; Mr. Abraham joined the cast in February, just before Ms. Nixon. "My Fair Lady" opened in December; Mr. Chamberlain left the cast on Sunday. So Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Leibman and Ms. Harden are eligible for nominations, but the voters haven't seen their performances. Now that the voters have been invited to both shows this month, they'll be seeing actors they can't vote for.

It's a system that casts actors as pawns. Until this year, if the producers of a show didn't invite Tony voters, the show itself was ineligible for a nomination, but the performers and designers were eligible. That rule has been changed; producers now have to invite voters in order for the show to qualify for any nominations. The new rule was intended to protect the integrity of the voting, to keep voters from having to consider an element of a show they hadn't seen. But it has already caused one controversy: none of the actors (or designers) in the short-lived "Red Shoes" can be nominated because the producer, Martin Starger, didn't invite the voters before he closed the show.

"If the essence of integrity is that what the voters witness is what is eligible," said Paul Libin, the producing director for Jujamcyn Theaters, the lead producer of "Angels," "wouldn't it follow that if they came to see F. Murray Abraham in the role, he would be eligible?"

Well, yes. But producers, who know the rules as well as anyone, could have invited voters earlier. By not doing so, they didn't have to give away tickets to the 679 voters in the early part of their runs, when the shows were most in demand, and they are making sure voters see the shows close to voting time.

Besides, Fran and Barry Weissler, who produced "My Fair Lady," tried for months to persuade Mr. Chamberlain to extend in the role. When he didn't, there was a residue of bitterness, so it seemed unlikely the Weisslers would do him any favors. And because Mr. Leibman won a Tony last year for Part 1 of "Angels," the likelihood was that he wouldn't win again in the same role. So for the producers, the whole enterprise was a calculated gamble that they didn't really lose.

The Tony committee decided yesterday that next year producers would be required to invite Tony voters during the first 16 weeks of a show's run, an acknowledgment that things are screwy. But that still leaves six actors who got stiffed. Pulitzer, Part 2?

The Pulitzer Prizes are to be announced on Tuesday and the drama award, which last year went to Tony Kushner for "Millennium Approaches," Part 1 of "Angels in America," could very well go to Mr. Kushner again for Part 2, "Perestroika." The issue is whether such a prestigious drama prize should go in consecutive years to two halves of the same play; an argument could be made that whatever Mr. Kushner's achievement, the award should honor a whole, brand-new creative effort.

The question is complicated by a field that is otherwise generally conceded to be weak. Anna Deavere Smith's one-woman show, "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992," received the most uniform critical praise, but Ms. Smith took her text verbatim from interviews; she didn't write a word of it. (The potential confusion here is that the prize goes to a playwright, but it's for a production, not a script.)

In any case, all season long, the cry of critics and producers alike has been that serious drama is becoming extinct on Broadway, so it is hard to imagine any of the short-lived productions that surfaced there in the last several months winning the prize. Arthur Miller's play "Broken Glass," due on Broadway this month, opened at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven in time for consideration, but since then Mr. Miller, unsatisfied (as were the local critics), has rewritten the ending.

Mr. Kushner's chief competition, therefore, seems to be from three plays that originated away from center stage, as it were. Two were Off Broadway: A. R. Gurney's "Later Life," and Edward Albee's "Three Tall Women," which moved into the Promenade Theater this week. The third is "Keely and Du," Jane Martin's play, which began life at the Actor's Theater in Louisville, Ky., and was produced by the Hartford Stage Company this winter. Question: If the pseudonymous Ms. Martin wins the prize, will she have to reveal who she is in order to accept it? 'Will Rogers' Dogs Die in Fire

A sad note: Coco, Honey, B.A., Molly, Will and Zee, six of the Madcap Mutts, the trained-dog act that performed in "The Will Rogers Follies" on Broadway and on the road, were killed last week in Hartford after their kennel van caught fire.

Tom Brackney, who, along with his wife, Bonnie, owned and trained the dogs, said that last Thursday night, the van was parked outside the stage door of the Bushnell Auditorium, where the show had been performed that evening, and that the dogs were asleep when an electric light inadvertently left on fell face down on the front seat and set it on fire. The fire didn't burn long, but smoke filled the van and the dogs were asphyxiated. Mr. Brackney, who was asleep in his mobile home just a few feet away, was not awakened by the fire; he found the dogs dead in the morning. A seventh dog, Rusty, was sleeping in Mr. Brackney's trailer and was unharmed.

"I always park right next to their van so if there's any trouble I can hear them bark," Mr. Brackney said. "And I keep the other one with me so if he hears anything, he wakes up. But we didn't hear anything."

Mr. Brackney said he had other dogs who could perform in the show and that he would begin getting them ready, "as soon as I get over this."

In the meantime, the tour's general manager, Marvin A. Krauss, said he would put in a request to the Big Apple Circus for a temporary replacement act. "Will Rogers" is currently in Norfolk, Va.; it moves to Boston on Tuesday.

Photo: "A Forum on Foote" -- The Signature Theater Company announced this week that Horton Foote would be the focus of its 1994-95 season. The company, which devotes whole seasons to examining the work of a single playwright, opens the final production of its Edward Albee season, "Fragments," tonight. Beginning in the fall, Signature is to produce five plays by Mr. Foote, including a world premiere.