Nathan Lane’s onstage in “The Nance” at the Lyceum. Opens tomorrow in the film “The English Teacher.” The guy’s like crab grass. Everywhere.
He calls his play “a heartbreaking gay show-business history [that] deals with another time.” His bio says his mother was not thrilled at learning he was gay.
He now says, “At matinees you hear audible gasps when we take you back to the Horn and Hardart Automat days, which I actually remember.
“Sometimes you pass on plays which don’t feel right. I got into this when it was sent to me three years ago and knocked me out. The writing’s excellent. Funny. Goes into burlesque, offstage life, and keeps the audience off-balance because it goes into something darker. It’s tough. Unforgiving. I said I’d do it.
“We sent it to Lincoln Center. They loved it. And then came readings and workshops.”
OK, it got Tony-nominated and won the Outer Critics Award. Now the movie.
“It’s a bittersweet independent about a lonely high-school teacher — Julianne Moore — who befriends a student. He shows her his thesis, a pretentious play which references Stephen Sondheim. But later, with an opportunity to speak to Sondheim, he doesn’t because he’s too frightened.
“We filmed somewhere upstate. I can’t remember. Maybe Dobbs Ferry. I only know I saw nothing of the town. I got up early, was driven there, worked long hours, came home. Not very glamorous . . . as I relate it, it sounds like a hostage experience.
“The tedious exercise is memorizing. I went to Catholic school. Studying Latin took memorization, so maybe it’s why I can handle that part of the grunt work.”
Get to the basics. Is he rich?
“Fingers crossed, I’m comfortable.”
ROMAN Abramovich, with the biggest yacht and, discounting Putin, Russia’s biggest rubles, is just a simple little humble little mega-billionaire little boy at heart. Sunday he went bike riding around New York . . . In case you’re interested, here’s what CBS-TV’s “The Talk Show,” based in LA but in town this week, stuck in my dressing room: chocolate nibbles, water, ice, Cokes, gum, three packages of assorted Fritos.
PRINCE Harry suddenly newly inspecting the Jersey Shore, which got wrecked almost as far back as when TV’s “Jersey Shore” also got washed away? Like he maybe had difficulty wedging it into his busy jampacked crowded crammed schedule earlier? Like he had so much to cancel?
It’s same as Weiner who wants City Hall, Spitzer who wants TV, South Carolina pig Sanford who wanted Congress, O.J. who wants out — redemption. This time Harry behaved. He got told if you strip your clothes again and flash your orb, crown and even your scepter, the USA will ship Biden to Buckingham in his drawers.
At the baseball event he met George Steinbrenner’s granddaughter. However, regal royal duties shlepped him away before either got to first base.
RECENTLY “Russkie business: B’klyn nightclub owner nailed in debt-relief scam” was headlines.
I went to Michael Levitis’ joint Rasputin. His wife, Marina, then on Lifetime’s reality thing “Russian Dolls,” visited me. Her dress was gold-dusted. When she lifted her behind, what didn’t lift were gold particles across my fabric chair.
Marina’s bag, Hermes. Watch, be-diamonded. Solitaire made Kardashian’s old engagement ring look like a cyst. Right hand, salad-sized diamond cluster. Her visible parts — bosom, chest, arms, high thighs prominent in the short, tight, décolleté dress.
In Ukrainian accent: “Ve are practical people . . . Others on the show intimidated by me. Come to my club. Don’t pay. If not for show, I never let them near me. Some I hate. Jealousy. Archenemy. My husband, who owns Rasputin, made me do this show. Said, ‘Good for our business. Make Rasputin famous. We’ll be known.’ ”
Right. It’s now known. The US attorney’s federal indictment alleges this husband ripped off $2.2 million in a long-running scam. Lots of it reportedly went for — taDa! — jewelry. When he was released on bond, Marina told reporters: “I am the star of the family.”
Also, the food wasn’t so great in his joint.
JUNE 10. Gracie Mansion. The Made in New York awards — with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Commissioner Katherine L. Oliver. Honoring Spike Lee, whose middle initial I don’t know. Also Audra McDonald, HBO’s Sheila Nevins, and a pair of Weinsteins.
THE Real Deal is a shiny real estate publication. Its paper stock is all that shines in it. In a recent issue, Page 12, its editor-in-chief upchucked something he headlined “An Ode to ‘Only in New York.’ ” He whoopses:
“Only in New York, kids. That was the slightly hokey catchphrase of former (FORMER?) New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams (FORMER?) in chronicling the city’s social scene . . .” He then barfs on to say absolutely nothing.
Editor-in-chief who doesn’t know what-the-hell he’s saying, writing or editing?
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.