Harvey Fierstein

NEW YORK - Cyndi Lauper, garlanded in enough jewelry to make the Queen of Sheba jealous, is wondering if she should add yet another bauble. "It's a whatchamacallit, like a Sicilian good luck charm. Whaddya think?" she asks a coterie of assistants buzzing around Sardi's restaurant in Manhattan preparing her for a photo shoot. "Less is more," someone pipes up. PHOTOS: Hollywood stars on stage Lauper fixes her with a self-aware gaze. "Look who you're talkin' to," she says.

NEW YORK - Cyndi Lauper, garlanded in enough jewelry to make the Queen of Sheba jealous, is wondering if she should add yet another bauble. "It's a whatchamacallit, like a Sicilian good luck charm. Whaddya think?" she asks a coterie of assistants buzzing around Sardi's restaurant in Manhattan preparing her for a photo shoot. "Less is more," someone pipes up. PHOTOS: Hollywood stars on stage Lauper fixes her with a self-aware gaze. "Look who you're talkin' to," she says.

Harvey Fierstein is getting impatient. He'd like the interview to go faster. Skip the compliments. Don't waste precious time laughing at his outrageous remarks. He's got stacks of writing to finish, songs to rehearse, and in a few days he leaves for Los Angeles. He hasn't been to Los Angeles for 10 years, says the Tony-winning actor and playwright, and he's never been to the Hollywood Bowl, where he stars in the musical "Hairspray" for three nights starting Friday. "Hairspray," however, is very, very familiar.

NEW YORK - Let the record show that on April 4, 2013, the night that "Kinky Boots" opened on Broadway at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, drag officially became a commodity of the tourist masses. Female impersonation has long had mainstream appeal, but now even the campier tradition has been co-opted. "La Cage Aux Folles" proved that a man in a dress belting "I Am What I Am" could move straight theatergoers to tears. "Priscilla Queen of the Desert" showed that sparkly attired male disco divas traveling the outback on a bus could bring in audiences by the busload.

"Lies! All lies!" Harvey Fierstein bellows at Anne Bancroft in his familiar foghorn voice. Bancroft, dressed very New York in matronly suit and broad-brimmed hat, sits with a reporter in the parking lot of a downtown Los Angeles warehouse, chatting about the filming of "Torch Song Trilogy." Fierstein, who stars, writes and co-produces, eavesdrops, legs dangling off the tailgate of a prop truck. He grins mischievously. "I'm watching you!"

SAN DIEGO -- To call "A Catered Affair," the new musical drama based on a tired old Paddy Chayefsky teleplay, a period piece would be an understatement. The show, which had its world premiere Sunday at the Old Globe, is an invitation to slip into a time warp -- a rackety Bronx time warp, circa 1953, that's complete with busybody neighbors in housedresses and kerchiefs who are forever cupping their ears to the kitchen arguments spilling into the tenement courtyard below.

For a man accustomed to the spotlight, Harvey Fierstein is in danger of being upstaged. As the star of "Hairspray" emcees the Drama League Awards luncheon, introducing a glittering array of theater celebrities, all eyes turn to Antonio Banderas, who is appearing in the hit revival of "Nine." Actress Cherry Jones tells the packed gathering at a midtown hotel that she has just seen the musical, declaring: "I am a gay woman, and I loved every woman up there.

Harvey Fierstein is shaving his eyebrows. This is a first for him. Oh sure, he's worn lipstick and eyeliner, dresses and falsies, high heels and pantyhose. But before he began playing Edna Turnblad, the frumpy Baltimore housewife in the new Broadway musical "Hairspray," Fierstein had never taken razor in hand and removed all traces of his eyebrows.

When Harvey Fierstein was about 9, his Uncle Irwin coerced him onto the Cyclone, the roller coaster at Coney Island. When the scary ride was over and little Harvey was back on terra firma, his uncle chided: "So you lived through that, right? But you kept your eyes closed, and you missed the whole thing." "I never forgot that lesson," recalls Fierstein in his inimitable basso profundo as a car service takes him through the clogged Manhattan streets to a shoe fitting at T.O.

Cheers for Fierstein: Playwright-actor Harvey Fierstein will make his TV comedy debut on an upcoming episode of NBC's "Cheers." Fierstein, who wrote and starred in "Torch Song Trilogy," has been cast as the high school flame of Kirstie Alley's character, Rebecca, who tries to rekindle the fire not knowing that he's gay.

Harvey Fierstein is getting impatient. He'd like the interview to go faster. Skip the compliments. Don't waste precious time laughing at his outrageous remarks. He's got stacks of writing to finish, songs to rehearse, and in a few days he leaves for Los Angeles. He hasn't been to Los Angeles for 10 years, says the Tony-winning actor and playwright, and he's never been to the Hollywood Bowl, where he stars in the musical "Hairspray" for three nights starting Friday. "Hairspray," however, is very, very familiar.

SAN DIEGO -- To call "A Catered Affair," the new musical drama based on a tired old Paddy Chayefsky teleplay, a period piece would be an understatement. The show, which had its world premiere Sunday at the Old Globe, is an invitation to slip into a time warp -- a rackety Bronx time warp, circa 1953, that's complete with busybody neighbors in housedresses and kerchiefs who are forever cupping their ears to the kitchen arguments spilling into the tenement courtyard below.

When Harvey Fierstein was about 9, his Uncle Irwin coerced him onto the Cyclone, the roller coaster at Coney Island. When the scary ride was over and little Harvey was back on terra firma, his uncle chided: "So you lived through that, right? But you kept your eyes closed, and you missed the whole thing." "I never forgot that lesson," recalls Fierstein in his inimitable basso profundo as a car service takes him through the clogged Manhattan streets to a shoe fitting at T.O.

A film-based musical by Harvey Fierstein, a drama inspired by the life of boxing legend Joe Louis and a new take on the MGM classic "The Band Wagon" are among world premiere offerings announced for the Old Globe Theatre of San Diego's 2007-08 winter season. Fierstein's Broadway-bound "A Catered Affair" opens the season in the Old Globe (Sept. 30 to Oct. 28).

Harvey Fierstein, who received a 2003 Tony Award for his performance as housewife Edna Turnblad in the musical "Hairspray," will reprise the role in the 2006 Las Vegas production, the show's producers, Michael Gill and Myron Martin, confirmed Friday. Based on John Waters' 1988 film, the musical is slated to begin previews Feb. 6 at the Luxor hotel-casino in a 90-minute, no-intermission version of the Broadway show postponed from a fall opening announced earlier this year.

Here's Johnny: Former "Tonight Show" host Johnny Carson has given $5.3 million to the University of Nebraska Foundation to help support the department of theater arts at his alma mater. * Broadway bound: "The Woman in White," the London musical directed by Trevor Nunn and featuring music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, will move to Broadway in November 2005.

Here's Johnny: Former "Tonight Show" host Johnny Carson has given $5.3 million to the University of Nebraska Foundation to help support the department of theater arts at his alma mater. * Broadway bound: "The Woman in White," the London musical directed by Trevor Nunn and featuring music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, will move to Broadway in November 2005.

How can Calendar print such nasty and bigoted letters (July 24) as appeared in response to the Harvey Fierstein article? ("When Hearts Were Young and Gay," July 17) One asked, "How many permanent relationships does a homosexual have in a lifetime?" My life-partner and I have been together for 15 years. Among our close friends, the couples--male or female--have been together 25, 22, 17, 16, 12, 11, 10, 6 and 4 years. Look at heterosexual people you know and see how their record for permanency compares.

For a man accustomed to the spotlight, Harvey Fierstein is in danger of being upstaged. As the star of "Hairspray" emcees the Drama League Awards luncheon, introducing a glittering array of theater celebrities, all eyes turn to Antonio Banderas, who is appearing in the hit revival of "Nine." Actress Cherry Jones tells the packed gathering at a midtown hotel that she has just seen the musical, declaring: "I am a gay woman, and I loved every woman up there.

Harvey Fierstein is shaving his eyebrows. This is a first for him. Oh sure, he's worn lipstick and eyeliner, dresses and falsies, high heels and pantyhose. But before he began playing Edna Turnblad, the frumpy Baltimore housewife in the new Broadway musical "Hairspray," Fierstein had never taken razor in hand and removed all traces of his eyebrows.