Theater: The New Broadway Season

AS the new theater season begins to glow, a number of interesting prospects for 1968-69 stand out:

MUSICALS

ALL ABOUT EVE. Actress claws her way Up—as in the memorable 1950 Bette Davis movie.

A MOTHER'S KISSES, by Bruce Jay Friedman. From the novel about how not to be a Jewish mother.

AND NOW, NOEL COWARD, with George Grizzard, Dorothy Loudon and Arthur Mitchell. More then than now: songs by the master of urbanity.

BILLY. Melville's Billy budding as a musical confrontation between good and evil.

CANTERBURY TALES. The Wife of Bath and other Chaucerian tales set to medieval rock.

COCO, with book by Alan Jay Lerner (My Fair Lady), music by Andre Previn, the Hollywood tunesmith. Costumes and sets by Cecil Beaton. Starring Katharine Hepburn. Couturière Coco Chanel and the Beautiful People of 1938-54.

COME SUMMER, directed by Choreographer Agnes de Mille. Two men and a farm woman search for eternal summer in 19th century New England.

DEAR WORLD. Music by Jerry Herman (Hello, Dolly!). Starring Angela Lansbury, the Mame dame. Giraudoux's Madwoman of Chaillot sets off to destroy the wicked.

ELMER GANTRY. Sinclair Lewis' roué evangelist making miracles.

HER FIRST ROMAN, based on Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra. With Richard Kiley and Leslie Uggams.

MAGGIE FLYNN, with Shirley Jones and Jack Cassidy. Can an orphanage director find happiness with a circus clown?

PROMISES, PROMISES, by Neil Simon (The Odd Couple). Starring Jerry Orbach, the frenetic schnook from Scuba Duba. Directed by Robert Moore, who staged the off-Broadway hit The Boys in the Band. Stage version of the movie The Apartment.

THE EXCEPTION AND THE RULE, adapted from Brecht by the West Side Story team, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. Directed by Jerome Robbins and starring Zero Mostel. Oilmen race across an Asian desert.

THE FIG LEAVES ARE FALLING, by Comedian Allan Sherman. Husband, 42, falls for girl, 22—but picks himself up and sticks with his wife.

LOVE MATCH, with English Comedienne Patricia Routledge. Victoria loves Albert.

ZORBA. Music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb (Cabaret). Directed by Harold Prince and starring Herschel Bernardi. The Greek, as in the movie.

DRAMAS

BOX and QUOTATIONS FROM MAO TSE-TUNG, by Edward Albee (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?). Box, a monologue on art and life by the offstage voice of Ruth White, comes first and last. In between, Mao Tse-tung delivers Communist platitudes from a boat deck.

LES BLANCS, by the late Lorraine Hansberry (Raisin in the Sun) and edited by Ossie Davis. Life and death in an African hospital.

MORNING, NOON and NIGHT, by three young American playwrights: Israel Horovitz, Terrence McNally and Leonard Melfi. No connection with James Gould Cozzens' new novel of the same name. Three one-acters: Morning (four Negroes turn white), Noon (white sexual mores), and Night (two funerals: a dog's and a man's).

THE CUBAN THING, by Jack Gelber (author of The Connection, director of The Kitchen), with Rip Torn. Gelber will direct this one too. A Cuban family amid Castro's revolution.

HADRIAN VII, by Peter Luke, with British Actor Alec McCowen. Adapted from novel by Frederick William Rolfe. A seminary reject becomes Pope.