I'll Be Your Actor Tonight

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When Kylie Minogue took the stage last week in The Play Wot I Wrote at Wyndham's Theatre in London, the crowd went crazy, with cheers and whoops of "We love you!" The audience didn't know the Australian songbird would appear until she danced out from the wings. Playing herself in the hit comedy — a homage to the legendary British funnymen Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise — Minogue was a typically good sport, letting the regular cast members make fun of her name (they kept calling her Kevin) and her career (they played off her Aussie TV past by introducing her as the star of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo). At one point, she even dressed up as a fat, balding French friar. Truth be told, she's not much of an actress. But the audience had paid to be surprised by a mystery guest star, and it got its money's worth.

The secret ingredient in the success of The Play Wot I Wrote is, well, secrecy. Audiences have been entertained by a succession of surprise guests — from Ralph Fiennes on the opening night a year ago, to Jude Law, Minnie Driver, Roger Moore and Ewan McGregor. Even Kenneth Branagh, who directs the play, has taken a turn. The role is simple: a celebrity auditioning for a part in a play-within-the play goes unrecognized by the lead actors, who proceed to tease and taunt him (or her) mercilessly. In Kylie's big prison scene, her speech was interrupted by a fellow inmate asking, "What are you in for, bad acting?"

The conceit works precisely because the role has no fixed actor: the revolving-door casting constantly refreshes the part, and by extension the play. The element of surprise also helps keep the play in the news. Says producer David Pugh, "It's the show's greatest marketing tool. The chance to see a celebrity brings in new audiences."

Pugh's guest-star innovation has launched a wave of London theater hits. He first employed the trick six years ago for Art, the Yasmina Reza play now on its final run in London. After opening with Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay in the main roles, Pugh rang the changes every 12 weeks, bringing in British stars including TV comedians Frank Skinner and Jack Dee and actor Nigel Havers. (In New York, he opened Art with Alan Alda, Victor Garber and Alfred Molina, and later brought in George Wendt and Stacey Keach.) The technique helped make Art a worldwide hit: it has played in over 50 cities and grossed $125 million.

Director Laurence Boswell borrowed the idea for This Is Our Youth, now playing at London's Garrick Theatre. "Pugh", he says, "smashed open that snobby system where the first cast of a play would be great, and then each new cast would go down a notch." Last week, Boswell blooded his third cast in Kenneth Lonergan's sharp and funny three-hander: Colin (son of Tom) Hanks, Kieran (brother of Macaulay) Culkin and Alison Lohman. Previous line-ups have included Matt Damon and Anna Paquin, and producer Anna Waterhouse is courting practically all of young Hollywood, from Christina Ricci and Natalie Portman to Orlando Bloom and Josh Hartnett. There have even been rumors about a dream cast of Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, who met for a secret reading in America.

Pugh is lining up stars for the Broadway run of The Play Wot I Wrote, which starts March 30. Fiennes and McGregor will reprise their appearances, and "everyone from Brad Pitt to Meryl Streep has shown interest," he says. But while the big names are great at the box office, Pugh insists he doesn't want just any A-list player. "The star-rotation system is an enormous help commercially," he says, "but they have to be good, and the balance has to be right." In Play, the celebrity spot only works dramatically if the stars can play stiff and pompous, the better to have their ego balloons punctured by the other actors. The aristocratic Fiennes was perfect for the part. Minogue, on the other hand, was too good-humored to be properly sent up.

No matter: the crowd loved her, and the buzz generated by her appearance will keep audiences coming back for more.