Tune In

SPOTLIGHT

tommy Tune is as long on inspiration as he is just long. The six-foot-sixinch Texan who grew up imitating horses' gaits looms over you with the gangly, smiling countenance of a big oT awestruck child. But don't let him fool you: the aw-shucks grin masks a lifetime of show-biz know-how that can breathe life into the most farfetched ideas. The fiftyyear-old showman brings a gentle campiness to everything he does; under Tuneful orchestration, a gimmick can evolve into a splashy entertainment that in lesser hands might seem just a gimmick.

For someone who's won five Tony Awards— as a director, performer, and choreographer— Tune is not (surprise) an egomaniac. He doesn't yell, and he doesn't throw fits; he finds it odd to be "the leader" of a show, and seems bemused by the fact that the actors in his latest—Grand Hotel, opening this month on Broadway—approach him with their questions about character. Self-effacing as he is, though, Tune is able to come up with answers that appease both critics and matinee ladies, from the crossdressed The Club (1976) to the Marx Brothers nod A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine 0980) and the Fellini-and-a-half Nine (1982).

Checking into Grand Hotel, a musical version of the Vicki Baum novel, are Tune veterans Liliane Montevecchi and Karen Akers, among others, while the pivotal seductive-typist role will be played by newcomer Jane Krakowski. The show, Tune explains, takes its cue from a line in the novel: "At the Grand Hotel, the music never stops." So he's infused it with tunes, and Tune.

MICHAEL MUSTO

TOMMY TUNEThe aw-shucks grin masks a lifetime of show-biz know-how that can breathe life into the most farfetched ideas.