THE FLOCK OF SEAGULL Clockwise from top: Christopher Walken, John Goodman, Natalie Portman, director Mike Nichols, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep, and Kevin Kline.

While the fear of the looming actors' strike gripped an entire industry, it also created a silver lining: the sudden influx of screen actors onto the stage. We're not talking about David Hasselhoff prancing around as Dr. Jekyll. Try Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Christopher Walken, Kevin Kline, and John Goodman performing in the Public Theater's production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull at New York's Delacorte Theater, in Central Park. As if this weren't A-list enough, the classic Russian play-about artistic frustration far more traumatizing than the divvying up of video residuals—is being directed by Mike Nichols. More than a showcase for boldfaced names—the likes of which haven't been seen in New York since "about three centuries ago," in the estimation of producer George C. Wolfe—this free production is also a Public Theater reunion. In addition to Nichols, who directed at the Public during the 70s, nearly every major cast member has spent some time cutting his or her teeth at the theater or doing free Shakespeare in the park— a utopian vision dreamed up in 1954 by the Public's founder, the late Joseph Papp, that actually worked. Although Wolfe, the theater's producer since 1993, has consistently targeted more undiscovered talents, even he is a little star-struck: "When Mike Nichols calls you up and says Meryl would like to do The Seagull, and she'd like to do it in the park, you don't exactly pause."