the indoor picnic; Broadway beauty Kelli O'Hara treats costar Harry Connick, Jr.

Byline: William Norwich

The food is just on the picnic table, and Harry Connick, Jr., is ready with the spice: a jazzy medley of mirth and banter.

"It is in our contracts," Connick says, his handsome drawl attracting all attention. " 'Got to go to Kelli's picnic about once a week!' But, you know, it is OK," he says, shrugging. "Kelli and I get along. We buy our trailer tires from the same place, except she cleans up better."

Kelli O'Hara, Harry's celebrated costar in the Roundabout Theatre Company's Broadway revival of The Pajama Game, just shakes her head. Three months into the run, and she is used to being teased by her costar. (Her retaliation was an April Fool's hoax they should have chronicled on the front page of Variety.)

As they say in the South, Kelli does indeed clean up good. Today she is wearing a Prada sundress and serving a meal she has spent the better part of the past 24 hours preparing. She loves to cook and entertain. In fact, when The Pajama Game first opened this winter, Kelli invited the cast and the crew to a picnic in the theater, not dissimilar to the one she is giving now, except today we are a smaller group including, besides Harry, cast members Bridget Berger, Joyce Chittick, Peter Benson, Michael McKean, and Jeffrey Schecter, and the director and choreographer of the show, Kathleen Marshall. Why a picnic and not a potluck supper? In the musical about labor relations, love, and our daily wages, the singing-and-dancing picnic scene is pivotal.

"It is the summer equivalent of the office Christmas party; everyone goes a little wild," says Marshall.

"When I gave the picnic opening night," Kelli adds, "everyone assumed it would be catered."