Broadway Friday

- NY Times former theater critic Frank Rich, once known as the "Butcher of Broadway", will appear on David Letterman tonight to promote the paperback release of his hit book, The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth in Bush's America. For better or worse, Rich is "credited" with bringing Disney to Broadway, after his column "The Hit That Got Away" inspired the mouseheads to turn Beauty & The Beast into a Broadway musical.

- Expect mayhem on 42nd Street on Monday morning when the Hilton Theater box office begins its lottery for $25 front-row seats for Young Frankenstein. Special "prime center section" seats will also be sold for $120 at the box office only. Expecting folks to line up long in advance of the 10am box office opening, the 42nd Street mega-McDonald's will be offering free coffee and donuts to those waiting. Winners of the $25 ticket lottery will be announced at 7pm. Young Frankenstein begins previews on October 11th.

- Gay playwright Paul Rudnick's latest work, The New Century, will open at Lincoln Center's Newhouse Theater in the spring of 2008, with cast and dates to be announced. The New Century is a series of four short plays.

- Celia, a musical about the late queen of salsa, Celia Cruz, opens Off-Broadway on September 26th at the New World Stages. Xiomara Laugart Sánchez, former lead singer of Yerba Buena, plays the title role. The show has been in previews since August 28th, but the opening was pushed back two weeks.

- Xanadu stars Cheyenne Jackson, Jackie Hoffman, Mary Testa, and Tony Roberts join others on Monday, September 10th for a benefit performance of Celebrity Autobiography: In Their Own Words at the Zipper Factory. Proceeds go to the Actors Fund.