Broadway Friday

-Deborah Kerr, star of Broadway and films, died yesterday in Suffolk, England at age 86. Kerr made her Broadway debut in 1953's Tea and Sympathy in which she spoke the most famous line of her career: "Years from now when you talk about this — and you will — be kind." Kerr was nominated for six Oscars and received an honorary Oscar in 1994.

-West End smash Rock-N-Roll begins previews on Broadway today at the Jacobs Theatre. Playwright Tom Stoppard first hit Broadway forty years ago with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

-Clay Aiken joins the cast of Spamalot on January 18th as Sir Robin, the role originated by David Hyde Pierce. The Gayken joins a long line of American Idol finalists to appear on Broadway.

-The revival of The Ritz, starring Kevin Chamberlin, has been extended to December 9th. Crisco oil party. Room 419. Pass it on.

-The Nederlander Organization, which own nine Broadway houses, has told Local One, the stagehands union, it will not join the League of the American Theatres and Producers in implementing new union work rules next week. The impasse and possibility of a work stoppage continues. Broadway's last strike was in 2004.

-Passing Strange, which was an Off-Broadway hit musical for the Public Theatre this summer, lands at Broadway's Belasco Theatre on February 8th. Synopsis: "Passing Strange is the moving and hilarious story of a young black bohemian on a journey of escape and exploration that takes him from his middle-class, church-reared youth in South Central L.A. to the drug-laced world of sex in Amsterdam to the art and anarchism of Berlin — with a bevy of eye-opening experiences and life lessons along the way."