For some it’s spring fashions, for others the arrival of baseball season, but for me and every other theatre-ista, it’s the siren’s song of new shows that gives April in New York its irresistible allure.

As usual this time of year, comedies, dramas and musicals are hitting the Great White Way like gangbusters, the current theatrical gamut spanning everything from an uncensored stage legend (Tallulah Bankhead played by Valerie Harper in Looped) to an uncensored artist (Alfred Molina as Mark Rothko in Red) to a superlative band of musical comedy superstars including Tony Award winners Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth in The Addams Family; Kristin Chenoweth, Katie Finneran and Dick Latessa (along with Emmy winner Sean Hayes) in Promises, Promises, and John Gallagher Jr., edgy as ever in the new musical based on Green Day’s Grammy-winning album, American Idiot.

Meanwhile, in the homage department, there’s choreographer Twyla Tharp’s Come Fly Away celebrating Frank Sinatra, and the Roundabout Theatre’s Sondheim on Sondheim with Barbara Cook, Euan Morton, Vanessa Williams and Tom Wopat.

PLAYING THE ODDS - Martin McDonagh, the Edward Gorey of contemporary playwrights, is finally giving theatergoers fair warning title-wise: A Behanding in Spokane. No beauty queens or pillowmen to lull audiences into a false sense of security in this one, just Christopher Walken at his droll and deranged best, camped out in a seedy hotel room, biding his time before plunging headlong into a scenario overrun with lunatic complications. His character, Carmichael, on a decades-long quest for his severed hand, is left to contend with a couple of inexperienced con-folk, Marilyn (Zoe Kazan) and Toby (Anthony Mackie), as well as ultimate-weirdo hotel employee (Sam Rockwell). Ninety minutes, no intermission, wave upon wave of comedic chaos, a surprise jolt every so often and -- I cannot stress this enough -- Christopher Walken in a performance that gift-wraps every idiosyncratic quirk we’ve come to love, expect and revel in.

OFF-BROADWAY: A PRE-STONEWALL REVELATION - Big-time praise for The Temperamentals, the formidable, entertaining and eye-opening look at the handful of courageous guys behind Mattachine Society, an early-1950s gay-rights organization established in the L.A. during the heyday of the McCarthy era -- well before NYC’s 1969 Stonewall demonstrations sounded the gay-rights shot heard ’round the world. 

The play, written by Jon Marans, follows the provocative relationship between married communist Harry Hay (Thomas Jay Ryan) and Viennese refugee and designer Rudi Gernreich (Michael Urie) as well as their efforts to establish the first gay-rights organization in the U.S.

What’s adding to the production’s considerable luster, though, is the post-show panel discussion taking place every Monday night -- an event that’s been attracting a truly diverse cross-section of guests. April 5th features Tony- & Emmy-winning actor David Hyde Pierce (Curtains; Frasier) and TV executive/writer/producer Brian Hargrove; and on April 12th, civil-rights activist and best-selling author David Mixner. 

Future confirmed panelists include actor/playwright Charles Busch (The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife); former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey; Terrence McNally (multiple Tony-winning playwright: Love! Valour! Compassion!; Master Class; Ragtime); and Daryl Roth, who has produced six Pulitzer Prize-winning plays. [For an updated list of panelists and dates visit www.thetemperamentals.com.]