It was the month when Bye Bye Birdie’s reviews resembled Bring Back Birdie’s.

And speaking of Bye Bye Birdie: Sorry I missed the memorial service for Marilyn Cooper. She used to live in the building next door to the one in which I reside, and we had many pleasant conversations and walks-to-the-corner in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Cooper loved hearing that she was the first leading lady I ever saw in a pre-Broadway tryout (I Can Get It for You Wholesale at the Colonial in Boston on March 10, 1962). Funny that I caught her greatest triumph at that same theater almost two decades later, when I saw the tryout of Woman of the Year. There she played a less than glamorous housewife and stopped the show with “The Grass Is Always Greener.” Wwwwwonderful!

Cooper was smart in the way she used to handle the tumultuous praise (and Tony Award) she got for that song: “Well,” she’d always say, “it IS a duet.” Yes, it was – but no one after that number was talking about Lauren Bacall.

What I’ll also remember was running into Cooper in 1990 at the American Jewish Theatre on West 26th Street – the modest, threadbare and dank little house chummily known as “the theater under the supermarket.” (It’s now the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.)

“Anything nice happening?” I asked her, and Cooper was pleased as punch and happy to have a good answer to the question, the way actors do whenever they have a job. “I’m playing Tommy Tune’s mother in Bye Bye Birdie,” she said.

“Marvelous!” I replied, having heard that this production was to play an extensive road tour – but that no New York theater had yet been booked. But maybe Cooper knew something about of a Broadway engagement. “So are you going to bring it in here?” I asked with hope in my voice. Cooper looked utterly horrified at the question, which surprised me, but then I understood when she gestured at the woebegone mini-lobby in which we were standing. “Here?!?!?” she said in a full-of-umbrage voice that convinced me that Cooper could have made a good Lady Bracknell.

As it turned out, that Birdie did not fly into New York, so I had to go to the Forrest in Philadelphia to see it. It was a pretty good production, and substantially better than – oh, never mind, we’ve all dumped on the current one enough. But in the middle of “Kids!” the lights suddenly went out. Turned out that all of Walnut Street – and a few streets around it – had experienced a power failure.

Years later, I met J.P. Dougherty, who’d played Mr. McAfee in that production, and therefore was on stage singing when the lights went out. I told him I’d attended that performance, which caused him to put his hand over his heart. “Honest,” he said, “there I was singing the song, and suddenly everything went black, and my first thought was, ‘Oh, my God! I just died! I just had a heart attack and died in the middle of my song!’”

Actually, I suspect nothing could kill J. P. Dougherty. He’d already played the title character in Senator Joe, the musical that closed after three previews in 1989. I can still see the scene that was played in front of blood-red drops, where a character called Fatty Deposit danced in what was supposed to be the stomach of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R-WI). It ranks right up there with the Concentration Camp Ballet in Ari.

Got an e-mail from Ron Fassler, responding to my statement that Carrie Fisher should have at least mentioned her Broadway stint in the very short-lived Censored Scenes from King Kong. “That brought back memories for me,” he wrote. “I was 22 and this was my first Broadway job as understudy to Stephen Collins, Chris Sarandon and Peter Riegert. Chief among those memories unfortunately are the reviews which were some of the worst ever committed to print. ‘Drop It Off the Empire State Building,’ wrote Doug Watt in the News. Clive Barnes in the Post went even further: ‘In every season there has to be one play that's the worst. Well, this season still has a ways to go but I doubt anything to come will outmatch in horror." This was nearly 30 years ago, but you don't forget reviews like that.

“But one story Carrie might have had fun with was the one about her mother, Debbie Reynolds, who came to Kong on its closing (fifth) performance. It was very tough playing to small houses that were formerly laughing, but now that they’d been told that nothing was funny, they were dead silent.

“But Debbie took it upon herself to go out in front of the audience before the show started and give the audience a pep talk -- unbeknownst to the Stage Manager. She burst through the curtain with no introduction and whipped the crowd (well, maybe not quite a crowd) into a frenzy (well, maybe not quite a frenzy) by shouting ‘These kids backstage think you don't want to see their show! You do, don't you?’ Those in attendance -- all 50 of us -- thought it pretty amazing.”

It was a month when I spent quite a bit of time at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts to do research for my upcoming book The Biggest Hit of the Season / The Biggest Flop of the Season. As I was waiting for the London Theatre Record to be delivered to me (so I could see the poisonously bad reviews Les Miserables got when it opened in London), I happened to spy bound books of Variety obituaries. They went back decades, so I pulled out the book from the ‘60s to see if I could find my favorite obituary of all time. It took a while, but finally I found it, dated Nov. 25, 1964. It was for an entertainer named Chop Chop.

Said the obituary, “Chop Chop, 63, of Chop Chop and Charlie, Chinese magicians, died Nov. 12 in Suva, the Fiji Islands in the South Pacific. Formerly known as Tung Pin Soo, his real name was Al Wheatley.”

For the Star-Ledger, I had to review Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse, the stage adaptation of the famed children’s book, at Mile Square Theatre in Hoboken. Took in a 10 a.m. performance attended by kindergartners. At the end, the cast came out to talk to the assembled children, and their star actor said, “Does anybody have any questions?” The hands shot up, and the actor looked delighted that so many had so many questions to ask.

“Yes?” he said enthusiastically, pointing to a very young girl in the third row. She replied, “I have this book in my house.” The actor blinked, and pointed out that what he wanted was a question, and called on a very little boy who said, “I got the book in my house, too.” The star didn’t blink this time, but nodded and said that that actually was a comment, not a question, and did anyone actually have a question? Another young lad raised his hand, and when called on, announced, “I used to have the book in my house, but I lost it.” As good as the actor had been very good in the show, he gave an even better -- and controlled -- performance in the talk-back.

And finally, did you read the story of Kimberly Ann Evans, 39, who weighed 347 pounds – that is, until a friend loaned her a DVD of The Phantom of the Opera film. She found herself relating to someone unattractive who was looking for love, and was inspired to change her eating and exercise habits. In the next 21 months, Evans shed 211 of those pounds, and now weighs in at a nifty and sexy 136. How nice to see that the Phantom film, considered by so many to be a humiliating disappointment, actually was a profound influence on at least one viewer. And considering that I’m not getting any thinner, you’ll excuse me while I go watch it again.

You may e-mail Peter at pfilichia@aol.com