FROM CENTS TO SCENTS. What do you get when you combine Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill with Alan Cumming, Edie Falco, Nellie McKay, and Wallace Shawn? The Roundabout production of The Threepenny Opera, now expected to open at Studio 54 in April 2006.

If all goes according to plan, the show will star Cumming as Mack the Knife, Falco as Jenny, and McKay as Polly Peachum. Shawn is responsible for translating and adapting the original Die Dreigroschenoper, written by Brecht and Weill.

Meanwhile, McKay's Pretty Little Head--the much-anticipated follow-up to her CD debut Get Away from Me--should go on sale around October 18. It features collaborations with Cyndi Lauper and k.d. lang.

If amidst all this news you detect a whiff of excitement in the air, it could be Cumming the Fragrance. Perhaps the silliest of celebrity scents, it's "all about Sex, Scotch, Cigars and Scotland." I thought that was Connery! Anyway, you can now get a load of Cumming here.

The perfumer behind Cumming is Christopher Brosius, an acquaintance from years back who recently opened an eponymous Studio and Perfume Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In his online profile, Christopher discloses that "My talent as a nose first came to light when I worked at Kiehl’s." I look forward to someday visiting Christopher's olfactory factory and sniffing Mr. Hulot's Holiday. Christopher is also working on a book about scents; it's scheduled to be published around the time that The Threepenny Opera opens.

Photo by David Marc Fischer