Published in The New Yorker – June 4, 2001

Written by John Lahr:
The Shock of the Good Broadway’s sweetheart lands in a sitcom.

As they tweak scenes for the pilot, Markus and Chenoweth sometimes act them out. In one, Kristin’s boss, the full time tycoon and part time Casanova Tommy Ballantine, interviews Kristin for the job as his personal assistant.

He dictates a list of chores: “First, call my veterinarian. Tell him the flea dip didn’t take. My cat is still infested, only now he smells like dry cleaning. I want my cat picked up, re-dipped, de-Martinized, and returned at his expense.” Chenoweth’s forehead wrinkles in concentration as she mimes writing on a notepad. “Fix cat,” she says. “Oops! I mean, fix cat problem. Whoa. Better add that last word! Like the difference between lightning and lightning bug!” Chenoweth puts a little spin on the word “bug” that makes Markus light up.

All games are best when they are tense, and Markus has set up a shrewdly comic battle of wills between the righteous Kristin and the sensationally pagan Tommy (“If you’re a woman and you’re breathing, you’re in Tommyworld”). Markus’s innovation is not so much in the sitcom form as in its content. By making Kristin the heroine of the show, he brings to center stage the kind of character- a moral, conservative person-who has traditionally been relegated to a stock secondary role, such as the uptight neighbor. “I’m having the same feelings that I had on “The Cosby Show’,” Markus says, “We’re taking a character American Television viewers don’t normally see as accessible and turning her into a Everyperson.”