`WAIT UNTIL DARK' DUE BACK ON BROADWAY.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

It's now a go for the classic film thriller ``Wait Until Dark'' to return to the Broadway stage.

Film fans will be aware that Frederick Knott's vintage legit shocker was the basis of a 1967 feature in which Audrey Hepburn played a blind woman pursued by a gang of criminals looking for heroin - and Alan Arkin played the psychotic gang mastermind. Well, this time around, we'll have Jennifer Jason Leigh as poor Susy. And ... Quentin Tarantino as the tormentor.

Rehearsals begin in January, with an out-of-town opening planned for February and a Broadway bow mid-March.

What's the world coming to?

The artist formerly known as Prince is on his Jam of the Year Tour and separated from his wife, Mayte, who's back home in Minneapolis - but they see each other every day. That's because the computer-savvy, albeit eccentric, couple installed Quickcams on their computers. The ex-Prince comes off stage after a show, fires up his laptop and talks to the wife in their visual chat room-for-two. We're told he gives accounts of life on the road and tells her how the night's performance went. She fills him in on the latest exploits of their new pet starfish, Larry.

Since that probably doesn't take long, Mayte also talks about her day of rehearsals with the NPG (that's as in ex-Prince's New Power Generation, in case you didn't know) Dance Company - which debuts at the Detroit Music Hall on Oct. 17. The three-act modern dance, ``Around the World in a Day,'' includes the ``Kama Sutra Ballet'' (music written by you-know-who for his and Mayte's wedding) on which the American Ballet Theater's Desmond Richardson assisted. Meanwhile, the ex-Prince has a string of mid-October dates, including Denver (Oct. 10), the Hollywood Bowl (Oct. 11) and Irvine Meadows (Oct. 12).

The charm

``Dharma & Greg'' leading lady Jenna Elfman was surprised with a birthday cake the other night at a dinner and viewing party for the debut of her ABC series. Actually, the cake was premature - she turns 26 Tuesday, but Jenna certainly has every reason to celebrate these days. As does her leading man, the handsome Thomas Gibson. People keep saying ``D&G'' will be a stand-out hit - if it can maintain its quality. Well, they screened the second installment of the show at the bash hosted by movie mogul Mike Medavoy, and it's even funnier than the first - and we're told the scripts keep getting better.

The inside track

The very hot Aussie duo Savage Garden is laying plans for its first major tour in early '98. ``We'll start off in Australia, then come through the States in February/March,'' reports singer Darren Hayes. Hayes and his partner, Daniel Jones, have been in a whirlwind since the success of their first two singles in Australia (``I Want You'' and ``To the Moon and Back'') made them the center of a bidding war between Arista, EMI, Warner Bros. Records and Columbia Records, the label that ended up releasing their self-titled debut album.

Jones says that they already have been overwhelmed by the little taste of fame they got this past summer. ``In Singapore ... we got mobbed and pushed over into all these people. We picked ourselves up, ran out of the place and jumped into a van, and the van was getting rocked. It scares the hell out of you!''

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Photo

Photo: Computer-savvy ex-Prince stays in touch with his wife via laptop.