Capeman and Pimpernel.

Mark Morris used to wear a T-shirt that proclaimed: "Fools Rush In and Get the Best Seats." Start rushing. This column usually doesn't make predictions about the success of forthcoming Broadway shows. What sounds like a wow in December can so easily turn into a flop by July. But now comes The Capeman, which opens at the Marquis Theatre January 8. The new Morris-Paul Simon musical sounds as if it could have the same success as Rent in capturing theatregoers' attention.

Morris's credentials for entering the Broadway fray consists of going to as many musicals as he could over the years. He says he went "partly as research and partly because I like to. I've been offered work on Broadway-bound shows before and haven't been very interested, or it's not been the right time." Paul Simon made the difference: "I love his music. Paul had seen some work of mine, asked to have a meeting, and proposed I choreograph The Capeman. He'd already been working on it for a long time. I agreed. I don't think I would've responded very well if I'd been `shopped' by a producer."

Based on the true story of Salvador Agron, who was convicted of slaying two teenage boys and was sentenced to death in the electric chair when he was only sixteen, Agron is played as a young man by Marc Anthony and as an adult by Ruben Blades. Ednita Nazario, the Puerto Rican-born pop singer portrays Esmeralda Agron, his mother. There's a cast of some forty singers and dancers and, says Morris, "The Capeman's not like anything else. It's the first big all-Latino show we've had. I mean, West Side Story wasn't really Latino."

From last January on, Morris was involved in a workshop version, first as the choreographer, and then, he says, "It came to be that I was directing, too." Even though he was busy developing the musical, working with Simon and Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, who collaborated on the book and lyrics, he's managed to join his company on tour now and again, traveling to London, Boston, and Berkeley.

After Capeman rehearsals proper began, Morris could stop working with a single piano accompaniment and begin to collaborate with several musicians--a couple of keyboards, guitars, and percussion--to capture the true Latino, salsa flavor of the score. "I've approached the project operatically; there's not much real spoken dialogue," he says. "It's nonstop music really--all of the staging, everything, is musicalized, whether they're actually dancing in it." As for favorite numbers, "the one I've been working on that day is the one that goes to my head. And there's a song that could very easily become a theme song. It's sung by the gang Agron belonged to called The Vampires." Coincidentally, an enduring Morris, One Charming Night, choreographed in 1985, was about a vampire and a girl; it embodies all the wonder, delicacy, technique, nuance, and sinister impact that such a subject requires. You can be sure Morris will bring that and more to The Capeman.

Robert Longbottom and Andrew Pelty are two relatively unknown choreographers who are making their debuts with Broadway musicals this season. Longbottom, who has worked on The Late Show with David Letterman, directed and choreographed Side Show, scheduled at press time to open at the Richard Rodgers Theatre last month. Pelty was originally cast in a small part in The Scarlet Pimpernel, opening at the Minskoff on November 9, but director Peter Hunt soon promoted him to choreographer after dismissing Walter Painter. Pimpernel, billed as "the new romantic comedy adventure," is based on a novel by Baroness Orczy that's had various theatrical lives, including a popular 1935 movie version featuring Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon.

Says Pelty, "Although I trained primarily as a dancer and actor I always wanted to fence, and took it up as a hobby. It led to my professional stage fencing debut in Cyrano--The Musical. I was doing a small part in Pimpernel and acting as fight captain when they gave me this chance." Although fighting is given precedence over dancing, Pelty says, "it's a show that moves, even if it doesn't conventionally dance, and I'm terribly pleased that Marine Jahan, who did the dancing for Jennifer Beals in the movie Flashdance, is with us, as it's opened up a few more choreographic possibilities." He's set minuets and gavottes and a big waltz number--something of an anachronism since the period is 1794 and social waltzing didn't come in till well after the French Revolution. He hopes nobody in the audience will shout, "Off with his head!"

Pimpernel also requires the services of fight director Rick Sordelet. He's one of a small band of fencing experts who can make even the klutziest actors look convincing when crossing swords. During an open rehearsal, Sordelet was supervising Terrence Mann, who plays the sinister Chauvelin, and Douglas Sills as Sir Percy (alias the Pimpernel) in sharp cut-and-thrust. Having staged hundreds of dramatic fights, including those for Beauty and the Beast, Sordelet says, "Dancing and fighting are first cousins; the same elements apply. I'm never surprised when a dancer picks up a weapon and does well because they understand their bodies and have kinesthetic memory. They're able to translate our fencing `language' to their `language' quickly. With actors it can be heavy going; but once you get them to go through the process that they understand--they have to learn the text first, know what they're saying; I call it physical dialogue--you can make it magical." With costume dramas gaining in popularity, they could say about Sordelet what they said about the Pimpernel: "They seek him here, they seek him there...."