The dame's key player.

Piano man Mark Nadler is honing his own cabaret comedy by keeping one eye on Broadway's Dame Edna

From his perch at a white baby grand piano, the tuxedoed Mark Nadler has the best seat on Broadway this season--as the accompanist for Dame Edna: The Royal Tour. When not pounding out ditties for the dame, Nadler gets a kick out of watching the audience's response to Australian actor Barry Humphries's flamboyant character. "They're like a little zoo out there, like little monkeys in a cage," Nadler says, laughing. "Or maybe I'm the monkey, and they're watching me!"

Nadler certainly monkeys around in his solo act, which he'll bring back to New York City's world-famous Sardi's restaurant two nights a week beginning in February (after a three-month run there in the fall). His performance actually plays like a party: Outfitted in a tux and high-top-sneaker tap shoes, Nadler is the high-energy host, leaving the piano to bounce from table to table and belt out show tunes, pastiche numbers, and requests--all while knocking back martinis with the diners. It's a show he's taken to the country's top-ranked cabaret rooms, including New York's Oak Room and Los Angeles's Cinegrill, and he's won three Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs Awards.

His teaming with Humphries, which began in November, has been a boon to his own creativity, Nadler says: "I'm learning vast amounts about the science of comedy" by watching his cohort's outrageous improvisational repartee with the audience. "You don't even think of [Stephen] Sondheim laughing, let alone slapping his thighs," Nadler says, recalling one night at Dame Edna. "But I saw him, slap-ping-his-thighs! I thought, Boy, if this show can make Stephen Sondheim lose bladder control, there's just no chance it's not funny."

Offstage, Nadler's world has been just as off-kilter. Recently, he says, after he had two dates with a prospective boyfriend, "the guy came to me and told that he is, in fact, pre-op. Said he's taking hormones, is about to have a sex change, and I wondered, Was it something I did?" He laughs. "Then I went to work ... and watched a straight man walk around in a dress, heels, and a purple wig. And thought, Th/s is it--my life is absolutely being directed by Fellini."