PHILEMON, which ran only briefly at our experimental workshop PORTFOLIO as part of a series of musical experiments we were undertaking, nevertheless managed to create quite a stir.  The notices were uniformly good (very rare for us).  It won an Outer Critics Circle Award as best musical and Dick Latessa won the Obie as best actor in a musical. Many of our heroes, including Hal Prince and Stephen Sondheim and Comden and Green and Sheldon Harnick, came to see the show.  Norman Lloyd, the esteemed actor and director, who was currently heading the Hollywood Television Theater, came to see it and asked if he could produce PHILEMON for his series, and we agreed.  He was to be the television director, but he wanted to do the show just as it was presented at Portfolio: same cast, same musicians, same set and costumes, and the exact same staging.  The result was what you will view tonight.  It is PHILEMON as created and presented at PORTFOLIO.  But not quite.  One of the guiding principles for our "new theatre" experiment was to exploit and celebrate the joint creation by audience and actors during a live performance.  - - Peter Brook has long been an inspiration to me.  Just this week in the Times, he gave a wonderful interview where he said:  "Nobody believes that the actor is really the person he is portraying.  That is the fascinating thing.  You have the actor and you have the role.  There is this space between them.  How the two come together and merge is where the magic lies."  I would say the same is true about the audience and the actors.  How the two come together and merge is where the magic lies.  So - do your best to imagine that this is a live performance and you are helping to create it with your own imagination.