Tommy Tune Tunes Up in Long Beach : Stage: The seemingly ageless choreographer is starring in a ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ revival. Why? ‘Can you see me playing Tevye?’

Even from as close as third-row orchestra, Tommy Tune, decked out in an orange-red silk suit, bright as dawn, looks nowhere near his age.

A showman of many parts, Tune is at the Long Beach Terrace Theater rehearsing the lead male role of Albert Peterson, the rock ‘n’ roll singer’s manager in a revival of the 1960 hit musical “Bye Bye Birdie.” The show, co-starring Ann Reinking as Rosie, his Girl Friday, opens Saturday night and runs until May 26, first stop in a 15-city tour that winds up next January.

Whether leading a pack of forlorn teen-age girls who are about to lose their idol Conrad Birdie--an Elvis Presley alter ego--to the United States Army, or ensconced on a trolley of valises, long, long legs stretched over rows of luggage, Tune looks about as old as the musical itself.

Certainly not 52--though he may well be to musical theater what Nolan Ryan, another Texan, is to pitching. To stay in tune, the dancer does yoga daily and also takes ballet.

Yet dancer/director/choreographer Tune, who came to Broadway ready to dance just about the time that “Bye Bye Birdie” was leaving it, has been an integral part of musical theater ever since. The winner of seven Tony Awards, he’s the only person who’s won in four categories: best featured (or supporting) actor in a musical (“Seesaw”); best actor in a musical (“My One and Only”); choreographer (“A Day in Hollywood/A Night at the Ukraine,” “My One and Only,” “Grand Hotel”), and best director of a musical (“Nine;” “Grand Hotel”). (“Grand Hotel,” now on national tour, opens at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood on June 7.)

Taking a break from rehearsals late Tuesday afternoon, Tune was bubbling with delight over the new Tony nominations he picked up on Monday: for best choreographer and best musical director for “The Will Rogers Follies.”

But why “Bye Bye Birdie” and why now?

“Well, can you see me playing Tevye?” Tune says with a laugh. The producers of this national tour, Barry and Fran Weissler, also were behind the current revivals of “Fiddler on the Roof” with Topol and “Gypsy” with Tyne Daly.

“Name another show,” he challenges. “I’m very hard to cast. Well look at me. I’m 6-foot-6 1/2, and I’m a song-and-dance man, which is an anachronism in this day and age. And how many parts are there? ‘My One and Only’ was written for me, so that was ideal, and there’s another show being written for me now.”

But don’t ask Tune to provide details. He not “coy” or “secretive”--just “superstitious about things coming up. Because when you talk about them, sometimes it colors them.”

“ ‘Fair Lady.’ With my accent?” he drawls. “I guess I could learn a proper English accent. I think there are other actors that could do better and Prof. Henry Higgins is not a dance role. And I’m always looking for a dance role because the audiences want to see me dance, and of course I love to dance. You have to think about expectations. . . . How would you cast me? I would like to play ‘The Music Man’; I could be a bit older.”

Close up, Tune looks 40ish. He says he has a headache. “When I’m working so hard, I forget to eat.” A bag of nuts seems to revive him.

As for “Birdie”--music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Lee Adams, book by Michael Stewart--Tune calls it “a perfect example of musical comedy from the golden age. My idea of a perfect balance of a musical comedy is one-third comedy, one-third song and one-third dance, and that’s almost the way this show is divided up.”

The “Birdie” revival essentially began last summer when Muni Opera of St. Louis asked Tune to do the show for a week’s run.

He asked for Reinking as co-star and the Weisslers came to see the production, and liked the idea of a national tour.

“I said, ‘What we need is really the best comedy director that we can find, someone like Gene Saks,” Tune recalls. “Then I went, ‘Wait a minute; why not Gene Saks?’ ”

“If you wait too long (a revival) doesn’t speak at all because no one can remember it,” Tune said, “and if it’s not long enough, it just appears dated. But this is just the right amount of time to let us nostalgically look back at a more innocent time and wish in a way that it were still that way. Then, of course, there’s the Elvis Presley phenomenon that is with us and probably will always be with us so that keeps it in our consciousness.

“Everything that comes up is a good song. A really super score. I love ‘Put on a Happy Face.’ ‘I’ve Got a Lot of Livin’ to Do” is a terrific song. ‘Kids’ is great fun, and then I just love doing the last number with Annie--it’s called ‘Rosie.’ ”

Strouse and Adams have also come up with a new song for Tune’s character called “A Giant Step,” when he tells his mother to go home.

Asked why it’s important to return to a musical set in the seemingly more innocent Eisenhower era of “Bye Bye Birdie,” Tune balks:

“Well I’m not sure it’s important. Such a big word for fun. For what other reason does the musical comedy exist? In my estimation for fun, to lift spirits . . . I don’t think it’s important unless you think having a good time is important. . . . There’s a fresh breezy American feeling to ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ that I like a lot, that’s sort of celebratory when we’re feeling good about being American.”

And yes, he did help design the curtain for this production-- a triple set of B’s done up like the stars and stripes.

Though choreographer Ed Kresley was in the original “Birdie” cast of teens and practically knows the steps by heart, Tune liberally offers ideas. He also gives suggestions to Saks, but it’s clear he knows who’s boss. He appears to enjoy giving up the reins.

“The nice thing about performing in a show is you’re just one of the dots. Say if it’s a pointillist painting. You’re one of the dots and you’re responsible for making your dot shine. You don’t have to worry about the whole canvas.”

Eventually he’ll return to choreographing and directing. Each of his roles, he says, informs the other. And where does he get ideas, inspiration?

“Mostly nature,” Tune says. “You know birds flying over are still the best choreography I’ve ever seen. Well look at that,” he says glancing out the floor-to-ceiling lobby windows. “That’s choreography of the highest level. We can only do poor imitations. . . .”

For Tune, “Birdie,” like “Will Rogers Follies” is the light that balances the dark of a show like “Grand Hotel” whose theme, after all, involves “that urge to live in the face of death.” The character of the dying bookkeeper, Tune says, “seems to speak to the audience the most. And I’m not sure that’s that far away from the terrible diseases that we have on this planet--be it cancer or MS or AIDS.”

Here is a man, after all, who says in a current Vanity Fair profile--”I lost more people in the ‘80s than people do in a lifetime.”

“And the list was just a tiny little list (the article) mentioned. I have lost so many people,” Tune says. “ Young people. Young, talented, caring, giving people contributing to our society-- gone. . . . “