Chatted with Helen Hunt recently for an interview centering around her new movie "Then She Found Me." Didn't get to meet in person (@#$!^ publicists), but an interview's an interview.

Who among us doesn't think that Helen Hunt is cool? From a stage lovers POV alone, the woman wins an Oscar, goes backstage and, holding her trophy, announces she'll play Viola in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" for director Nicholas Hytner at Lincoln Center with a bunch of other theater hounds.

That was back in _ whew! _ 1998? My time doth fly.

"It wasn't like I was doing 'Twelfth Night' in some obscure place. I grew up going to the theater in New York," Hunt, the daughter of director Gordon Hunt told me. "For me it was as exciting to play that part in that place and that city. I heard somebody say there was great nobility in choosing to do a play. For me, I felt like I was cashing in this momentary set of chips while I had them to do what I really wanted to do."

Hunt returned to Broadway a few years later for a quickie run of Yasmina Reza's "Life (x) 3." In the summer 2002, she also kicked off the L.A. run of "The Guys" opposite Tim Robbins at The Actors Gang. More like a staged reading, but, briefly, she was back on the boards here in L.A.

Now a devoted mom to a 4 year old daughter, Hunt doesn't see a lot of stage-work in her immediate future. She was offered a role in a Broadway production last year and turned it down.

"The whole time I read it, I was nervous, and in the end it didn't feel like the right thing," says Hunt, who took three years off from film to write and be home with her daughter. "I didn't feel scared I would want to do it. I don't like not being home. I don't feel comfortable. I'm envious of those actresses who can just say, 'Here we go. It will work out,' and I don't mean that in a roundabout way."

"I know mothers who are good friends of mine who have mostly stayed home, and they don't walk around feeling sure they did right thing. It's important to me to feel happy and fulfilled enough to never cross that line."

My favorite Helen Hunt story -- with which I will bore you readers _ is actually a skipped generation Henerson encounter that happened during the summer of 2002 while Hunt was in the run of "The Guys." As it happened, Hunt was living one street over from where my parents lived in the San Fernando Valley. Her house had a cool sort of bridge walkway that my son, Jeremy, then 3 years old, found interesting.

Well, one afternoon, Jeremy and his grandfather took a walk on that street and paused in front of H.H.'s house. The actress herself came out to see what was going on. My father asked if she would mind if my kid walked across the bridge of her house a few times.

"Go for it," was Ms. Hunt's, I thought, quite gracious response.

When that tale was related to me, I vowed to thank Helen Hunt if I ever interviewed her. Which I did, and which I did.

The Reprise Theatre Co.'s 2008-09 season has been announced and, for his first programming duties as artistic director, Jason Alexander has an interesting slate.

When I interviewed Alexander a few months back, I asked whether he would be acting any of his company's productions. "When appropriate" was his reply in a nutshell (When appropriate, the former "Seinfeld"-ian also directs. "You probably won't be seeing my Don Quixote anytime soon."

We might, however, see his Sancho Panza when "Man of La Mancha" bows Feb. 17, 2009 at the Freud Playhouse, UCLA. I sometimes scratched my head when Reprise! (as it was formerly called) would stage musicals that were anything but undiscovered gems like "Brigadoon" or "Anything Goes." "Man of La Mancha," the musical Don Quixote tale by Dale Wasserman, Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion with the song "The Impossible Dream," can get a little ubiquitous (A Noise Within did a great scaled down version last season), but it's nothing if not a trusty warhorse.

"Once on this Island," on the other hand, is a horse of a different stripe. The season opener (yes, we frequently take things out of order here at TCiC), is a reggae and calypso fused "Little Mermaid" tale about a West Indies village girl who saves the life of a Prince. Music and lyrics are by "Ragtime's" Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. Sept. 2-14 at the Freud.

Billy Porter will direct, Bradley "Shooz" Rapier of the Groovaloos will choreograph and -- aren't they optimistic -- Reprise has even announced partial casting: Yvette Cason, Vanita Harbour, Patina Miller, Jesse Nager, Leslie Odom Jr., Nita Whitaker and 2008 Grammy nominee Ledisi.

Alexander will act in "I Love my Wife" along with Vicki Lewis and Steven Weber for director Larry Moss. The Michael Lewis and Cy Coleman piece is set amidst the sexual revolution of the 1970s. Dec. 2-14 at, not the Freud, but the Brentwood Theatre on the V.A. grounds.

And more than a year from now (May 5-17), the company wraps the season with "Chess." With music by the ABBA B's (Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus) and lyrics by Tim Rice, "Chess" was a London hit and a Broadway flop. It's a Cold War love story between a Russian chess master and an American woman, set amidst a series of chess tournaments. Remember "One Night in Bangkok?" Yeah, from that musical.

More info: www.reprise.org