ANGELA LANSBURY COMING BACK TO GREAT WHITE WAY

After an absence of more than two decades, Angela Lansbury will return to Broadway this season to co-star with Marian Seldes in "Deuce," a new play by Terrence McNally. The play concerns two retired tennis players (played by Lansbury and Seldes) who meet again at the U.S. Open. It will premiere May 6 at the Music Box Theatre, Jim Byk, a spokesman for the production, said Monday. Preview performances will begin sometime in April. Michael Blakemore, who directed such hits as "Benefactors," "Noises Off" and "Copenhagen," will direct. Additional casting as well as the show's design team will be announced. The 81-year-old Lansbury is a four-time Tony winner, having won Broadway's top honor for her work in "Mame," "Dear World," a revival of "Gypsy" and "Sweeney Todd." Her last Broadway appearance was in a short-lived revival of "Mame" in 1984. It was then that Lansbury, who has also appeared in such movie classics as "Gaslight," "The Harvey Girls" and "The Manchurian Candidate," went to television for a long run as Jessica Fletcher in the CBS mystery series, "Murder, She Wrote."