"I'm going to open the Tonys Awards show!" Angela Lansbury told me yesterday when I dropped by her apartment in Manhattan to conduct a video interview you'll soon see here. She wasn't sure if she was tattling something she should keep hush, so she kind of whispered it in a conspiratorial tone, then winked. But that's all she'd say. Except that the opening number has something to do with the Rockettes joining her at Radio City Music Hall.

Producers have announced other performers, "American Idol" champ Fantasia Barrino. But what will she do? Her show, "The Color Purple," was nominated last year, not now.

There will be numbers from the four nominees for best musical and the three currently running nominees for best revival of a musical: "Curtains," "Grey Gardens," "Mary Poppins," "Spring Awakening," "A Chorus Line," "Company," and "110 in the Shade." The fourth best revival nominee, "The Apple Tree," will not perform on the telecast, nor will the shows not nominated for best musical. Frankly, it outrageous unfair to exclude "Apple Tree," but the snub is a matter of economics. It's up to a show's producers to stage their musical number and to absorb the cost (upwards of $100,000), so there's no incentive to do so if the show is off the boards.

Tonycast producers aim to crank up the show's entertainment and starpower as much as possible to compete against that other Tony on the last night of "The Sopranos: EVER! (Oh, nooooo!)