An ebullient Paul Gamble, managing director of Arlington, Virginia's Signature Theatre, where the musical The Fix is now receiving its American premiere, told Playbill On-line that the show is being eyed for New York. Then again, it might travel to Chicago or Los Angeles first. Either way, however, Gamble feels certain the musical has a future.

"It will probably get up to New York," said Gamble, "but I wouldn't be surprised if it went somewhere else first." Gamble said potential producers from all over the world had been taking in the show, and that discussions concerning the production's next stop were ongoing, though there are no concrete plans as of yet. Lately, Gamble has been speaking to the heads of various League of Resident Theatres (LORT) companies. LORT's upcoming national conference arrives in Washington, D.C., in early May, and he hopes he can convince a few of the theatres to attend The Fix while they're in the neighborhood.

Gamble also said that he'd been in contact with New York's Roundabout Theatre Company (a LORT theatre). In fact, when the Roundabout-bound Burt Bachrach-Hal David revue What the World Needs Now recently collapsed out of town, he thought he saw an opening for The Fix. But it wasn't to be; CSC's Side Man has filled the slot instead.

The Dana P. Rowe-John Dempsey musical received its London premiere in spring 1997 at the Donmar Warehouse, under the direction of Sam Mendes. Cameron Mackintosh, who was a producer of that staging and controls the rights to the show, has a hand in the Signature mounting. Gamble said that, since that incarnation, the musical -- about the rise and fall of an American politician -- has added five new songs and the book has been substantially changed.

For information on the Signature run, call (703) 820-9771. -- By Robert Simonson