01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, April 9, 2006

BY CHANNING GRAY
Journal Arts Writer

Ask a few questions about Dr. Lilith Sternin -- the humorless, domineering psychiatrist on the hit TV series Cheers -- and Bebe Neuwirth, who played the part, begins to bristle.

"Here it is 20 years later and I'm coming to do a concert in Providence, and we're still talking about Lilith," said the former Cheers star in a phone interview from her New York apartment. "I've tried very hard not to become typecast as Lilith, but this is evidence of the very thing we're talking about."

Actually, the questions about Dr. Frasier Crane's significant other were few and innocent. Was there some person Neuwirth drew on for the character of Lilith, and is there some of herself in the portrayal?

Neuwirth said the character was an amalgam of people she has met, and that the only similarities between herself and Lilith are "a shared phobia about dishonesty, and not always being comfortable in social situations."

"I've had reporters interview me for an hour and half about all sorts of things," she said, "and then the entire column will be about Cheers."

But on this recent morning, Neuwirth, 48, wants to talk about her concert with the Rhode Island Philharmonic at the Providence Performing Arts Center on Saturday, when she will be singing music of Kurt Weill and of John Kander and Fred Ebb of Cabaret and Chicago fame.

The concert is the season's last in the Philharmonic's new and expanded pops series that is aiming more at big-name talent.

Neuwirth said she'll be doing some well-known Weill songs, along with more obscure ones.

"There's a misperception that Weill is hard and angular and German. He was, of course, German. But I think there's a deep romantic feeling that's found in these songs.

"There's a remarkable feel for humanity and the human spirit."

Neuwirth said she'll be singing some songs from Chicago, some she sang in the Broadway production that won her a Tony, and some sung by other characters.

She said she doesn't like to separate the Weill from Kander and Ebb, both of whom were greatly influenced by Weill.

"They all go together emotionally," she said. "I like to place them next to one another."

If you have not guessed by now, Neuwirth is a woman of many talents -- dancer, singer, actor, who's done theater, films, television, cartoons and voiceovers.

"I've been very fortunate to have been able to do so many things," she said.

Fosse devotee

Neuwirth started performing as a dancer in Princeton, N.J., when she was just 7, and started doing musical theater when she was 14. She went to Juilliard for a year, majoring in dance, but became disillusioned with the program and left.

"The focus of the dance program made me very uncomfortable."

Not long after that, at age 19, she got her first job, landing a part of Sheila in A Chorus Line.

As a youngster, Neuwirth said she always dreamed of becoming a ballet dancer -- until she was 13 and saw Pippin.

"I saw Fosse's choreography and said, 'That's what I want to do. I want to dance on Broadway and do that guy's choreography.' "

Neuwirth won her first Tony for Sweet Charity in 1986. Two Emmys followed for her portrayal of Lilith on Cheers. Her second Tony, along with a slew of other awards, came with the 1997 Broadway production of Chicago.

More recently she co-starred in the short-lived Law and Order: Trial by Jury, which folded after a season. The ratings were good and the critics liked it. It was just "another one of those quirks of show business," she said.

"It was not a blow," said Neuwirth. "My first love is stage and theater. But there were 200 union jobs at stake in New York City. And I felt bad for others. I thought it was a shame, but I wasn't crushed."

One seamless act

Switching gears from acting to singing and dancing doesn't seem to faze Neuwirth.

"I don't actually separate acting from anything else. Performing is performing. There are technical differences, but it's all the same. It's living truthfully moment to moment under imaginary circumstances. And that can be ballet.

"If you do a concert, maybe you're not doing steps on stage, but it is filtered through a dancer's vehicle."

Neuwirth said she has had a lot of teachers along the way who "have not only taught me how to dance well, but taught me about artistic integrity. Those are the teachers I like to think I learned a thing or two from.

"I don't like to call what I do a career. That implies a certain amount of scheming and planning. I think of it more as a natural order of the way things happen. I make decisions on a case-by-case basis."

Neuwirth, who is single, seems a relatively private person. When asked about the importance of her award-winning appearance in Chicago, she said that she's had life-changing experiences in several shows, and that Chicago was one of them because of "deeply personal elements."

And what would those be?

"They're deeply personal, Mr. Reporter," said Neuwirth.

She was also reluctant to talk about her life outside show business, even though she said she had a lot of interests.

Neuwirth said she has yet to do any recording. But she did do a live Webcast on the TVLand cable network, and was surprised to find how many TV fanatics were interested in her accomplishments in theater.

Not everyone, it seems, wants to know about Lilith.

Bebe Neuwirth joins the Rhode Island Philharmonic and conductor Francisco Noya Saturday night at 8 at the Providence Performing Arts Center, 220 Weybosset St., Providence. Tickets range from $36 to $66. Call (401) 421-2787 or visit www.ppacri.org.

cgray@projo.com / (401) 277-7492