InTheater asked the 19 company members of The Iceman Cometh to share their reflections on the play and Howard Davies' Broadway production.

1. Tim Pigott-Smith (Larry Slade): It has been a rare and hugely pleasurable experience doing Iceman. It's a great play, a great set, a great star, great costumes, great lighting, great music, great performances. As Larry says to Jimmy Tomorrow, "What more do you wantt?"

2. Robert Sean Leonard (Don Parritt): I never thought I'd get the chance to play this part in New York. I never thought there would be a producer crazy enough to put this play on in New York. Thank goodness for Manny Azenberg. And God help him.

3. Ed Dixon (Piet Wetjoen): It was a lucky break for me that I did the musical version of Cyrano on Broadway, since the entire production team was Dutch and had accidentally taught me the accent that I would need to play Piet Wetjoen. The night before my audition, I called Bill Van Dijk (Cyrano) in Amsterdam and had him give me a refresher course over the phone. I was working on Boston at the time and later found out that I was living next door to the building where Eugene O'Neill had died. To complete the coincidence, we rehearsed Iceman at the Neil Simon Theater, where I had played Baker in - you guessed it - Cyrano.

4. Patrick Godfrey (Cecil Lewis): Over a long time spent in the theater, there have been only two occasions when I've been involved in productions that I've felt have the capacity to really move people. The first was the RSC's Nicholas Nickleby (Broadway, 1980), and the other is The Iceman Cometh, another infinitely rewarding experience. It's also great for the complexion because we drink pints of water every performance.

5. Katie Finneran (Cora): It's a brilliant play. O'Neill gives every character a journey. But, if truth be told, the most exciting thing for me is being one of three women surrounded by 16 of the theatrical world's finest men. Oh, sweet heaven!

6. Dina Spybey (Pearl): It's wonderful to be part of this extremely talented ensemble. O'Neill has fully drawn 19 characters, each very specific, with a complete arc. Most playwrights these days never write for more than siz characters at most. This is an epic work, not a star vehicle.

7. Richard Riehle (Pat McGloin): You show up early for rehearsal - and you're not the only one. You look forward to coming to the theater every day for the chance to spend a little more time in this exciting environment, surrounded by all of these remarkable characters. An excellent example of the meaning of "ensemble" on every level: Wherever you look, on stage and off, and whenever you need it, you know you'll have all the support you could possibly hope for.

8. Skipp Sudduth (Chuck Morello): It is arguably the greatest ensemble drama ever written. I am now only beginning to understand the intensity of focus and concentration necessary to play it successfully. I was in the original London and Broadway casts of The Grapes of Wrath, so I know from great ensembles. This is a great ensemble, and had the potential become over the next 12 weeks one of the best ever to grace a stage.

9. Stephen Singer (Hugo): Early in the rehearsal process, we were working on the first act. Howard Davies was dealing with the parts of the act that did not involve me directly, but I had to remain at my table in the bar. Quite some time passed. Eventually, Howard apologised for leaving me unattended for so long a period of time. I said it was okay; I have to get used to it: Hugo sleeps on stage for about three-quarters of the play.

10. Catherine Kellner (Margie): Last summer, Robert Sean Leonard, Katie Finneran, and I were performing in You Never Can Tell at the Roundabout, and Kevin [Spacey] came to see it. He knew Robert and, as they stood talking intently after the show, I lurked by a nearby pillar and eavesdropped, occasionally sighing and rolling my eyeballs back so Robert would notice and introduce me. After an oddly long strech without even a twitch of acknowledgement from Bob, I moved closer and realized they were talking about The Iceman Cometh. They spoke of Manny Azenberg and how he had adored the show despite its lenght - "a nine-year-old would get hemorrhoids," I believe he had said - how hard Kevin was working to get it here, the Equity rules about limiting the number of original cast members. But it was coming! "God," I thought dreamily, "I wish I could be in that conversation; I wish I could be in that show." This is truly an honor, especially because I'm a New Yorker and have never been on Broadway. The cast is like a gang of long lost friends. It's so rare to trust every other person on stage with you so immediately. And Howard Davies has pushed us further with an expert's touch.

11. Kevin Spacey (Hickey): Just as Shakespeare is universal, this is a play everyone can identify with. That's the strenght of it. And it moves fast - at the end, I've never heard anyone [in the audience] say that they can believe four hours have gone by.

12. Clarke Peters (Joe Mott): The combination of O'Neill, Howard Davies, Kevin Spacey, and great British and American actors in one production has spurred me on to challenge my own pipe dreams... and don't think you, the reader, are free of them!

13. Jeff Weiss (Ed Mosher): Howard Davies, in a stroke of genius, invited Kevin Spacey to play Hickey. They brought over from the U.K. a team of brilliant actors and cast the ensemble with the best American bunch on the boards. How a deadbeat downtown doofus like myself got into this remains a mystery. Howard and Kevin are the sweetest, funniest, and smartest guys I ever hooked up with. Manny Azenberg, I love you.

14. Paul Giamatti (Jimmy Tomorrow): When we first blocked the play, all the hookers had a tendency to sit with Jimmy Tomorrow - so I knew it was a good part. Aside from that, iy has been an overwhelming pleasure. I've never worked with so mane brilliant folks.

15. Tony Danza (Rocky Pioggi): What can I say... on Broadway doing Eugene O'Neill. I wish my parents were still around. The company is amazing, and to work with them is an honor. And they ain't bad to go out for a drink, either.

16. James Hazeldine (Harry Hope): During the first run-through of Iceman at the Almeida in London, I watched the first 25 minutes of Act Two, which I am not in. I was enthralled! Moved to laughter and tears in turn, I said to myself, as actors sometimes do, "I would love to be in this." And then the realization: "I am." One of the most thrilling moments of my career.

17. Michael Emerson (Willie Oban): There are some plays that are such an immence undertaking, you know an attempt on them will be a milestone in your life. It means so much to me to make my Braodway debut in a huge, beautiful work like Iceman and to be directed by Howard Davies, who has the heart of the play so dead in his sights.

Steve Ryan (Moran, not pictured): Although I have the smallest speaking role in Iceman, I sat through almost every rehearsal because I also cover three major roles. Watching Howard Davies work with the actors new to the show, using all the good stuff they brought to the table and gently guiding them and shaping the scenes into what he knew had succeeded before - plus taking into consideration the needs and expectations of Kevin and the others from the London production - was great to see. He did a wonderful job.

Ned Van Zandt (Lieb, not pictured): You show up for rehearsals even when you're not called. It's that kind of show. Howard Davies is a director of such intelligence, wit, and economy. Everyone's special. People ask me, "What's Kevin Spacey like?" He's amazing. He's smart, generous, and very funny. We laugh a lot.

Before Kevin Spacey won an Oscar for The Usual Suspects, before he won a Tony for Lost in Yonkers, he was a working theater actor with a taste for the hard stuff: Ibsen's Ghosts, The Seagull, Long Day's Journey Into Night (as Jamie Tyrone, opposite Jack Lemmon). But Spacey never had his eye on the road that has proved to be a perfect fit, hardware salesman Theodore Hickman - known to the guys and gals at Harry Hope's saloon as Hickey - in The Iceman Cometh.

"I read it when I was a teen," Spacey says of Iceman, "around the time that I read a good deal of o'Neill's work, and I thought it was a mammoth play. It never struck me that I would ever do it. I'd always wanted to do Long Day's Journey, and when I got the opportunity in '86, I thought I might take a crack at A Moon for the Misbegotten some day; that's a beautiful play and a continuation of Jamie Tyrone's story. The reason this [Iceman production] happened was solely because I wanted to work with Howard Davies."

Staged first at London's Almeida Theatre last spring, the Davies / Spacey Iceman was a critical and a popular hit and went on to win Best Dierctor and Best Actor citations at Olivier Awards, Evening Standard Awards, and London Critic Circle Awards. In the Broadway mounting, co-produced by Spacey Emanuel Azenberg, fourteen new American actors join five London holdovers. "We've had a fantastic experience together," Spacey says of Davies, best known in New York for directing Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (with Kathleen Turner), and My Fair Lady (with Richard Chamberlain and Melissa Errico). "Howard cast the play beautifully in London, and he's cast it equally beautifully here." Speaking like the proud Broadway producer he now is, Spacey adds, "I'm incredibly pleased with this new company. The performances, I think, are staggering."

Spacey speaks softly, saving his distinctively seductive voice for the four-hour-plus Iceman marathon. "This play has an almost classical reputation," he notes. "People tend to imagine that it's going to be very stuffy or very heavy or very boring. But I think audiences have been surprised at how funny it is. The first act is some of the best comedy I've ever seen. I also think people are surprised at how fast it moves. It's a testament to the power of theatre that you can't get people to sit still for a two-hour movie, but you can get them to sit still for a four-hour play."

The lure of Iceman, in Spacey's view, is its universitality, as the characters ruminate on their hopes, disappointments, and pipe dreams. "It's a play about immigrants which is one reason we got the response we did in London," he says. "There isn't a character on that stage that you don't empathize with or identify with in some way. Despite the fact that it's set in America, it's really set in people's hearts."

The show's $100 top ticket price was instituted so that a generous block of $20 student tickets could be made available for each performance. "Because the show has a cast of 19 and we're in overtime every night, we've chosen to charge very high prices in the Orchestra solely to subsidize student seats," says Spacey. "We're fighting to make sure that the next generation has an opportunity to see this work. It's one thing to read a play, but it's entirely different experience to see a production like this." Spacey will join company members at several New York-area colleges to discuss Iceman in a program sponsored by Camp Broadway. "In London, we had many kids who had never seen a play before," he says. "To have this play be your first theatre experience lays a pretty good foundation."

Spacey growns ebullient when recalling his 1991 Tony win, for playing the charming gangster Louie in Lost in Yonkers. "I have great memories of that entire experience," he says. "I had admired Neil Simon for so long, and to work closely with him and with that company of actors [including fellow Tony winners Mercedes Ruehl and Irene Worth] was incredible. And, of course, it was produced by my pal Manny Azenberg, one of the last great gentleman producers of Broadway and my co-producer in this."

In spite of his film success in projects as varied as The Negotiator, L.A. Confidential, and A Bug's Life, Spacey remains passionately committed to the theatre and to norturing fresh voices. While rehearsing Iceman, he spent three weeks filming Hospitality Suite, "a fantastic script about three salesmen by a Chicago writer named Roger Rueff. I couldn't find the way to do it on stage, so we make a little film of it with Danny DeVito and young actor named Peter Facinelli. There are a number of plays of that type that I may do on stage or end up doing in another venue. I'm trying to do things that will challenge me and that I think will be interesting and challenging to the audience."

And the New York-based actor has never forgotten his roots. "All the things I did in the theatre for so many years were the very things that prepared me to have the success I've had in film," he says flatly. "Because of my experience on stage, I was ready understand how to create a performance and how to serve a writer in telling a story; what being a member of a company means. You don't get all of that anywhere but in the theatre. It's where I will always choose to be. It's where I belong."