HERE'S something that'll make the folks at "A Catered Affair" drive their taxi off a cliff: They missed out on the coveted Tony nomination for Best Musical by one measly little vote. "A Catered Affair" tied "Cry-Baby" on the first ballot. To break the tie, the nominators voted again - and "Cry-Baby" slipped in. There were 10 other ties as well, though none so dramatic as Best Musical. The next battle: Who gets to be on the telecast? There's a lot of talk that CBS will insist that "Young Frankenstein" and "The Little Mermaid" appear, since they're both famous titles. If so, you can bet the producers of "A Catered Affair" will demand to be included as well - or else they'll throw wedding cake at Les Moonves. ENOUGH about the Tonys. Let's take a look at the results of a far more significant contest. Last week, I asked readers to vote on who has the sexier biceps in "A Chorus Line": Mario "Flex" Lopez, who's playing Zach, or Nick Adams, who, as Zach's assistant, has been forced into a hoodie because Flex fears Adams' biceps will upstage his. I've combed through more than 100 e-mails, and this year's Mr. Broadway Biceps (sue me, Stewart Lane) is . . . Nick Adams! "Give the chorus boy a break," writes Jon Paul Buchmeyer. "If Mario had wanted to show off, he should have played Larry. But I suppose his 'Dancing With the Stars' training didn't really prepare him for the chorus line." Bitch. "It's Nick Adams, hands (or biceps) down," writes James. "You can mainly tell with the forearm and more natural curves to his arms. Mario is more a victim of gym pumping, where Nick has a more natural body form. And I'm a gay man, so I follow these things." Clearly. "Let Mario Lopez wear the hoodie!" writes Elvia Alicea. Flex is not without champions. Norma Lopez-Rodriguez says: "Mario 'Flex' Lopez has the bigger biceps along with the better good looks. Ask just about any woman about his physique and those dimples, and she will say he takes the cake - the beefcake that is!!!" Cold shower, Norma, cold shower. Several readers were appalled that Flex has swapped Zach's iconic costume - a long-sleeve sweater - for a short-sleeve shirt, which allows him to show off his muscles. " 'A Chorus Line' is an ensemble show, not a star vehicle for small-time TV and soap studs/starlets to parade their goods in front of an audience as if they were in a Broadway runway fashion show at Bryant Park," says C.L. Callahan. I'll give the final word to an expert: Ron Dennis, the original Richie ("Gimme de ball, gimme de ball") in "A Chorus Line." He writes: "Not any of the various Zachs during my two years and eight months with the show ever wore a short-sleeve shirt. Nor did the topic come up about biceps being revealed. It was always about the acting/dancing. "So put the sweater back on, Mario, and work to be a better dancer and director as Zach. The world can Google your muscles if we care to view them." GOOD causes: * Beth Fowler and Phil Bosco will read A.R. Gurney's "Love Letters" on Sunday as a benefit for the Bergen County Players in Oradell, NJ, now in its 75th year as a nonprofit, non-Equity theater. * "Pamela's First Musical," by Cy Coleman, Wendy Wasserstein and David Zippel, will be presented in concert form Sunday at 3 p.m. at Town Hall. The production is a benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Donna Murphy plays a glamorous Broadway sophisticate, and I'm putting in a cameo appearance as a cranky critic. Linda Mugleston is understudying both of us.

THE advantage of a show like "The Bully Pulpit," Michael O. Smith's entertaining solo portrait of Teddy Roosevelt, is that it provides an easily digestible history lesson for those who aren't up to reading entire biographies. Set in the 26th president's rustically decorated study in Sagamore Hill on his 60th birthday, this one-man show has Roosevelt nostalgically relating the story of his turbulent life. It covers all the bases, from his asthma-afflicted childhood, his military adventures with the Rough Riders, his meteoric political career and his many personal tragedies. With his generous girth, droopy moustache and wire-rimmed glasses, Smith bears a strong resemblance to his subject, and strongly conveys Roosevelt's blustery demeanor and dynamism. He can also crack a mean whip and shoot an arrow with impressive accuracy. His acting is more adept than his writing, which runs to cheap gags - a reference to "the idiot who now inhabits the White House" had the audience guffawing before it became clear he was talking about Woodrow Wilson - and excessive name dropping (Pershing, MacArthur and Buffalo Bill all crop up here). He also delivers a laundry list of Roosevelt's accomplishments, including the establishment of no fewer than 51 federal bird sanctuaries. The gimmick in which Roosevelt promises silver dollars to audience members who can guess the answers to various queries about his life gets tired awfully fast. Finally, like Broadway's "Thurgood" and other one-person shows too many to mention, it falls into a predictable structure that lulls as much as it enlightens. Nevertheless, Smith is capable of moving subtlety, as when Roosevelt quietly relates his sorrow on the day that both his wife and mother died. Despite its contrived qualities, "The Bully Pulpit" is effective, thanks to Smith's loving performance and Roosevelt's inherent fascination in an era filled with pandering politicos. THE BULLY PULPITBeckett Theatre, 410 W. 42nd St.; (212) 279-4200. Through June 29.

NEW York City Ballet's su persized Jerome Robbins Celebration offers 33 Rob bins ballets, from his first, 1944's "Fancy Free," to his last, "West Side Story Suite" in 1995. But the most important is the restoration of a masterpiece once thought lost, "Les Noces," which came somewhere in between, and was based on Stravinsky's cantata of a Russian peasant wedding. Robbins had wanted to stage the 1925 Stravinsky score for years before creating it for American Ballet Theater in 1965. But it was expensive to stage, as it demands a large choir, four singers and four onstage pianists. When, two months before he died, he finally got it into the repertory of his home company City Ballet, he mounted it to recorded music by a Russian folklorist group - minus choir, soloists, pianos and staging. It was as close to a disaster as you can get with a choreographic masterpiece. For this revival, City Ballet returned to the original ABT version, with its full musical complement, its fine Oliver Smith scenery and Patricia Zipprodt costumes, and the choreography has been completely realized and properly restored. It's a great job, and the dancers - so diffident in that feeble 1998 staging - now make Robbins' atavistic Russian primitivism vibrant with a fresh passion. Wednesday night's dancers - Kathryn Morgan and Adam Peiffer as bride and groom, and Andrew Veyette as a matchmaker - were outstanding. Most pieces in this massive celebration are familiar, but there are also some genuine rarities - the 1972 "Watermill" and the 1974 "Dybbuk" among them. They are knotty pieces, demanding concentration and a willingness to enter a special transcendental world not often gatewayed by dance. This is especially true of "Watermill." Here is a dreamscape of the senses, influenced by both Japanese Noh drama and the theatrical adventures in time and space by avant-gardist Robert Wilson, with a man slowly (and I do mean slowly) reviewing the past circumstances of his life, its loves and fears. The leading role was originally conceived for Edward Villella, and was here given with the same essential inner intensity by Danish guest artist Nikolaj Hubbe. "Dybbuk" is not so much a dreamscape as a literary puzzle. The story of S. Ansky's classic Yiddish play of lovers separated by death, and a lost soul taking over the spirit of a living body - like a succubus - is extremely complex. Robbins and Leonard Bernstein - in their last and most fraught collaboration - tried to express this story, making great use of symbols from the kabbalah, in a virtually abstract form. As storytelling, it's a total failure, but Robbins' ritualistic choreography and Bernstein's eerily dramatic music provide a kind of theatrical tapestry that haunts the senses while eluding ordinary description. The leading characters here were exquisitely taken by a gently virile Joaquin De Luz and, in a role debut, a beautifully poetic Janie Taylor.NEW YORK CITY BALLETNew York State Theater, Lincoln Center; (212) 870-5570. Through June 29.

CALL him the one that you want - again. Taylor Hicks, whose "Soul Patrol" fans propelled him to victory on the fifth season of "American Idol," slithers into "Grease" on June 6. He'll play the leather-clad crooner named Teen Angel in the critically reviled revival, which nevertheless netted a Tony nod this week alongside "South Pacific," "Gypsy" and "Sunday in the Park With George." The Birmingham, Ala., native is only the latest in a flood of "AI" refugees, both winners and runners-up, to wash up on Broadway, mostly in supporting roles - though Fantasia Barrino gave "The Color Purple" a new lease on life in her star turn as Celie. Clay Aiken recently wrapped up a three-month stint as the cowardly Sir Robin in "Spamalot." Hicks is set to play the role through Sept. 7.

GIVEN its track record - terrific revivals of "Chicago," "Wonderful Town," "The Apple Tree" and now "Gypsy," which just nabbed seven Tony nods - City Center's Encores! might want to change its name to Prelude!Or, as The Post's Clive Barnes concluded in his rapturous review this week of "No, No, Nanette": "Anyone for Broadway?"But Broadway, insist the folks at Encores! - which ended its 15th season Monday - is beside the point."It was never our intention to create product for the commercial theater, and it still isn't," says artistic director Jack Viertel."It's nice when it happens, but this is a way of giving audiences the chance to hear great scores from shows we thought wouldn't be revived."The entire Encores! production schedule is two weeks long, usually just four or five performances per show. To keep costs down, the actors remain "on book" - keeping their scripts with them on stage.But if the staging's sketchy, the orchestra is anything but. An Encores! show, with its less than $1 million budget, delivers 30-piece orchestras."I conducted 'Pajama Game' at the Roundabout with 12 musicians," says Encores! music director Rob Berman. "Unfortunately, that's the reality of the theater these days."One of the harsher realities of the City Center series is obstructed views in the 2,700-seat theater."The sightlines are terrible from the mezzanine on up," says Peter Lohr, a regular. "If no one leans in front of you, it's OK."Last summer, Encores! tried something new: Summer Stars, a longer-running production with full staging and costumes.Once the AC got fired up, the curtain rose on "Gypsy" - with the same cast and director now playing Broadway, down to the sock-puppet lamb.Next in the series is "Damn Yankees" starting July 5, with Sean Hayes, Jane Krakowski and Cheyenne Jackson."And next year, we don't get past 1947," Berman says, happily.Tony nodsHERE are the contenders in most of the major categories for the 62nd annual Tony Awards, announced yesterday:Best Play: "August: Osage County," "Rock 'n' Roll," "The Seafarer," "The 39 Steps."Best Musical: "Cry-Baby," "In the Heights," "Passing Strange," "Xanadu."Best Revival (Play): "Boeing-Boeing," "The Homecoming," "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," "Macbeth."Best Revival (Musical): "Grease," "Gypsy," "South Pacific," "Sunday in the Park With George."Best Actor in a Play: Ben Daniels ("Les Liaisons Dangereuses"), Laurence Fishburne ("Thurgood"), Mark Rylance ("Boeing-Boeing"), Rufus Sewell ("Rock 'n' Roll"), Patrick Stewart ("Macbeth").Best Actress in a Play: Eve Best ("The Homecoming"), Deanna Dunagan ("August: Osage County"), Kate Fleetwood ("Macbeth"), S. Epatha Merkerson ("Come Back, Little Sheba"), Amy Morton ("August: Osage County").Best Actor in a Musical: Daniel Evans ("Sunday in the Park With George"), Lin-Manuel Miranda ("In the Heights"), Stew ("Passing Strange"), Paulo Szot ("South Pacific"), Tom Wopat ("A Catered Affair").Best Actress in a Musical: Kerry Butler ("Xanadu"), Patti LuPone ("Gypsy"), Kelli O'Hara ("South Pacific"), Faith Prince ("A Catered Affair"), Jenna Russell ("Sunday in the Park With George").

THAT Mel Brooks and Disney got the back of the hand from the Tony nominators yesterday was no surprise. Given the contribution each has made to Broadway this season - Mel, the $450 ticket for "Young Frankenstein," Disney, "The Little Mermaid" - Tony humiliation seems fairly light punishment. But a snub for Harvey Fierstein, beloved Broadway personality and four-time Tony Award winner? That was the real shocker. The nominators appeared to go out of their way to ignore Fierstein's "A Catered Affair," about a working-class couple struggling to make ends meet while planning a fancy wedding for their daughter. The show only got three nominations, including two for leads Faith Prince and Tom Wopat. "Oh, those wacky Tony nominators - can you believe they didn't kiss me first?" Fierstein, who wrote the script and appears in the show, says, laughing. "You don't have to buy me dinner, but at least kiss me first!" The team behind "A Catered Affair" took the bad news in stride: After the nominations were announced, they repaired to Esca for a boozy lunch. Fierstein says his show hasn't had a money-losing week yet. "I believe we are touching people in a magical way, and we certainly don't regret the show we did. "Like I said, my a - - hurts a little, but I can still sit on my throne." The producers of "Cry-Baby," which was nominated for Best Musical, have some tough decisions to make. They stand no chance of winning but will be under tremendous pressure to target Tony voters with advertising. One source estimates they could end up shelling out $2 million on the way to the Tonys. Another nominated show that has no shot at winning - "Xanadu" - might still get a bump at the box office from an appearance on the Tonys. The musical's dopier than "No, No, Nanette," but for a couple of minutes on TV it should look like campy fun. The two shows that will duke it out for Best Musical are "In the Heights," an energetic but edgeless show that manages to make the barrio seem about as spicy as Bethesda, and "Passing Strange," the funky rock musical starring the appealing downtown rocker Stew. "Passing Strange" was a hit with the critics and is very popular with industry insiders. But it lacks one crucial thing most Tony Award-winning musicals have: an audience. The show is just not reaching the paying public. Its producers, the Shuberts, have yet to hit on the right marketing campaign. One attempt, which called the show "Passing Strange - The Stew Musical," prompted the following parlor game between a couple of Broadway wags: * "Fiddler on the Roof - The Jew Musical" * "Seussical - The Who Musical" * "Urinetown - The Loo Musical" Unless "Passing Strange" can gain some box-office momentum, it looks as if this year's Tony-winning new musical will be "In the Heights." The one thing that could trip it up is the arrogance of its producers - Jeffrey Seller and Kevin McCollum. They have a reputation for being cocky, and they ticked off a whole bunch of Tony voters a few years ago by pretending they were taking their show, "Avenue Q," on the road - when in fact they'd concluded a secret deal to sell it to Vegas. They should keep a low profile and let their appealing young star, Lin-Manuel Miranda, be the face of "In the Heights."

HALFWAY through "Sto ries by Heart," which opened last night, John Lithgow ("Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," TV's "3rdRock from the Sun") sits in an easy chair, puts on his reading glasses, opens a weathered book and begins to read the classic P.G. Wodehouse story "Uncle Fred Flits By." Oh no, you think: another boring reading. But after a minute or so, he whips off his glasses, stands and proceeds to deliver a virtuoso performance that lives up to the show's title. During his tour de force 40-minute performance of this comic literary gem, Lithgow becomes a gallery of characters, including, hilariously, a parrot. As memorable as his rendition is, it pales in comparison to the quietly powerful impact of what precedes it. First comes a touching description of his early years, when his grandmother imparted her love of reading. He then describes how, after his father was mired in a deep depression following a traumatic operation, he read him the Wodehouse story - after which his spirits immediately lifted. Lithgow and director Jack O'Brien infuse the proceedings with a wonderfully informal, intimate atmosphere. After striding down the aisle to the stage, he apologizes for subjecting us to a "tired old dramatic form, as tedious as it is narcissistic." He delivers the cellphone announcement himself, shutting off his own by way of demonstration. And for much of the opening monologue, the house lights stay on. By the time the evening is over, we feel as if we've shared in this talented actor's private life as well as his considerable comic talents. "Stories by Heart," which plays at the Newhouse when "The New Century" is dark, combines humor and poignancy to an uncommonly rich degree. JOHN LITHGOW: STORIES BY HEARTMitzi E. Newhouse Theater, 150 W. 65th St.; (212) 239-6200. Sundays and Mondays only through June 2.

THERE'S no better lesson in the triumph of style over substance than "No, No, Nanette." This last of the season's "Encores!" series has several things going for it, including the music by Vincent Youmans - a woefully underrated composer of simple melodic genius - and, to a lesser extent, the cute-near-camp lyrics by Irving Caesar and Otto Harbach. But the story of "No, No, Nanette" is not so much a no-no as a no-starter. This 1925 musical about the difficulties of a philanthropic Bible publisher who just wants to make everyone happy (particularly three young women with better statistics than morals) is about as flimsy as it gets before disappearing. This delightful Encores! show time-travels to the 1971 Burt Shevelove version. It's a black-and-white rotogravure '20s seen through a '70s lens, and it looks wonderful, with particular credit to Gregg Barnes' costumes, which epitomize the period. Director Walter Bobbie and his choreographer, Randy Skinner, have worked marvels. The large cast is also perfectly picked, from Rosie O'Donnell's lethargic vacuum-toting maid to the juveniles Mara Davi (the Nanette everyone says No to) and Shonn Wiley as her neatly pompous lover. Charles Kimbrough bumbles marvelously as a sweet geezer who gives Bible Belt a special ambiguity, while Sandy Duncan is simply terrific as his wife. Add Michael Berresse, a lawyer who taps his way through torts; his blues-singing wife, Beth Leavel; and Nancy Anderson, Jennifer Cody and Angel Reda as Three Graces no better than they ought to be, and you have one of the best Encores! casts ever. Anyone for Broadway? ENCORES! NO, NO, NANETTENew York City Center, 55th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues; (212) 581-1212. Final performance tonight.

CONSIDERING all it has pillaged from the London theater scene, The New Group must have racked up plenty of frequent-flier miles. Its latest import, "Rafta, Rafta . . . ," a major hit at the National Theatre and the winner of this year's Olivier Award for best new comedy, has made a smooth transition to off-Broadway. Loosely based on a 1963 comedy called "All in Good Time," Ayub Khan-Din's play depicts the comic repercussions following the wedding of a young Indian couple, Atul (Manish Dayal) and virginal bride Vina (Reshma Shetty), who begin married life in the groom's family's cramped home in a working-class British neighborhood. The couple's attempts at consummation are thwarted by the pesky interruptions of Atul's oblivious father (Ranjit Chowdhry) and his rascally brother (Satya Bhabha). Their frustration gets worse as Atul finds himself unable to perform for his increasingly frustrated bride. She confesses their problem to her mother (Sarita Choudhury), setting off a series of showdowns with virtually every member of their extended family. The playwright has an excellent feel for dynamics of family life and conflicts that can occur between generations of an immigrant community. Though the humor is at times overly broad, it's insightful, and characters never devolve into stereotype. Under the excellent direction of Scott Elliott, the large ensemble delivers winning performances. By the time the play ends, you're likely to feel you know the characters and genuinely like them. RAFTA, RAFTA . . .Acorn Theater, 410 W. 42nd St.; (212) 279-4200. Through June 21.

HAVE you ever opened up a "new and im proved" box of cornflakes only to discover that they tasted much the same as the unregenerated cornflakes of old? You will then recognize the feeling of mild disappointment provided by the season premiere of Tan Dun's "The First Emperor," again conducted by the composer, at the Met on Saturday night. Given its world premiere at the Met last year, with largely the same cast, including the wondrous Placido Domingo, with his still gleaming, burnished tenor, as the tyrant ruler who unified China in the third century BC, Tan Dun has here revised and shortened his score. To my ears' shame, they didn't really notice the differences. Yes, I was aware of a new aria for the emperor's wife (Susanne Mentzer) bewailing the death of her daughter. And some additions have been made to the major love scene between the emperor's daughter Yueyang (sung with a sweet passion by Sarah Coborn, replacing Elizabeth Futral who sang the world premiere) and her composer/lover Gao Jianli, a strong-voiced Paul Groves. Tan Dun says he has "aimed to make the story more cinematic, more sensual." Unfortunately, the opera is already too "cinematic" and its East/West kind of fusion-duality never attains any consistent voice, sensual or otherwise. With its epic-style staging by Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou, it still sounds like a film score. THE FIRST EMPERORMetropolitan Opera, Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center; (212) 362-6000. Performances through May 17.