Black three-piece suit, bowler hat, detachable collar, violet tie is not the usual dress for a banana.

Second banana, to be exact — a role that Teaneck's Anthony Laciura has spent a lifetime perfecting. "For me personally, choosing to be the second best turned out to be the best," says the singer-actor.

MC 0530F FelaciuraRSTTop banana, in this case, is Steve Buscemi — star of the upcoming HBO series "Boardwalk Empire," the much-anticipated new show (it's set to debut in September) from executive director Martin Scorsese and "Sopranos" writer Terence Winter about the crooks, fixers and wheeler-dealers of 1920s Atlantic City.

"The senator seems to be in a good humor," says Laciura, his accent a courtly German.

"Go check on the room," says the laconic Buscemi, also in detachable collar and violet tie, set off with a red carnation.

"CUT!" says director Brian Kirk.

The most improbable prima donna of the year is a tenor named Anthony Laciura, who had the audience in the historic Dock Street Theatre here eating out of his hand this weekend. That accomplishment is particularly impressive because the hand had what looked like webbed fingers, and there were green spots-fungus? scales?-sprouting here and there on the skin.

Laciura, who is familiar to Washington audiences from his brilliant performances with the Washington Opera in "Monsieur Choufleuri" and "The Rake's Progress" in 1981, raised his career to new heights in the Spoleto Festival's opening performance of Jean Philippe Rameau's 1745 comic opera, "Plate'e," where he portrays the ugliest water nymph on earth, involved in a tragic love affair with Jupiter himself. …

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