We never spoke, but I liked Carl Gmoser and what he represented.

For three decades, Carl — who passed away Tuesday — was the patriarch of the first family of Asbury Summer Theater, a Tuckahoe institution for 32 years, until it closed down in 2007.

When his son, Andrew, took an interest in theater at age 17, Carl and his lovely wife, Lu, came along for the ride — and never left. Lu, who is a force of nature, was out front; Carl was the steadfast man behind the scenes.

John Orefice, who worked with AST and teaches at Pelham Memorial High School, said he was thinking of Carl all day today.

Alan Alda and Jon Voight have found success on screens big and small, but on Saturday the award-winning actors will be back where it began for them, at Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, to honor their drama teacher, Rev. Bernard McMahon.

“It’s important for me to give him a proper salute,” says Voight, a native of Yonkers who graduated from Stepinac in 1956 and won the Oscar for “Coming Home.”

“With any of my successes, there was a collaboration with the director,” Voight says. “And it goes back to the collaborative spirit that came from my work with Bernie. He’s as good as anyone I ever worked with. Because of his taste, his enthusiasm and his talent.”

Alda says McMahon “should be held up as a model for all teachers.”

I had written about this way back during audtions, but the show is closing in, so here’s the skinny on “Music of Hope” benefit, from a Little Fig Stage e-mail:

Westchester’s Little Fig Stage will present “The Music of Hope,” a benefit concert for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids on May 16 at 8 p.m. and May 17 at 3 p.m. Off-Broadway at The Players Theatre in Manhattan.

The first time he heard about Raoul Wallenberg, Laurence Holzman was teaching Hebrew school to sixth-graders in Riverdale in 2003.

“The Holocaust was the curriculum and there was a small section on righteous Gentiles in the textbook,” he recalls.

“It read: ‘In 1944, Raoul Wallenberg went to Budapest and saved over 100,000 Jews, more than were rescued by any other individual, organization or government during the entire war. And in Amsterdam, the Frank family….’

“I thought to myself, ‘If that first sentence is true, why do I — who went to Solomon Schechter and had a good, solid Jewish education — not know who we was?”

It may be forever known as the show with helicopter, but “Miss Saigon,” now on stage at Antrim Playhouse in Wesley Hills, is about love, loss, compassion and war’s impact.

In the hands of Antrim’s exceptional director, cast and crew, it is a stunning achievement.

Director Randy Accardi and 37 talented actors — fronting an orchestra of 11 — transport us to another time and place: to Saigon’s seedy Dreamland club in 1975, where the oily Engineer proffers girls to the GIs; to Atlanta in 1978, where one GI settles; to Bangkok that same year and a finale that drew tears in the opening-night crowd.

It’s hold on, “Dolly,” at White Plains Performing Arts Center.

Jack W. Batman, executive producer of the theater in downtown White Plains, said yesterday he is postponing the production of “Hello, Dolly!” he was to direct later this month.

“With the economy faltering and in my effort to be fiscally prudent, it is necessary to step back and re-evaluate our plans so that we may continue to produce the high-quality shows that our audiences have told me they want,” Batman said in a statement.

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Just received this announcement from WPPAC. They’re calling the demise of “Dolly” a “postponement” and are still planning a 2009-10 season, to be announced in late May.

Here’s the release, in full:

White Plains Performing Arts Center postpones “Hello, Dolly!” citing fiscal responsibility, announces June 1 fund-raiser.

White Plains, NY (April 20, 2009) – Jack W. Batman, Executive Producer of the White Plains Performing Arts Center, has announced the postponement of Hello, Dolly! scheduled to play April 30 – May 17, 2009, the theatre’s final production of its 2008-2009 season. The company, an Actors’ Equity Association LORT theatre, has produced seven major musicals since November 2007, most recently a highly praised production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s A Little Night Music starring Penny Fuller and Mark Jacoby.

They say that the guys in IT are always the first to know.

For two weeks, we’ve been hearing that the White Plains Performing Arts Center—a home for professional musicals in downtown White Plains—is going under. Some say they’ve fired their staff, others that they’re regrouping, others that the theater, next to the multiplex in the City Center mall, will reemerge in the mold of Nyack’s Riverspace Arts, a community performing arts center model.

But no confirmation came from Jack W. Batman, WPPAC’s executive director, nor from John Ioris, the head of the theater’s board.

OK, so it’s not even Easter yet, but the folks at Croton Teen Theatre are already thinking about their summer show, “Jesus Christ Superstar.”