Last fall, Lindy West and I went downtown to have lunch with Kathie Lee Gifford, who was working on her new musical Saving Aimee, about the exciting life of Hollywood evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. McPherson basically invented American mega-churches and high-profile preacher sex-scandal—Haggard, Swaggart, and the rest of the gang were made from her rib.

At the end of the afternoon's read-through/sing-through in a basement rehearsal room, Gifford asked the stage manager how long the first act had lasted. It had been long—way too long. "Ugh!" Gifford said and hustled through the door, pulling me behind her. "I need a glass of wine! Actually, if I'm being honest, I need a bottle!"

This afternoon, the 5th Avenue sent a press release announcing that Saving Aimee, now titled Scandalous: The Life and Trials of Aimee Semple McPherson, is going to Broadway. It will open at the Neil Simon Theater this October. David Armstrong, the artistic director of the 5th Ave, must be happy—he will be making his Broadway debut as its director. Goldy, our musical-theater critic, is not. His review of the Seattle production began like this:

Television celebrity Kathie Lee Gifford has been working for a decade on Saving Aimee, her tribute to megachurch pioneer Aimee Semple McPherson, but the result is an overlong, superficial disappointment—and it's hard to believe that even McPherson herself could've been any preachier.

My main association with Saving Aimee will always be that lunch Lindy and I had with Kathie Lee—I've never, ever seen Lindy West look so star-struck and shy—and how Ms. Gifford kept ordering bottles of wine for the table and making cracks about Lindy's cleavage:

"That's a lot of cleavage for this time of the afternoon," Gifford said in joking censoriousness. "Those things must weigh—what? Five, ten pounds each?" Lindy blushed.

Later, in the middle of a story about McPherson, Gifford abruptly turned to Lindy and asked, "Can you even buy a real brassiere?" Lindy blushed again. In the middle of yet another story about McPherson, Gifford turned to Lindy, hooked Lindy's shirt collar with her finger, stretched it out, peered into her cleavage like she was looking for something, and shouted "JIMMY HOFFA?!" so loudly that other diners turned to look.

For a born-again Christian, Kathie Lee Gifford is wonderfully lewd.

And Scandalous, Kathie Lee, and David Armstrong are headed to Broadway. The 5th Ave has produced 14 new musicals since 2002 and this will be the fifth to move to Broadway. And those five have won a combined 14 Tony Awards, including two for best musical (Memphis and Hairspray).

When it comes to Broadway, David Armstrong has a dowser's wand.