Meredith, Matthew at the Club

By Stephen M. Silverman

03/24/1998 at 12:00 AM EST

"The West Wing" star John Spencer and "The View" host Meredith Vieira served as emcees for the Manhattan Theatre Club's 30th anniversary Spring Gala in New York on Monday night, and there were several bright lights from Broadway around to participate. The Club, which has spawned two Great White Way hits this season alone ("A Class Act" and "The Tale of the Allergist's Wife'), is the only major American theater devoted solely to new works. And the evening gave Viera a new look. Wearing a clingy purple dress with a plunging neckline and thigh-high slit, she told the crowd, "After four years on 'The View,' people think I am a closet lesbian. But I am a closet thespian." PEOPLE asked Matthew Broderick, star of the superhit "The Producers," if he identifies with the timid accountant he plays in the show, Leo Bloom (who, like Linus in the "Peanuts" cartoon strip, clings to a security blanket). "Sure I do," said Broderick, 41, "Everybody . . . probably does and wishes they had a security blanket. I never had a security blanket, but if I thought of it I might have. I wasn't a blanket person. I sucked my thumb."