FIRST OFF . . .

“Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies” will become the first American-Soviet co-production of a Broadway musical, officials have announced. A new, $5-million production of the 1981 Ellington revue opens Oct. 1 in Moscow for two weeks, and then will tour Asia, Europe and North and South America. “Ellington’s music is very popular and very familiar to our audiences,” Eugene Tomach, director of the Soyuzteater organization in Moscow, said at a news conference. The Americans provide cast, director, choreographer, staff and crew. A Soviet fashion designer will create costumes. Sets will be designed by a Paris-based artist and constructed in Tbilisi in the Soviet Union. Mercer Ellington, who now leads the Ellington Band, helped choose 16 Soviet musicians for the show’s 20-piece orchestra. The cast will include tap dancers Hinton Battle and Gregg Burge from the original Broadway cast and Donna Wood, a former dancer in the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater--and one Soviet dancer who’s being trained for the show.