NEW MAN AT THE TOP FOR THE TONYS

Don Mischer’s driver’s license says he is 6-feet-4. He thinks he’s actually an inch shorter. And, he says, deadpan, “This show may take another inch off.”

He means Broadway’s annual Tony Awards ceremonies. In addition to a hefty number of nominations for British imports, this show marks the first time in 20 years that Alexander H. Cohen has not been at its helm.

The executive producer’s torch has been passed from Cohen to Mischer, chosen by the League of American Theatres and the American Theatre Wing to run the two-hour program, airing Sunday on CBS-TV.

“We felt it’s time to move on to other things,” explains Cohen, who had done Tony night all these years with his wife and colleague Hildy Parks. “They replaced us with a very good guy, and we wish them all the luck in the world,” he says.

Unlike Cohen, a veteran Broadway producer who has a musical called “Broadway’s Best” due in next spring, Mischer has never worked on what Damon Runyon used to call Rue Regret.

Although he always has been interested in theater and always takes in the season’s shows when here, “I am a television person,” Mischer says. “And that is one of the reasons I was concerned about taking on this job. We all thought a lot about it.”

He had another thing to think about. Although he worked in TV here for 10 years, he has been based in Los Angeles for the last eight years. Broadway’s inmates have been known to sneer at L.A. and visitors therefrom.

However, Mischer says, they haven’t done that to him. “I expected that, to hear, ‘Here comes the L.A. crew; the Tonys have gone Hollywood,’ ” he says, smiling. “But we’ve found none of that. We’ve been given a lot of support.”

Mischer does not arrive without portfolio. His credits, in addition to five Emmys and two Peabody awards, include eight “Kennedy Center Honors” specials and this year’s “Carnegie Hall: The Grand Reopening” for CBS.

He also has done other shows about Motown, Harlem’s Apollo Theater, Shirley MacLaine and, for PBS, two Mikhail Baryshnikov programs. His third Baryshnikov special is due next fall, when he also has a somewhat different offering airing on CBS--a special starring Willie Nelson.

As producer of this year’s Tony Awards show--his future involvement hasn’t been set--he will oversee a production hosted by Angela Lansbury, a four-time Tony winner now headlining CBS’ hit “Murder, She Wrote.”

(That series has guest-starred more than a few Broadway veterans--among them Len Cariou, who co-starred with Lansbury in “Sweeney Todd,” and Jerry Orbach, formerly of “42nd Street” and now star of a “Murder” spinoff coming to CBS next fall, “The Law and Harry McGraw.”)

Sunday’s black-tie ceremonies, from the Mark Hellinger Theatre, will include special Tonys to the legendary George Abbott, nearing his 100th birthday, and to Jackie Mason, the star of “The World According to Me.”

All 19 categories of winners will get their due on the air, Mischer says, and, as in past years, excerpts of the four shows nominated as best musical will appear.

There is a wee problem with one nominee. “Rags,” shredded by the critics last fall, closed after only four performances. But it will be represented, the producer vows.

He has no similar worries with the best-play nominees--”Broadway Bound,” “Coastal Disturbances,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Fences” and “Les Liaison Dangereuses.” All are alive and well, and, unlike recent years, this year’s Tony show will try to present excerpts of the dramatic nominees, Mischer says.

But that can be a tricky task, he notes. “It’s very easy to excerpt a musical number. But to do that with a drama is much harder. We’re struggling with how to make it meaningful to 50 million people who have no idea what the play is about.”

While the Tony Award telecast will air on the West Coast on a tape-delay basis (9 p.m., Channels 2 and 8), it will again be aired live on the East Coast, starting at 9 p.m. in New York. This will make things exciting in more than one way.

All the nominated shows still will do their Sunday matinees. They won’t “go dark” to get ready for that night’s salute by Broadway to Broadway.

That means that Mischer and his colleague David Goldberg will have to keep tabs on something like 120 Broadway performers, from stars to Gypsies, and get them to the awards church on time.

Mischer concedes that it may be a night of Tums as well as of theater.

“Our dress rehearsals will be minus all those people,” he says. “One of the fun things about doing this show is that you’re lucky to get through it once. But that’s what makes live television exciting--and sometimes devastating.”