Mickie Jo (0:00)

Curtain up. Light the ring. Lights. Sing out. Six time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald. Oh my God. Hey. Welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. My name is Mickie Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am a professional theatre critic and pundit and content creator here on social media and welcome to my theatre themed YouTube channel. If you are meeting me for the first time, I go and see an awful lot of theatre. I review theatre here on social media and I also talk about theatre news, which is exactly what we're going to be doing today because there is huge Broadway news straight out of New York that dropped yesterday. And if I'm being completely honest, this has been rumoured for a little while and I kind of knew that this was coming. But it has now been confirmed that the Majestic Theatre on Broadway will reopen post renovations with a big new revival of Gypsy starring six time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald. Chances are, if you've clicked on this video, you already know how significant that is. But I'm going to explain it to you today as well as everything else that we may be able to speculate about this particular revival and everything else that makes it exciting that we don't know about yet. For example, additional casting. Also like the creative approach to this revival and what's going to make it different from previous revivals. We're going to talk about how long it's been since Gypsy has been on Broadway because people were saying it kind of feels like it was quite recent even though it super wasn't. There is much to discuss and we're going to talk about all of it here today. As always, I am so intrigued to hear what you think. Are you excited about Audra McDonald starring in Gypsy or are you? Incorrect comment down below. With all of your thoughts about this upcoming revival and if you enjoyed today's video, make sure to subscribe. Subscribe to my theater themed YouTube channel for more theater news, more reviews, more reviews of Broadway shows from my recent trip. And if you want to know what I think of all of the other theater news happening in the West End and on Broadway, then you can go and find me on other social media platforms as well like x Instagram and TikTok. But for now, let's talk about why Audra McDonald doing Gypsy just became the hot ticket of the next Broadway season. So some background to all of this then. Gypsy is a golden age musical fable with music by Julie Stein, a book by Arthur Lawrence and lyrics by a young Stephen Sondheim. The show is based on the memoirs of the historical burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee, and predominantly on her relationship with her mother, Madame Rose, whose depiction in both the memoirs and the musical adaptations sort of typifies her as the quintessential show business mother. The original stage mom in the show, Rose spends years pushing for stage success in the vaudeville scene for her two daughters, Louise and June. June, being the more conventionally talented, is consist the focal point of their acts, while Louise is sort of unhappily in the background. And the show is about many things, but principally about how this determination really consumes Rose and prevents her from being able to see what it is that would make her be the man who comes into her life happy, what would make her daughters happy and really everyone around her, because she is so committed to this dream and her dream that she can't really separate from the dreams and aspirations of the other people in her life and in her family. This is made clear to us through various turning points in the show where Rose is forced to reevaluate what is going to be possible and comes to various sort of increasingly harrowing decisions about that. Now, if you don't know the show Gypsy, there's a good chance that you may know some of its music. Songs like Everything's Coming Up Roses and Roses Turn, which have been parodied and performed, you know, all over the place. Family Guy, in, like, one of its earliest seasons, did a parody of Everything's Coming Up Roses that Peter Griffin sang about his daughter Meg. Kurt, of course, Chris Colfer performed Rose's turn on Glee shamefully. That is where I first heard the song and how I think I discovered Gypsy. I think Glee was the gateway drug by which I found Gypsy. Don't judge me. I'm in my 20s. Recently, that has also been a trending sound on TikTok. That little snippet that's like, all that work and what did it get me? Why did I do it? The other important detail to know about this show is that it has always been an enormous star vehicle for the actress playing Rose. That began with the show's original star, Ethel Merman. It was subsequently adapted for film with Rosalind Russell playing the role. And interestingly enough, it has been a Broadway fixture. We have never gone more than about a decade and a half without having a major revival of Gypsy. So we first saw it on Broadway in 1959 with Ethel Merman. A subsequent national tour of that production, interestingly enough, featured a young Bernadette Peters in the ensemble understudying the role of Dainty June the show would come back to Broadway in the mid mid 70s when the original West End production starring Angela Lansbury came back over, crossed back over the Atlantic and then returned to Broadway following a US national tour. Now, Angela Lansbury won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a musical for her performance as Rose. And although we nearly make it out of the 80s without having a Gypsy revival, another one comes to Broadway in 1989 starring Tyne Daly, who also wins the Tony Award. Ethel Merman, fascinatingly, did not. Now, it is quite interesting to look at the timeline because all of these revivals are taking place almost exactly 14, 15 years apart. And that's the same time jump before we get our next revival in 2003 starring Bernadette Peters. She also, though nominated, does not win the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a musical. But it is, I guess, a very satisfying full circle moment in her career, having performed in the national tour of Gypsy as a young actress. And she is remembered within the mythology of Gypsy as bringing a different interpretation to the role because it doesn't really fit in with her wider body of work. Since then, she's done hello Dolly, which, you know, kind of moves in that same direction. But previously to that, that, you know.in Sunday in the park with George and Tell me on a Sunday and I guess Annie get your gun again, more in that direction. But because of the next revival I'm going to tell you about that happened quite soon afterwards in the late 2000s, there is definitely a comparison that sees Bernadette Peters Rose as the more vulnerable and the more soft. Not a bad thing, in my opinion, just different. That will become relevant later in this conversation. Stay tuned. Now, it was only five years later in 2008, that Arthur Lawrence himself would direct another revival of Gypsy, which I believe started its life as an encores presentation. And from what I've heard, there was some speculation about a little bit of coercion that had to happen behind the scenes to allow it to happen with this particular star. Because this production starred Patti LuPone. And having not been paying much attention at the time because I was 13 years old, I think perhaps much of the sheer speed of this revival's return to Broadway after the previous one had to do with what a slam dunk Patti LuPone's casting was as Rose. Like that makes so much sense with, you know, not only her talents and abilities as a performer, but also her personal brand, I guess. And sure enough, she won the Tony Award for her performance. Laura Benanti also won the Tony Award. Boyd Games also won the Tony Award, I think, for playing Herbie. And despite all of this success, Patti is perhaps best remembered for an incident that took place when she perceived that someone was taking pictures during the performance. This, ironically, was audio recorded and has been listened to many times on YouTube just by me, as she interrupts her own performance to lambast that audience member saying, stop taking pictures. And in doing so, she kind of became the face and the name of a phone and camera etiquette while in the theater. But that was the last time it was revived on Broadway. A major production since took place in the west end in 2015, I believe, with Imelda Staunton playing Rose the first time I saw the show live. And from what I remember at the time, there were rumors about the possibility of this going to Broadway. Perhaps it was too soon. Even though, you know, there were only five years in between Bernadette's Gypsy Revival and Patti LuPone's Gypsy Revival. And this would have been seven years Broadway was starting maybe to get a little bit of Gypsy fatigue. Oh, my God. Hey, I'm editing the video you're watching right now. And I have come back here to offer a clarification. By a matter of months, this is actually the longest that Gypsy has been away from Broadway since it originally premiered. You're welcome. That last major revival closed at the beginning of 2009. It is now 2024. Fifteen years later, that magic number, another Gypsy revival is heading to Broadway and it's going to be at the Majestic, which is interesting. Interesting because during the last three revivals of Gypsy on Broadway, which is a fascinating and hilarious way to measure time, the Majestic Theatre has been occupied by one long running tenant, the Phantom of the Opera. This, for a long time, was Broadway's longest running show. Not just musical, but show entirely. It closed momentously in April of last year. The Shubert organization that immediately started renovations on the Majestic Theatre, understandably, you know, Phantomhood been in there for a really long time. It needed to be updated. But there was a lot of rumor and speculation, as there often is, about what would reopen that theater. And one of the leading rumors was that Phantom was just going to come back. Very possibly that arose because of what happened in London when Phantom was closed down in the West End so that they could completely redevelop the staging of the thing to make it more modern, more practical, get rid of some of the more outdated literal staging practices. And then they brought back in a sort of condensed, streamlined version of Phantom. So there was a suspicion that that was what was going to happen on Broadway. But now we know that is not the case because Gypsy is reopening the Majestic, which I think is exciting in and of itself. Another Broadway renovation meanwhile, has just finished. The Palace Theatre has just reopened. Ben Platt is currently performing a concert residency there and it's going to have its first full musical production with Tammy Faye later this year. The theatre looks gorgeous. I haven't been inside, but I have seen pictures of the auditorium and I can only hope that the Majestic is going to be similarly stunning when that reopens with Gypsy. But now let's talk about the other factor of all this. It's not just Gypsy coming back to Broadway. It's Audra McDonald starring in Gypsy, which is interesting and exciting for a host of reasons. So now let's talk about Audra. Audra McDonald is a six time Tony Award winning actress largely known for musical theater. You know, she's made forays into television and she's done straight plays as well. Like among those Tony Award wins, she has won in every single acting category there is for an actress. She has won for leading actress in a musical, supporting actress in a musical, leading actress in a play and supporting actress in a play. But she's definitely more closely associated with musicals because of the sublime voice that she has. In fact, two of the plays she starred in on Broadway, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, which was one of her Tony Award wins and masterclass. She sang extensively in both of those roles. Now Audra first emerged onto the Broadway scene with her Tony Award wins performance as Carrie Pipperidge in a revival of carousel in the mid-90s. Subsequently, she didn't do as many revival roles she was in the original Broadway production of Ragtime hello. This won her another Tony Award in the same category she'd been in Masterclass. Like I said. Her other dramatic roles would include A Raisin in the sun, another Tony Award win, Ohio State Murders, very recently her most recent Tony nomination back in 2023. Also Lady Day, also Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. And her other musical roles would include Marie, Christine, 110 in the shade and the Gershwin's Porgy and Bess as well as this. She was doing Rodgers and Hammerstein and she was doing a lot of Sondheim, just not necessarily on Broadway. Many concerts and live musicals on television and also film adaptations of musicals. Let us not forget she was in the live action Beauty and the Beast film, weirdly enough. And again, don't judge me. We all have to Discover these things somehow. I think I first saw Audra on Private Practice, the spin off of Grey's Anatomy. And that may be how I discovered her. Like I discovered a concert that she'd done. I then watched the entire thing and then I was instantly obsessed. But I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to see her performing three times. She did a concert at the Leicester Square Theatre in London. I saw that. She also did Lady Day in the West End, so I saw that as well. Remarkable performance. Oh, my God. Hey, it's me again. Did I really just say that I had seen Audra McDonald three times and neglect to mention the most recent time that I saw her in the original Broadway cast reunion concert of Ragtime? Like that. This T shirt is from today. Just fully, fully forgot about that one. Oh, well, that was sensational. And. And one of the best nights of my life. So also that. And then I recently, and this is where it all kicks off, got to see her performing her solo concert at the London Palladium, which was also filmed for television. Now, during that, she performed Rose's Turn. This, to my knowledge, was the first time she was performing material from Gypsy. And this is a noteworthy surprise because though she's been associated with a lot of Golden Age musicals, she's been associated with the ones with the more legit material. You know, Climb Every Mountain, Mother Abbess from the Sound of Music, bits from, like, the Music man, etc. But I don't think that before this we'd ever really heard Audra McDonald singing anything. Ethel Merman adjacent. And if you haven't seen that performance, her interpretation of that song is very interesting. But she leads through it as an actress. And that is what makes me the most excited about this performance. And I will tell you up front, not everyone is already buying into the idea of Audra McDonald in Gypsy. Audra McDonald as Rose. Some people aren't convinced by this. And I think that's largely because of, you know, the difference in vocal tone with her being a legit classical soprano. Let us not pretend that she doesn't belt, by the way, at the same time, like, I've listened to the Ragtime cast recording. I've listened to 110 in the shade. Hell, I've listened to her impersonating Billie Holiday and Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill. But also, the thing is that she is such an actress. This is the other thing we must not forget. She is such a compellingly good dramatic actress. And that is the quality about this casting I find particularly exciting as A prospect. Someone, when this was rumoured a little while ago, said, this is basically the most decorated musical theatre performer of all time, playing one of the greatest roles in the musical theatre canon. Like, this is very much an event. And on the subject of a different vocal interpretation of Rose, we've already had very different vocal interpretations. Like, you can't tell me Ethel Merman and Lansbury and Tyne Daly and Bernadette Peters and Patti LuPone all bring the same vocal characteristic to the role. And when Imelda Staunton did it in the West End after having done Sweeney Todd, which again, was a phenomenal acting performance, I wasn't party to a bunch of conversations where people were saying, God, Imelda's gonna sound great. What a fierce belter she is. And she sounded fantastic. But she is not known predominantly as a vocalist. She's an actress. An actress who can absolutely nav the score. But a lot of the tweets I'm seeing and the hot takes about, you know, Audra McDonald playing Rose and her sounding like an opera singer, I find to be extremely reductive and frankly, missing the point. The other exciting aspect of this casting is you just heard me list off a bunch of white women and Audra McDonald is going to be the first black actress, the first actress of color at all, to play the role of Rose on Broadway, at least in a principal capacity. And that is not where the excitement ends because we have also had announced multiple creatives of color as part of the creative team. George C. Wolf is going to be directing. He previously directed Audra in another show she did that I didn't tell you about. Shuffle along or the Making of Everything of Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. I can't remember the title of that show. I'm so sorry. Hold on. Where is it, Where Is It, Where Is It? Shuffle along or the Making of the musical sensation of 1921 and all that followed. It's a lot. I'm just saying. He also wrote the book for that same show, was a previous artistic director of the Public Theatre, and has directed a handful of pivotal Broadway projects over the last few decades, including, but not limited to Angels in America on Broad, Elaine Stritch's compelling solo show At Liberty Caroline or Change in the early 2000s, talking about, like, black led musical theater. He is a very momentous director and he is joined on this particular creative team by choreographer Camille A. Brown, who is Tony Award nominated this season for her work on Hell's Kitchen. Recently, Camille was also nominated for both the Choreography and the direction of For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide the revival of the famous Choreo poem. And what's exciting about this is there's really an opportunity to bring a lot of nuance to this material. This material, which has been seen a lot on Broadway, like Gypsy is great and it's thrilling. And you could absolutely bring back a very classic production of the show with Audre MacDonald and people would still A, buy tickets and B, it would probably still be great. But also, this is something of a glass ceiling shattering moment that a black actress is having the opportunity to play this role on Broadway. And that would be limited in its brilliance if that wasn't accompanied by the perspective of artists of color on the creative team as well. The fact that we have that in the direction in the choreography, that makes this, I think, more exciting. Now I'm going to come back to that conversation, but I also want to talk briefly about the artwork because we have Audra's name in the traditional Gypsy light bulbs. And the title of the show Gypsy is in Neon. And I had to Google when neon was invented because, as we know, I don't know things about things that aren't theater. I don't. I don't know things about science or like the history of different lighting techniques. Sue me. But it just seemed to be aesthetically a little bit more modern than Gypsy would tend to be now. Neon signage, actually. And I guess I should have figured this out from the likes of like Guys and Dolls. Neon signage was around in the very early 20th century. So, you know, possibly that's not the case, but I was getting the vibes from it that this could be a Gypsy in a slightly different time period. That would be incredibly challenging because a lot of the materials talks very specifically about, you know, the vaudeville era and the Orpheum circuit. But I don't know, there's at least 2% of my brain that wonders if this could be Gypsy transplanted to a different era. I'm just curious about that as a possibility. This is also, as was Pointed out by TheatreMania's David Gordon, the first time Gypsy will be revived on Broadway with none of the original creatives alive. And there has been a lot of stipulation prior to this point about the way that the show has to be staged based on their original state. And you get that with a lot of Arthur Lawrence adjacent shows. Now, that doesn't mean we're going to see for the first time a completely different Gypsy, because I'm guessing it will still be subject to the permissions of their estates. It could mean that we see a more different gypsy than we've ever seen before on Broadway, but also maybe not. The conversation about an African American perspective on the show, however, feels familiar of when Pearl Bailey starred in hello Dolly decades ago. And rather than just bringing her into the show, it was reconceived with an entirely black cast, which was hugely celebrated, which was hugely successful at the time, and is still remembered now as this momentous moment in Broadway history. And you kind of assume something similar is going to happen here, at least for the actresses playing June and Louise. I think it would be great to see that throughout the production, actually, because roles like Herbie and many of the other supporting characters in the show have traditionally been played almost entirely by white performers. Now, if I'm being honest, as soon as I'm done being excited about Audra playing Rose, I'm thinking straight away about Louise, because this is a fantastic musical theater role. She gets to play so many different things and so many different emotions. She has such a journey. Throughout the show we see her confidence blooming as, you know, she metamorphosizes into the Gypsy Rose Lee that she would become. But it really is, I think, the second great role in this musical. And when we think about the iconic roses, we also think about the Louise's who went with them. I think about Natalie Wood playing it opposite Rosalind Russell in the film, Tammy Blanchard with Bernadette Peters, Laura Bernanti with Patti LuPone, Lara Pulver in the West End with Imelda Staunton, who is going to be the Louise to Audra McDonald's Rose, who is in that right age bracket because she plays a wide range of different ages who can play the vulnerability and the shyness, but then also, you know, the comedy of it as well. She's a funny, quirky young woman who turns into this glamorous star. She has a complete transformation. She has to be able to convince in both of those zones. Are we going to see the Broadway return of a performer like a Patina Miller, for example? Are we going to see a rising Broadway star like Joy woods, currently starring in the Notebook? Adrian Warren is another name that's come up in conversation. And certainly there are a lot of other performers currently working on Broadway who you could see doing this particular revival in this particular role who I haven't actually had the chance to see on stage. People like Joaquina Kalakango, who recently won the Tony Award for Paradise Square. Also Danae Benton, who I'm pretty sure plays Audra McDonald's daughter on the Gilded Age, along with many other Broadway performers. The rumor that I have heard is not attached to a particular name, but it does suggest that they are going to be looking for star stars in all of the roles. And I never quite know what that means when you have Audra McDonald leading the thing, who has done film and who has done television and is hugely well known on Broadway. But it's not like, I mean, when you consider the other stars coming to Broadway in the same season that you have George Clooney and that you have Robert Downey Jr. And that you have Denzel Washington, I never quite know where an illustrious theater performer fits in with names like those. And so who are they going to bring in to play Louise? Who are they going to bring in to play Herbie? If they're looking for huge stars, stars potentially, they may not want to eclipse the star power of Audra McDonald, because right now the selling point of this revival is it's Audra who has won more Tony Awards than any other human being has won in their lifetime doing the role that everyone has won, or not everyone, but many of them won Tony's for doing like the great performer, doing the great role. And for them to bring in like a movie star who is then going to overtake Audra and become the, the press focus and the marketing focus of the show would be unusual. So I don't think we're going to see someone like a Zendaya. For example, has Nikki M. James aged out of being able to play Louise? Because I think she'd be great. Oh, my God. Hey, me again. The whole time I was doing this and talking about Patina, I was trying to think of the other like a list star performer who might be coming back to Broadway and it's Ariana DeBose is the other one. And I know that there has been rumblings of Ariana debose in lots of Broadway bound projects. Is she workshopping a new version of Of Sweet Charity? Was she attached to Kiss of the Spider Woman? Could she be Louise to Audra's Gypsy? Like we'd expect to see Ariana DeBose having, you know, having won an Oscar leading something. But would she say yes to being the Louise to Audra's Gypsy? I feel like maybe she would. And that is a star that wouldn't overtake Audra's star momentum. I don't think so. Because in the theatre sphere, you know, with the prestige that Audra has Ariana DeBose, it still, still sits comfortably next to That I think. But. But again, intrigued to hear your thoughts. I mean, there's a bunch of fantastic names we could suggest. Comment with all of your suggestions down below. We also have to talk about Herbies. People have been talking about Brian Stokes Mitchell. People have been talking about Norm Lewis. And the reason for both of those is they are both fantastically talented men who Audra has starred opposite before in Ragtime in Porgy and Bess. I actually think another of her Porgy and Bess co stars, David Alan Grier would be a very interesting fit for Herbie. But we needn't necessarily assume that Herbie is going to be played by a black actor. I would like that because it would give the opportunity for a black actor to play this role that has not been had before on Broadway. And you know, you could play off of the kinship between the two of them when they meet each other for the first time. When, when she meets Herbie for the first time, he's in disguise. That could mean a whole bunch of different things when you know they are both trying to forge careers in the white dominated vaudeville circuit. I mean, there's a lot of interesting things that you could bring out of this that aren't traditionally talked about in Gypsy. The other rumor I've heard is that with the roles of June and Louise, they're wanting to play on the idea of colorism and how there is so much favouritism in the preferential treatment of June over Louise. And potentially they might be looking for a light skinned actress to play June and a dark skinned actress to play Louise, which I think gives it another interesting dimension. Somebody also said Jared Grimes should play Tulsa and I think that's a great idea because he was show stoppingly good with his dance moment in Funny Girl. One of the best things about that revival production at the August Wilson. And finally I am wondering who is going to play the strippers because I feel like over time the casting for these roles has become older performers but also like legendary Broadway comediennes in a lot of these roles we've seen some really great casting for them. And you know, I was just last night watching a playbill video about Priscilla Lopez recounting her entire Broadway career. Career. I think she'd be a lot of fun. Someone like Andrea Martin would also be a lot of fun. Apropos of literally nothing. And though she honestly deserves better and deserves a leading role in the show, Ruthie Ann Miles I think would also be like inspired and brilliant in one of those roles. But we have the excitement of all of this casting to look forward to because the show is not opening until December of this year. Let me give you some key dates. I mean, I think it's going on sale half an hour from the time it is when I'm now sitting here. So by the time you're seeing this video, that's useless information to you. And if you want tickets, I hope you got them already. Broadway preview previews will begin November 21st, so we would expect to see an opening night mid December. And I guess the only other conversation to have about this is the Tony Awards. Does this feel like an inevitable seventh Tony Award win for Audra McDonald? I mean, she's won more Tonys than any other performer in history. This role has a pretty great track record for winning people Tony Awards. That and like Anna in the King and I. But then she is going to have an awful lot of competition. Nicole Scherzinger won the Olivier for her performance as Norma Desmond, a role which has also won Tony Awards awards before, the one time that it was on Broadway. So you've got Nicole. Kristin Chenoweth may be coming in in the Queen of Versailles. Dina Menzel may be coming in with Redwood. We know that Sutton Foster is going to be reprising her acclaimed performance in Once Upon a Mattress, which I saw at City Center Encores. She was goofy and brilliant and hilarious. Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard are both going to be coming in, presumably with the Broadway transfer of Death Becomes Her. There are other shows we probably don't even know about yet. Oh, Katie Brady Eban won the Olivier for playing Tammy Faye Baker Mesner in Tammy Faye in London. She's going to be reprising that award winning performance on Broadway. There is a lot of heat in the leading actress in a musical category in the next season. But we have to consider Audrey the front runner at this point, right? I think we do. But that is just one more topic that I would love to hear your thoughts about in the comments section down below. I feel like that's everything we have to say about Gypsy coming back to Broadway. You know, I'm gonna try and be there to see it. I don't know what that's going to look like with trying to combine it with other things, things happening in New York around the same time. But this, like I said, is definitely like the hot ticket at this point of the next Broadway season. I'm very excited and you should be as well. Thank you so much for watching this little news update video. I hope that you enjoyed, if you did and if you want to stay abreast of all of the theatrical news happening both on Broadway and in the West End, make sure you're subscribed to my theatre themed YouTube channel. And I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stage day for 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.