← MickeyJoTheatre
MickeyJoTheatre
We finally know the GYPSY cast | Thoughts on the cast joining Audra McDonald in the Broadway revival
00:25:55
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
Mickey Jo
Am I wearing a Ragtime T shirt in honor of leading lady Audra McDonald and one of her multiple Tony Award winning performances? Or am I wearing a Ragtime T shirt in honour of the upcoming New York City center performance of Ragtime that one of the newly announced stars of the Gypsy revival was due to star in, but has had to withdraw from owing to the fact that she will be getting ready to star in the Gypsy revival that she's newly been announced to star in? I'll let you decide. Oh my God. Hey. Welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. My name is Mickey Jo and I'm obsessed with all things theatre. I am based here in the UK but I regularly travel to New York and here on my theatre themed YouTube channel I talk both about West End Theatre and Broadway. And today we are going to be turning our attention stateside for the recently announced principal casting of the upcoming revival of the musical Gypsy. To give you some context to all of this, Gypsy is a Golden age musical that has been revived several times already on Broadway and we are getting ready for another revival at the recently refurbished Majestic Theatre, which for many years has been home to the Phantom of the Opera that closed not too long ago, paving the way for new productions to be produced at the Majestic. And it's reopening with a very auspicious one. Gypsy. Gypsy features a book by Arthur Lawrence, music by Julie Stein and lyrics by a then young Stephen Sondheim and it tells the story of Rose, a very determined stage mother who is convinced that her daughters are going to achieve huge success in the vaudeville circuit. She's based on the real life mother of Gypsy Rose Lee, from whose memoirs the show has been adapted somewhat. Gypsy Rose Lee is also depicted within the show as a character we initially meet as Louise. We also meet her sister June, and we recently found out who is going to be playing these roles alongside multiple Tony Award winning star Audra McDonald, who is playing Rose, often considered the pinnacle of roles for actresses in musical theatre. But that isn't to say that these supporting parts aren't also pretty great and can't earn their stars, Tony Award nominations and wins they have in the past. So today we are going to be talking through all of the recently announced cast members. There are still a few more members of the company yet to be announced, but we now know most of the remaining principles. I'm going to be letting you know my thoughts on all of these performers because I've been lucky enough to see many of them on stage before, but I haven't seen all of them. So if you have any thoughts, please let me know in the comments section down below. Are you more or less excited for this revival? Now? Now that we know the rest of the casting, how do you think it's going to do? Which of these performers do you think might bag a Tony Award nomination or a win? Simply put, what do you think of the cast? Now, because this is a high profile show and particularly exciting casting and I have a lot of things I want to say about it, I'm taking the time to make a longer video here on my YouTube channel. But when other shows announce their casting, often I talk about them in shorter videos that you can find on my Instagram or TikTok pages. So if you have those platforms as well, go and find me. There I am. Ickyjoetheatre Give me a follow. In the meantime, let's talk about the Gypsy casting, shall we? So I am reading this from a press release, but I'm going to be letting you know my thoughts as we go through. And I would like to begin by reaffirming my enthusiasm for the casting of Audra McDonald, because there has been a little bit of discourse around this which is surprising to me because Audra is a six time Tony Award winning actress and in the world of performers she has won more Tony Awards for acting than any other human being. The Tony Awards being the biggest accolade in terms of musical theater on Broadway. Simply put, this makes her the most decorated musical theatre actress in Manhattan and she is playing one of the greatest roles, perhaps the great role for actresses in the musical theatre canon. This is not only an obvious piece of casting that we should have all been anticipating happening at some point, but we should also be celebrating the fact it's happening during our lifetimes. Admittedly, it is not what we would call traditional casting for Rose. Now there are two reasons for this. Rose historically was a real life white woman and has only been played predominantly by white actresses, certainly on Broadway. And there is, I grant you, a small minority of people who disagree inherently with Audra McDonald's casting on the basis of her being a woman of color. And this, thankfully is something I've only seen talked about a small handful of times. However, I think it's ridiculous because at no other point during any other production of Gypsy have I ever heard anyone drawing comparisons between the, you know, the looks of these performers, their hair color, their height, anybody, any of their characteristics, anything about them to the real life Rose. Because not much is known about her. And certainly in the mainstream people aren't really commenting on the similarities between those actresses and the real life person that they are portraying. But it always seems for no good reason other than racism, whether realized or not, that it's skin color that separates people from being able to suspend their disbelief. Like you can imagine any single white woman in the world is this woman, but you can't imagine a black woman is. And what you're doing there, whether you're realizing it or not, is you are reducing her to the color of her skin. It doesn't matter that this is meant to be transformative, that this is an actress playing a role role. You are seeing a black woman. Like with Tyne Daly, you weren't seeing a woman with a certain hair color. With Patti LuPone, you weren't seeing a woman of a certain height with Bernadette Peters, with Imelda Staunton, with Ethel Merman, with Betty Buckley. Audiences did not reduce them to being a white woman. They allowed to conceive of the possibility that they were seeing Rose. And not to make this a full tangent, but the same thing happens in Les Mis. Because when we see young Eponine or young Cassette and then we see aged up Eponinor cassette, all of five minutes later, we know that those child actresses haven't gone backstage and suddenly aged 15 years, we realize that that hasn't happened. We are all capable of suspending our disbelief, and none of us were born yesterday. But for some reason, audiences only seem to complain when there is a discrepancy of race between young Eponine and cassette and old Reponine and cassette. Like they will believe any young white actress has turned into an older white actress. But if the race doesn't match, suddenly it's impossible for them to suspend disbelief because they are reducing those performers to their race. Simply put, it's racist. I have no time for it. Let's point number two. Some people aren't certain about Audra McDonald's casting because of her voice type, because she traditionally sings with more of a classical tone. She is a soprano and this role is traditionally associated with belters. Though admittedly, Tyne Daly did not have much of a singing voice and Bernadette peters and Patti LuPone had hugely different singing voices. Angela Lansbury and Ethel Merman had quite different singing voices. Imelda Staunton. Again, what those performers all had in common though, was a real fierce acting ability. And that ultimately is what they end up being praised for in these roles. But again, for some reason, just because Audra's vocal type is different to everyone else's she is being reduced to that. And no one is conceiving of the acting performance that she might give in this show. They are simply stopping at the concept of her being a soprano. Furthermore, we have heard her sing in different styles. When she did Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, she was playing Billie Holiday and there was a real transformation of her voice along with a very thorough and nuanced acting, performance and characterization to go with that. But even if she sings the role and the material a little differently to how we've heard it before, is that not something we want in a revival? Is that not something that we would welcome? If you want to hear it sung exactly the way you've heard it sung before, I have great news for you. You can go and listen to the cast recording. It's significantly cheaper than buying a ticket to go see the show at the Majestic. If you are that precious about hearing it exactly the way it's been done before. That is not what a revival is. And when more and more classical soprano roles are going to Belters, why shouldn't a Belter role be played by a classical soprano? They are becoming a dying bre on Broadway. I would love to hear more of them. As if anyone on the Internet thinks it's their business to tell Audra McDonald how to sing something. My gosh, six Tony Awards later, Audra McDonald gets to do what she wants. If she wants to play Sweeney Todd next, say it with me. We are going to let her. Needless to say, I think Audra is going to be fantastic because it's Audra McDonald and I have no reason to believe that she won't be. Do we think that Audra McDonald is going to win a seventh Tony Award for her performance though? Well, if we look at the statistics, she historically has won six Tony Awards out of nominations. If we look just at musicals, that statistic becomes four wins out of six nominations. But she has only won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a musical once out of three nominations. And it's not like she's the only high profile leading actress on Broadway this season. Idina Menzel is returning starring in a new musical Redwood Nicole Scherzinger is transferring her Olivier Award winning performance as Norma Desmond in the Jamie Lord revival of Sunset boulevard to the St James Theatre where she will be hoping to win a Tony. There's also the Olivier Award winning Katy Braben who will be playing Tammy Faye. There is the brilliant newcomer Jasmine Amy Rogers who will be starring in Boop. There are more that I can't think of right now. It's a very stacked year for leading actresses. There is a reason that the new musical the Queen of Versailles, starring Kristin Chenoweth, said, you know what? We're gonna wait this one out anyway. The whole point of this video is to tell you about the additional cast members who will be joining Audra McDonald, and I'm going to do just that. She is not going to be alone in this production. She is going to be joined by Danny Burstein, who will play opposite her as Herbie. Danny Burstein is such quintessential perfect Herbie casting that I had to think for a minute, has he not done it before? And it's because he has played tonally similar roles like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, like Herr Schultz in Cabaret, but largely the one that I think I'm most closely associating with this is when he appeared in the last Broadway revival of Follies as Buddy. That performance earned him one of his seven Tony Award nominations, an award that he finally won when he originated the role of Harold Zidler in Moulin Rouge. He stands a good chance of getting an additional nomination for playing this role. Many Herbies have been nominated in the past. Jack Klugman, John Dosett, Jonathan Hadari and Boyd Gaines have all secured Tony Award nominations for playing Herbie in different productions of Gypsy. Boyd Gaines actually won the Tony award back in 2008, and I really do think that Danny is going to be just wonderful as Herbie. On a personal note, I think it's really lovely that he is going to have the chance to play the Majestic Theatre, which is the theatre where his late wife, Rebecca L. Appeared in the Phantom of the Opera. But also, though I haven't yet had the privilege to see him performing in person, I hope to in this production. He has historically been at his best when he has the opportunity to combine comic levity and charm with extraordinary pathos. And that is something that Herbie does very, very well. He has this beautiful sincerity and lovable quality to him. I think he's going to play very charmingly opposite Audra. I'm very intrigued to see what their relationship dynamic looks like, and I think he's going to be really fantastic. My surprise around his casting has nothing to do with his suitability for the role. It's more that this is not the actor I expected to walk through a door opened by the concept of Audra McDonald as Rose. Because Danny Burstein could be in a really traditionally cast revival of Gypsy, he could play it opposite Patti LuPone age appropriately. He could play it opposite Benedet Peters. Age appropriately. And there is every possibility that this is exactly what director George C. Wolfe is going for. I just wondered if they would take the opportunity to go in a different direction. I don't mean that necessarily by casting a black actor. I just meant more casting against type in a different way, someone with a slightly different energy. But what this tells us about the production, with relatively little known so far, is that at least in this one aspect, they are going for something very traditional, which is no bad thing, because that Sunset Boulevard revival that I mentioned is playing just across the road at the St. James. And they are definitely going for bold reinvention. And, you know, even if a lot of people love it, that is bound to be divisive and polarizing. So in the battle of the leading lady star vehicle revivals, Gypsy may win the day for being brilliantly classic. Anyway, enough about Herbie. If you're anything like me, you know that the best supporting part in this show is Louise. So Louise, who later becomes Gypsy Rose Lee, spoilers for the incredibly old musical. She is a really wonderful role for an actress because she undergoes this extraordinary transformation. We meet her as this shy young woman who is very much pushed to the back by her mother, who is centering these acts around Louise's more talented, talented sister, June. Louise is led to believe that she has no star quality whatsoever, though she longs for the kind of love and attention that she sees being poured on her sister. There is a loneliness to Louise, there's an insecurity to her, but circumstance leads to her becoming a big star, but not in the way that her mother had envisioned because she becomes a burlesque performer, requiring her to quite literally come out of her shell. Now, this role has been played on Broadway originally by Sandra Church, subsequently by Zanj Charisse, by Krista Moore, by Tammy Blanchard, and by Laura Benanti. And guess what? Every single one of them got a Tony Award nomination for best Featured actress in a musical. But it was only that Tony winning 2008 revival starring Patti LuPone featuring Boyd Gaines that resulted in a win for a Louise. Laura Benanti won the Tony Award for the first time. Of course, later in the uk, Lara Pulver would win the Olivier Award for playing the same role in a West End revival. But this sets the stage with much anticipation as we announce who is playing Louise in this production. And we now know that that actress is going to be the wonderful rising star, Joy Woods. So Joy can be seen on Broadway Right now at the Schoenfeld Theatre in the Notebook, the Notebook being a musical adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel. She is one of three performers to play the role of Ali, and she sings the 11 o'clock show stopping number My Days. Her vocal performance of that song and both the emotion and the stratospheric vocal ability that she brings to it has made it something of a viral moment on social media, at least among theatre fans. Everyone has been covering this song, and despite some very earnest attempts, nobody else can really sing it like Joy woods, of course. Prior to her performance in the Notebook, Joy was also seen on Broadway as Catherine Parr in Six. She was seen Off Broadway in Little Shop of Horrors, where she originated the role of one of the urchins in that production when it first opened at the west side Theatre, and then later returned to play the role of Audrey. And it's this performance that I think may give us the best indication of what her Louise is going to be like. Because while her portrayal of Middle Alley in the Notebook has some of the similar hallmarks of Louise's journey in Gypsy, with her going from a place of insecurity to a place of declaration, Little Shop feels a little more tonally similar to some of the Gypsy material and to the Julie Stein music. There isn't a million miles between her performance of Somewhere that's Green and what her version of Little Lamb might end up sounding like. And as much as we love to hear her high belting, there isn't really the opportunity for her to do that within the Gypsy score. It is much more about the nuanced acting performance which I have every confidence she is going to bring to the role because she has always been far more than just a great singer. She has been an incredibly emotional, brilliant, expressive performer whose acting through song ability is astounding. I was very much looking forward to seeing her as Sarah in Ragtime at New York City center, but I'm even more excited to see her as Louise. And I do think it's a shame she didn't get a Tony Award nomination for her work in the Notebook. And I think it's almost a foregone conclusion that she's probably going to get her first Tony nomination for Gypsy. Fingers crossed. Everything crossed for Joy Woods. And there's something else very sweet about this casting, because she is not the only performer from the Notebook to be going into Gypsy playing one of Rose's daughters. She's not the only performer who originated the role of Ally in the Notebook to be going into Gypsy Playing one of Rose's daughters, she is joined by her Notebook co star, Jordan Tyson. Now, Jordan is going to be playing Dainty June, which is who baby June grows up to be. June is the more obvious and exuberant star of all the acts that her mother is putting together. But she grows fatigued with the way that her mother keeps her in the spotlight and controls every aspect of her life. We only see her during the first act of the musical, which is why it's a slightly smaller supporting role than Louise's. Now, what's immediately interesting here is that Jordan played younger Ally in the Notebook, seemingly like not an entire generation, but younger than Joy woods role. There are not actually that many years between them, and the way that they read on stage, I think can vary wildly depending on how they are costumed and just depending on how you are positioned to think of them. The wigs and the outfits in the Notebook did a lot of work. Also, the fact that Joy woods is slightly taller and this, with the two of them side by side, I think is going to allow for Louise to look a little bit gangly, but will then have that moment in the second act where you costume her differently and suddenly she's tall and glamorous and it's like that thing in a cheesy romantic comedy where the girl takes off her glasses for the first time. They're like, oh, my God, she was beautiful the entire time. Anonymous Mew Anyway, Joy woods was never as old as they were trying to make her seem in the Notebook. In fact, I think she was younger than John Cardoza, who was playing youngest Noah. And perhaps even more than I'm excited to see Jordan as June and to see Joy as Louise. I am so excited to see them together playing sisters, singing the song if Mama was Married. That is going to be a moment in this show, let me tell you. You. Now, I'm only really familiar with Jordan Tyson's work in the context of the Notebook. We can read a little bit more about each of the performers in the press release here. I picked up most of Joy Wood's credits other than her performance as Martha Mills in the Off Broadway revival of I can get it for you wholesale. I just missed out on getting to see that one. But Jordan made her Broadway debut in the Notebook and as well as a little bit of TV work, has been in other theatre productions, such as Bull Rusher, into the Woods, Lempicka at La Jolla, where I think she was playing Tamara de Lempicka's D. I think I was Told that that was her role. Also, streets of New York folk wandering. A lot of theater that I do not know about. I am really intrigued to see her as June because that material is very different to what she did in the Notebook. If you saw the Notebook, you may remember her performance of the song if this Is Love, which I think is probably the best song in that score. She has a wonderful, beautiful voice, a very youthful quality. I think she's going to be a very fun June. And that completes the most central casting of this revival. The names that we have been really wanting to hear, we don't yet know who Elsa is. He is a young man who is part of the act during the earlier scenes of the show, who has aspirations of his own as a dancer and who Louise has a little bit of a crush on. This is always a great breakout role for talented young male dancers. They haven't announced who this is yet. I'm very intrigued to see who it is. I'm not anticipating it necessarily being a name that I know because I don't know too many of the names from that sphere from the dance world on Broadway right now. But I may be proven wrong. What we do have is the casting for the three strippers who we meet during the second act, right towards the end of the second act, who perform the iconic number. You gotta get a gimmick. They are, of course, the characters of Ms. Mazeppa, Elektra and Tessie Chura. And let me tell you, this casting is fun. So the headline here is that fan favorite and Olivier Award winner Leslie Margarita will be returning to Broadway to play Tessie Chura. She is the more demure, very demure of the three strippers whose gimmick during her burlesque routines is that she incorporates elegant, balletic dance on Broadway. Leslie originated the role of Mrs. Wormwood in Matilda when the musical transferred over there from the West End. She was also seen in Dames at Sea. And the word on the street is that she came very close to landing either the standby or the alternate Norma Desmond role in Sunset Boulevard. Now, as it turns out, she's going to be across the street street in Gypsy. This is a great role for her. She's going to come in as this scene stealing force towards the end of the show. If you don't know Leslie, she is this hilarious, exuberant personality. She's hugely talented. And as we saw in Matilda, she's also a dancer. She's got this huge, great, powerful voice, but she can dance up a storm as well. So I'm expecting something fun with the choreography of this number. This, I believe, is the first time that a Gypsy production on Broadway has not been tethered to the original choreography. We have Hell's Kitchen choreographer Camille A. Brown attached to this production, so I'm really excited to see what they do. Leslie is joined by Lily Thomas, who will be playing Miss Mazeppa. Now, Mazeppa is another of the three strippers. She performs her burlesque act with a trumpet. And Lily is a performer who I saw on Broadway in Chicago. In fact, she was the first Asian American matron, Mama Morton. I thought she was feisty and fierce in this role. I really enjoyed her performance. She was one of the highlights of the show actually, for me, me, I. I think she's going to be very fun in this as well. I don't know the rest of her work. Let's take a little look here. She was a Cynthia Murphy on the first national tour of Dear Evan Hansen. That's about as different from that last role as you can get. She's also been off Broadway in We're Gonna Die. At second Stage, Only Human, the hello Girls. Finally, with an extensive resume playing the dual roles of Ms. Elektra, the third stripper who uses light up electric elements in her burlesque, and Ms. Cratchit, who we meet during the vaudeville audition process, we have Melinda Hull. She part of the New York theatre scene for over 25 years, having been attached to the Tony Award wing Revival of 42nd street where she made her Broadway debut as Anytime Annie. She was also seen in Sweet Charity and Dirty rotten scoundrels in Mr. Saturday Night. She has a lot of credits. It's the kind of experience you would expect to see for these kind of cameo performances. And it's some of my favorite types of casting, honestly, to see veterans celebrated alongside newcomers, to see fan favorites and rising stars there on stage together. I think the racial diversity of this, this cast is also super exciting. And I think, you know, Audra and Joy and Jordan aside, again with the rest of this casting, like with Danny Burstein, it does feel quite Gypsy typical. It doesn't necessarily feel very against type. You could see Leslie Margarita playing one of these roles in a very traditional revival of Gypsy. So I don't think they're reinventing the wheel here as much as a revival like Sunset Boulevard. I don't think they're going for this completely different thing. And ultimately I think that's probably going to be to their benefit. We get a lot of revivals on Gypsy. I much of The New York theatre community is quite precious about this show, protective even. And I think this indicates a certain amount of respect for the material. And I think Audra as the centerpiece of this casting, being the most against type per previous versions of the show is probably a good thing. Of course, somewhat. Unfortunately, talent is only really one factor. And the other conversation we have to have around all of this cast casting is its economic viability. Because what I was hearing is that producers were a little bit concerned with this big revival at the Majestic Theatre in the current financial climate, with whether or not Audra McDonald was a big enough star name to sell this production by herself, and that there was some eagerness to find some kind of a name, either as Herbie or as Louise, to in some capacity, help to bring a little bit of additional star power. This was always going to be tricky, however, because Audra had to remain the biggest star. You cannot really sell a production of Gypsy where the Rose is not the biggest name in that cast. So if you'd brought in someone like Zendaya as Louise, not that I believe that that was ever in contention, it's just like a name that popped into my head that would have overtaken the conversation because it would have been, oh my God, Zendaya's doing Broadway. It wouldn't have been Audra McDonald returns to Broadway as Gypsy. And that's what the branding of this production is, that's what the marketing is. They don't want to step on their own toes there. And Audra is known. Audra has been on tv, Audra has been been in film. Audra is known enough that she can probably be pitched for late night shows and talk about the show. But certainly with the rest of this casting, these are names known only really to the immediate Broadway community, which is a large community. But I don't know if this awareness stretches as far across the country as this revival might like. At the same time, Sunset Boulevard, not to keep comparing them, but they are across the street. They are both revivals opening quite close to each other. They only have the star power of Nicole Scherzinger's name because she is joined by the British cast members who have even less awareness because they're not particularly known among the New York theatre community the same way that these ones are. And I believe the Majestic Theatre has a capacity of just under 1700 seats. So all of this may seem a little bit daunting. In any case, if the show gets great word of mouth and buzz during previews, if it gets great reviews, then this may not matter. It is certainly a considerably larger theatre, however, than the Hudson, where Merrily We Roll along managed to command a very high ticket price and a pret consistent capacity. I think Daniel Radcliffe also had a little bit more star power than an Audrey MacDonald thanks to the Harry Potter film franchise, but I cannot predict the future. I can only speculate wildly. What I can guarantee is that this is going to be an incredibly exciting piece of theatre and that I will be doing my best to see it. Not on my next trip to New York because it won't have started previews then, but certainly when I head there again in the New year. In the meantime, those of you who see it before me, I'm going to need to know what you think. So comment down below. If by the time you're seeing this video you have already seen Gypsy, or if, like me right now, you haven't seen it yet, let me know what you think of this casting and let me know whose performance you are most looking forward to. Thank you so much for watching this video. I hope that you enjoyed if you did, make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel for more Broadway updates and reviews from shows all around the world. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Minky Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for are watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.