AUDRA GYPSY Reviews- Page 32

[7thbighero]

Posted: 5/11/25 at 8:16pm

While this may likely in fact close this summer, the recent block of tickets announced was through 10/5, and Audra isn’t depicted, nor is her name mentioned 

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/DJCHZRNNB9J/?igsh=cWdrbnlkZjV0ZjNl

 

and thinking back to the Heather Headley rumor, I don’t see why they’d make the investment for someone to come in for only one week. That’s costumes, wigs, rehearsals, etc. it’s an investment. 
 

Maybe Audra finishes the previously announced August 31st and Heather closes out the show for the last month?

 

I recognize this is just speculation

[Mr. Wormwood]

Posted: 5/11/25 at 9:28pm

Yeah I agree. I think this will be an Aug or Sep closing.

[binau]

Posted: 5/12/25 at 2:22am

"Maybe Audra finishes the previously announced August 31st and Heather closes out the show for the last month?"

They would need to make it clear if Audra wasn't scheduled to be at any performance through October the 5th. I think it's a safe assumption that they currently have got Audra till 5th October (may not stay open for that long of course. I could see it closing in July). 

Updated On: 5/12/25 at 02:22 AM

[MezzA101]

Posted: 5/13/25 at 8:25am

Nothing on Broadway Hits Harder Than Audra McDonald’s ‘Rose’s Turn’

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/theater/audra-mcdonald-gypsy-broadway-tonys.html?unlocked_article_code=1.G08.KF23.ZFeJUxPTUgwi&smid=nytcore-android-share

[Ensemble1728379893]

Posted: 5/13/25 at 9:00am

It is a wonderful article. I love that they discuss the process and the "momma" word.  I think everything should be filmed but this one needs to be filmed by "Great Performances."  This performance needs to be preserved visually.

[MadsonMelo]

Posted: 5/13/25 at 2:20pm

Has Audra missed many shows? Just asking because I'll be travelling to see her and Nicole and was thinking of rush next tuesday as it is the beginning of the week and usually is a day that principals are on, right?

Also, I know rushs tickets are non refundable, so I don't want be surprised to know only when I'm at the theater.

[binau]

Posted: 5/13/25 at 2:31pm

Wow, those are some EXCELLENT photographs of Audra singing Rose's Turn all close up. You can actually feel the pain from the single stills - everyone feels like they are Tony campaigning right now but those photos and that article was amazing/highly effective. It's a shame the microphones are so visible but it is live theatre I guess....


 

Updated On: 5/13/25 at 02:31 PM

[Georgeanddot2]

Posted: 5/13/25 at 4:44pm

Audra's Rose is absolutely heartbreaking. I can't imagine doing that performance 8 times a week. I haven't seen a performance this interesting and intense since Elaine May in The Waverly Gallery.

[SmokeyLady]

Posted: 5/13/25 at 6:31pm

Georgeanddot2 said: "Audra's Rose is absolutely heartbreaking. I can't imagine doing that performance 8 times a week. I haven't seen a performance this interesting and intense since Elaine May in The Waverly Gallery."

You must get out more.

[WldKingdomHM]

Posted: 5/13/25 at 6:32pm

Georgeanddot2 said: "Audra's Rose is absolutely heartbreaking. I can't imagine doing that performance 8 times a week. I haven't seen a performance this interesting and intense since Elaine May in The Waverly Gallery."

Did nothing for me and I was front row center 

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 5/13/25 at 8:08pm

Georgeanddot2 said: "Audra's Rose is absolutely heartbreaking. I can't imagine doing that performance 8 times a week. I haven't seen a performance this interesting and intense since Elaine May in The Waverly Gallery."

This was my experience as well. I've seen it several times and it's the only performance of the season that I really think about outside the theater. 

[DAME]

Posted: 5/13/25 at 9:34pm

Meh

[broadwayboy223]

Posted: 5/13/25 at 11:20pm

I think what's been extremely disheartening to see from enough people on here is the thinly veiled racism. Audra is sensational in this and I hope she wins. 

[Georgeanddot2]

Posted: 5/13/25 at 11:46pm

Why are you tired queens so bitter and nasty all the time? Do you talk to people like this to their faces or do you only have the tiny balls to be this rude behind a computer screen? How many of you cranky old white men have actually left your apartment to see this show? A black woman playing this role doesn't negate the work done by your favorite white divas. It's not a competition. Maybe if some of you were willing to approach this particular portrayal with less prejudiced eyes you'd be able to see what strong work is happening here. Your racism isn't even thinly veiled, it's loud and malicious.

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 5/14/25 at 12:02am

I don't think I understand the reasons for the negative reactions fully enough to speak on them. Every time I watch this show, it feels like bathing in the feeling that made me love musical theater. It is completely true to the text and feels totally new. I find Audra thrilling and deeply layered, really rewarding repeat views. The kid in me who first saw Patti was excited to feel really engaged with the musical again. I loved this production. I think it makes a great case for this show continuing to be creativity fertile for another half century. 

[joevitus]

Posted: 5/14/25 at 12:50am

I don't think it has anything to do with racism. But I'm amused that it's "trolling" when I join a conversation about who wins the Tony in the Sunset Blvd thread to say why I think Audra will win, but it apparenlty isn't trolling at all to come in here and diss Audra's performance. For the record, I'm okay reading negative comments here. I welcome alternative postions. It appears some others...don't.

To me, it's just one of those things where a performance resonates with some, not with others. 

[DAME]

Posted: 5/14/25 at 2:30am

The racism argument in this case is BS. 

Updated On: 5/14/25 at 02:30 AM

[binau]

Posted: 5/14/25 at 3:57am

For those accusing people of not like Audra because of her skin colour - why do you think this? If this was a Tonya Pinkins George C Wolfe GYPSY or Heather Hadley George C Wolf GYPSY I do think many who weren't convinced by Audra's Gypsy might have been convinced by Tonya or Heather because of their vocal style. I really don't think it's based on skin colour I think it's mainly based on Audra's soprano voice. A close similar example I can think of is Marin Mazzie in next to normal, and there was a similar kind of polarisation here between people saying it's the best thing they've ever seen and other people saying they just can't buy her in the role because of the vocal style. 

I don't necessarily blame people for this it's simply their reaction - I can see why for some it might be hard to get into. I at least ask people to be open minded enough to listen carefully to her songs and try and feel the emotion coming through rather than shut off to it emotionally when you hear the first bit of vibrato you're not used to.

We need to be VERY careful not to invoke the racism card unless it's really called upon because it creates division and starts to create a culture where people will censor themselves because they are afraid of being called racist when all they are doing is expressing their honest experience....

Updated On: 5/14/25 at 03:57 AM

[bear88]

Posted: 5/14/25 at 4:03am

MezzA101 said: "Nothing on Broadway Hits Harder Than Audra McDonald’s ‘Rose’s Turn’

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/theater/audra-mcdonald-gypsy-broadway-tonys.html?unlocked_article_code=1.G08.KF23.ZFeJUxPTUgwi&smid=nytcore-android-share"

I came into the revival from a different angle than most of you. I was very familiar with Gypsy’s songs, having read Sondheim’s Finishing the Hat  while listening to a cast recording, but I had never actually seen the show in person. Audra McDonald is my first Rose.

I found her riveting from the start, insufferable when she needed to be, flirtatious when she needed to be, monomaniacal for much of the rest. I wondered at the end of the first act, when Rose seemed completely delusional in her anger and grief, if she had anyplace left to go.

I was wrong. I can’t compare Audra to the other accomplished actresses who have played Rose, but she’s playing her now - and her ‘Rose’s Turn,’ after everything that has come before - felt like a revelation of new shades of the character I had been watching all night. Pride, sauciness, bitterness, self-pity, defiance, a soaring soprano ending that even I know departed from past Roses. There were so many twists and hairpin turns as the song progressed, which of course is a tribute to Sondheim and Jule Styne, but also to what Audra McDonald brought out of it.

The one thing I would add is that the cast recording doesn’t really do her performance justice - not because it’s bad but because Audra McDonald’s Rose was a performance that, for me, was such a triumph of musical theater acting that it has to be seen. I’m very glad I did.
 

 

Updated On: 5/14/25 at 04:03 AM

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 5/14/25 at 9:49pm

Georgeanddot2 said: "Why are you tired queens so bitter and nasty all the time? Do you talk to people like this to their faces or do you only have the tiny balls to be this rude behind a computer screen? How many of you cranky old white men have actually left your apartment to see this show? A black woman playing this role doesn't negate the work done by your favorite white divas. It's not a competition. Maybe if some of you were willing to approach this particular portrayal with less prejudiced eyes you'd be able to see what strong work is happening here. Your racism isn't even thinly veiled, it's loud and malicious."

Seriously? I am a man of color. I admire Audra McDonald, just not in this. She certainly wasn’t the “second coming” in my opinion.

Not everyone was enamored with this performance and it has absolutely nothing to do with racism. 
 

 

 

[Play Esq.]

Posted: 5/14/25 at 9:52pm

CarlosAlberto said: "Georgeanddot2 said: "Why are you tired queens so bitter and nasty all the time? Do you talk to people like this to their faces or do you only have the tiny balls to be this rude behind a computer screen? How many of you cranky old white men have actually left your apartment to see this show? A black woman playing this role doesn't negate the work done by your favorite white divas. It's not a competition. Maybe if some of you were willing to approach this particular portrayal with less prejudiced eyes you'd be able to see what strong work is happening here. Your racism isn't even thinly veiled, it's loud and malicious."

Seriously? I am a man of color. I admire Audra McDonald, just not in this.She certainly wasn’t the “second coming” in my opinion.

Not everyone was enamored with this performance and it has absolutely nothing to do with racism.

I agree with everything you said, Carlos. And I’m also a man of color. 
 

 

Updated On: 5/14/25 at 09:52 PM

[OharaFosseWolfe888]

Posted: 5/14/25 at 11:49pm

Man of color....? See that's half of the isse.. We are talking about BLACK people! Not just, people of color, maybe you didn't get the memo, especially after the last election. Black folks don't want to be linked in with "people of color", we are Black and proudly so. They not the same thing. None of the people on this board, will ever admit to unconscious bias so its a mute argument, and yet Black folks, and other co-conspirators against yt supremacy in ALL forms, who give a damn about the american theatre persists by calling out the racism on this board.

To not like Audra's soprano, in the role is one thing. To not like it is based on only hearing white women do it (and belt differently..Bernadette aside), is definitely a bias. To suggest Tonya or Heather, is to negate what makes Audra, Audra. Arguing what the role requires is BS if you have seen the performance. To say it is not THEE BEST ACTED and performed Rose's Turn, ever is simply untrue. Art is subjective, but facts are definitely facts. These are Black ass facts.

 All people of color, and including Black folks can assimilate to white ideals. Saying y'all are men of color means little in the context of this Black revival of Gypsy. 

Updated On: 5/14/25 at 11:49 PM

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 5/14/25 at 11:52pm

^ Beautiful ^

[DAME]

Posted: 5/15/25 at 12:02am

whatever 

[binau]

Posted: 5/15/25 at 1:47am

OharaFosseWolfe888, I love Audra in the role but I am not going to let someone demand and shout to me as you are subtly implying that unless we accept it's the best Rose's Turn ever we must be racist. It's for ME, NOT YOU to decide  what I think of Audra's performance. And I LOVE It. But not everyone needs to and the role has been performed by so many people, most of which are legendary Broadway performers at the top of their game so yes it's going to be a LITTLE contentious about who you want to place on the top of the list for others. I think Bernadette's final performance of Gypsy is the best performed version of 'Rose's Turn' I have ever heard, personally. 

I just think it's absolutely ridiculous that you are suggesting if people don't like her soprano voice it reflects racial bias. That is absurd on so many levels, especially because Audra's classically trained soprano voice is as you said a defining feature of HER it really has nothing to do with race. It just isn't a relevant factor. I absolutely believe that if it was Kelli O'Hara right now on that stage or Marin Mazzie (RIP), the criticism of their vocal timbre would also be one of the most common criticisms. It is not about race. Stop making it about race. This is RIDICULOUS. You think "but if it was Tonya Pinkins or Heather Hadley it would be denying what makes Audra, Audra" is supporting your argument, but actually it's supporting my argument because it's suggesting exactly what I am saying - that it's the unique qualities of Audra McDonald as an individual human being that people seem to have an issue with in the role not the group racial identity. 

You can't make a subjective statement about art, acknowledge art is subjective but then suggest 'facts are definitely facts' so therefore Audra's Rose's Turn is the best. Surely you yourself can see the irony here.

Updated On: 5/15/25 at 01:47 AM