La Lupone Interviewed

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 5:06pm

she was tough

http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=520302

Updated On: 11/27/05 at 05:06 PM

[Dollypop]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 5:17pm

How can you say she was tough? She comes across as the brilliant, down-to-earth Patti LuPone that many of us have gotten to know and love.

"Tough" would be if she refused to answer questions and told the interviewer to get lost.

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 5:25pm

she was tough by saying she doesn't like the musical Broadway has nowadays.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 5:28pm

Who does?

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 5:31pm

she said she only sees plays...that the musicals are not too good right now..or something like that.

[hannahshule]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 5:37pm

Well, if Britney Spears is coming to Broadway, I'd have to agree with her. God bless Honesty!

[Dollypop]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 5:40pm

I feel exactly the way LuPone does about the current state of musicals. Can ALL SHOOK UP compare to MAN OF LA MANCHA?

Can IN MY LIFE compare to MAME?

Can WICKED compare to ANNIE GET YOUR GUN?

No, the current crop of musicals are very disappointing.

Posted: 11/27/05 at 5:46pm

She certainly is larger than life.

I saw her in "Sweeney Todd" just this past Friday - she absolutely steals the show and just fills the stage.

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 5:47pm

she does steal the show...but what a bad show though!

Posted: 11/27/05 at 5:51pm

Oh, did you see it?

I thought it was an interesting revival. Not at all what I expected, to say the least.
(Not to mention I thought my ear drums would blow up because of the "train whistles")

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 5:54pm

of course i have seen it...if i wouldn't have seen it...i wouldn't express my opinion. Patti is a brilliant singer...and actress....i just hated the musical...it has beautiful songs...but i hated the show overall. The worst i have seen in awhile...i'd rather see "In my Life" for the 2nd time than "Sweeney Todd" ever again.

[Jazzysuite82]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 6:01pm

Something is wrong with the world.

Posted: 11/27/05 at 6:02pm

"of course i have seen it...if i wouldn't have seen it...i wouldn't express my opinion."

Hah, I thought perhaps you were talking about the show before it was revived.
No need to get jumpy.

[chernjam]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 6:55pm

muscle23ftl - I think LuPone has been bitter ever since the whole Sunset Blvd. drama. After that if Sondheim didn't write it, she thought it was crap... hence she does the concert of Passion, Sweeney Todd, and any other Sondheim show she could.

Hey I'm a HUGE ALW fan - and I'm looking forward to seeing WIW again. And I like some Sondheim - saw Donna Murphy in Passion and she truly haunted me with that role and that voice.

I just think LuPone gets off on being bitchy. Just one man's opinion

[Corine2]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 7:14pm

I agree with LUpone except there are some very good musicals by new writers and composers:
Some great examples:
Avenue Q-
Hairspray
Spelling Bee
Caroline or Change-
Violet

Millie- Don't kill me,I love it.
I adore all of these musicals and they are from talented new writers and composers.
I also love Hart, Hammerstein Herman etc
Don't forget Sondheim
Assassins (I loved it)


SO: WHAT ABOUT:
Shaiman/Wittman
Scanlan
Tesori
Finn
Marx/Lopez
Alessandrini ()


Updated On: 12/1/05 at 07:14 PM

[Dollypop]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 7:29pm

Why don't you write an article about it on "Corine's Corner"?

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 7:29pm

i love "millie" too

[Isabella2]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 8:12pm

muscle23ftl, was it the story line that you didn't like? or was it the lack of orchestra?
Also, i've never heard of the sunset blvd. drama. What happened there?

honestly, i think patti is far from bitchy, she's just expressing the way she feels. she'd be fake if she didn't.

[Jazzysuite82]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 8:26pm

SHe doesn't come across as bitchy at all. A lot of shows on broadway are ****. Besides, she said the one's she's seen are crap. No one can know exactly what shows she's talking about. I hardly think her intention was to condemn every idle musical playing on broadway

Posted: 11/27/05 at 9:07pm

"...i'd rather see 'In my Life' for the 2nd time than "Sweeney Todd" ever again."

Forgive me if this is too candid. But after reading a number of your posts, this one has pushed me over the edge, muscle. You have NO idea what good theatre is. I'm glad the majority of true theatregoers don't share your taste.

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 2:27am

Isabella i hated the story line, the lack of orchestra...it was just awful i thought.
Findyourgrail, you don't seem to know what good theatre is either...anyhow...that is a very stupid statement..becuz what is good to me, can be bad to u and viceversa. So your comment makes no sense. Who are you to say what's good and bad...what i say in my posts...is what "I" thought...im not stating if it's good or bad.

[rockfenris2005]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 4:14am

There are great shows out there: it's the crappy ones that are getting high-profile productions

[BwayLover]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 6:36am

I agree with Patti, and respect her immensly for having the guts to come out and say what she thinks.

Also, FindYourGrail, I applaud you for saying what I've been thinking for a loooong time. But this is not a personal attack- I am simply stating I have a very, very different taste than muscle and so his opinions don't really affect me. That's why I have stopped reading them. Makes life so much easier.

Updated On: 11/28/05 at 06:36 AM

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 7:08am

I respect muscle's opinion and I can easily understand how someone might not care for Sweeney Todd. It is an extremely complex show and thus the music and storyline are also quite complex. I'm not saying that muscle can't handle complexity, I'm saying this might not be the type of complexity for him. He has a very valid opinion.

[chernjam]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 7:40am

Since I mentioned it, and a couple of people asked what happened (I can't believe people don't know) Patti LuPone had initially been contracted to open on London and Broadway. She was offered the Los Angeles opening (which was going to have an open run engagement) as the "American Premiere", but passed on it. The idea they wanted to do was LuPone would open in London, three or four months later open in LA and then three or four months later open in NY.

She passed on LA, some have suggested she wanted to stay in London for the Oliver awards (the London tonys) - but that I don't know. I think just going from London to LA to NY has to be a lot. So for the Los Angeles premiere they got Glenn Close to do it.

What they didn't expect was that Glenn Close would get such phenomenal reviews five months after it opened in London by some of the same critics who slammed LuPone and the London production. Namely the NY Times had the biggest about face with Frank Rich calling LuPone "miscast" and I think "unmoving".

At any rate, ALW was supposedly told by his backers (which included Paramount) that he had to drop LuPone and take Close to NY. Which he did. But then LuPone didn't find out from anyone associated with ALW - she got a call from a friend who read it in Liz Smith, and to put it mildly, she freaked.

So that in a nutshell was the end of the relationship between ALW and Patti LuPone. It's a shame really. I can only imagine how the two of them would benefit if she were to star in a Sunset revival in NY...