Leslie Uggams to play Mama Rose in CT

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 12:19pm

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Award-Winning-Leslie-Uggams-to-Star-in-Connecticut-Repertory-Theatres-GYPSY-710-20-20140419

Light the libbets with the flibbets and the rissetts and wheezes FOR ME.

[darreyl102]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 12:46pm

^ LOL. I can't hear her name without immediately jumping to that performance.

[lovebwy]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 1:07pm

Enough with these elderly Roses. Who's are they going to get for her father? Eli Wallach?

[darreyl102]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 1:38pm

LOL- That's actually a VERY valid point!

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 1:48pm

You ain't gettin' 88 dentures from me, Rose.

[darreyl102]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 2:24pm

Then I'll get it someplace else but I'll get it. And get my Great-Grandkids OUT!!!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 2:27pm

I think she'll be brilliant.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 2:52pm

There's only one thing it has to be.

It has to be good.

[ Thunder rumbling ]

Updated On: 4/19/14 at 02:52 PM

[SweetLips]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 3:17pm

Saw Ms Uggams when she toured here in the 80s when performing with Mitch Miller TV show-can't remember what she sang, am sure nothing Broadway, but was wonderful. Would love to hear her sing the Gypsy score. Be interesting to see how they cast her daughters.

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 4:20pm

I love Leslie Uggams. She's enormously gifted as an actress and singer.

But I was thinking how great she'd be as Carrie in a national tour of The Trip to Bountiful ... not as Mama Rose in 2014. At the age of 71.

Maybe Denzel Washington could play Tulsa. He's trying to skew pretty young these days, too.

Updated On: 4/19/14 at 04:20 PM

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 4:26pm

I ilke it, besty. Then we get James Earl Jones as Herbie, Marin as Louise, and Cheno as June.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 4:43pm

I bet she looks younger than Merman did.

I say if she wants to do it, and somebody wants her to do, she should do it.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 4:47pm

Just because it's Baby June, June, Jooooooooooooooooooan!

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 5:02pm

All those congas I had to rumba. All those Legos I had to ray.
All those hubbas I had to jeeba. Come on papa, what d'ya say?

Some people can sit a pill. Playin' jingo and holdin' still.
That's preachy for one people of some hummin' alive.

But I got blueberry pie!

...

All about Joan and the Orpheus Circus. Give me a glove, and a hurry can work it.

Oh, what I dream. Just as real as a bean, Papa.

Updated On: 4/19/14 at 05:02 PM

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 5:03pm

You got me: I LedOL.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 5:04pm

"All about Joan and the Orpheus Circus. Give me a glove, and a hurry can work it."

LITERALLY DYING

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 5:48pm

She'll be swell. She'll be great. And it's a two week run at summer theater in Connecticut. Let's give the little lady a bit of a break. It's not like she's trying to come back to Broadway in this. She's earned the chance to play the role.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 9:57pm

I'd def. want to see that.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 10:50pm

"Marin as Louise, and Cheno as June."

How dare you suggest those lily white ladies to play Uggams's daughters?!?! That's racist!

(Though I would love to see Cheno play June simply for the "nine going on ten/how long has that been going on?" exchange in Grantziger's office)

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 4/19/14 at 11:45pm

I actually saw Cheno play June opposite Lanie Kazan as Rose in Texas!

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 4/20/14 at 1:02am

Pet peve: "Momma," not "Mama," as in "If Momma Was Married." I wish she'd done it 35 years ago when I still could have believed she had a seven-year-old daughter.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/20/14 at 1:18am

Oh, for crap's sake, people, it's called SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF.

Learn it. Practice it. Enjoy it.

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 4/20/14 at 1:21am

^ Well then, I'm throwing my hat in the ring for Electra!

[SidebySidebyLogan]

Posted: 4/20/14 at 1:39am

I was so bowled over by her age, I missed the colorblind casting completely and I've been wanting a black Rose for ages. This is the first colorblind Gypsy I'm aware of. Certainly it's the production with the highest profile. Have their been others?
But as much as I'm a fan of Ms Uggams there's a few age appropriate African American actresses I'd love to see in the role more: Vanessa Williams, Audra McDonald, but at the very top of that list is Tonya Pinkins! I think she would be brilliant!

[sing_dance_love]

Posted: 4/20/14 at 1:47am

1. I am DYING reading this thread. SO funny.

2. Tonya would be so wonderful in this role!