by Patti Lupone
About a year later, I had just finished shooting 24 Hour Woman and was on a shuttle flight to Boston to start rehearsal for The Old Neighborhood. I took an aisle seat, and in the window seat sat a woman reading the Wall Street Journal, all curled up in a knot, legs crossed, arms close to her chest, newspaper hiding her face. I thought, Well, there’ll be no talking on this flight. And so it went, until we were about to land, at which point she reached across the empty seat between us, grabbed my arm, and said, “I can’t thank you enough for what you did for John.”
I gasped. I knew exactly what she was talking about. “Were you there?” I asked.
“No,” she replied, “but John was a very dear friend. He had just eaten dinner and was late, so he ran to the theatre.” I asked if he died, and yes, she said, he had died. I said I was very sorry, and we parted ways thinking about John and sending his family and friends our thoughts. Oh, and by the way, the man who yelled at me from the back of the house turned out to be a homeless drunk who had just aimlessly followed the empty gurney into the theatre.
While I was still in London with Sunset Boulevard, a friend told me about a new play by Terrence McNally being produced by Robert Whitehead, starring Zoe Caldwell as Maria Callas. He said, “It’s a part you should play.” This discussion took place close to the end of my run. In fact, I had already been fired and was just playing out the end of my contract.
The playwright (top left) and cast of The Old Neighborhood.
© JOAN MARCUS
As fate would have it, I was performing my concert, Patti LuPone on Broadway, at the Walter Kerr Theatre while Zoe was portraying Maria Callas down the street at the Golden Theatre. I had afternoons free, so I went to see her in a matinee of Master Class. I was bowled over by her performance, and by Terrence McNally’s play. I left the Golden and took the alleys through the Theatre District back to the Walter Kerr. I wrote Zoe a note that said I was a student in the theatre that afternoon and that her performance was a master class all its own. I felt truly inadequate. Zoe is a great actress. She was mesmerizing in that role and I was schooled that day. Her performance stays with me still.
At the end of my run, I went home to Connecticut. One day out of the blue, Robert Whitehead called and asked me to replace Zoe when her contract expired. I said no, immediately. I told him I was sure that I had all the information I needed to play the part but that I’d have to be a complete fool to follow Zoe in that role. She was definitive. That was the end of that, or so I thought. Around that same time, I was offered a working cruise that would take me to the Indian Ocean. I love sailing and I loved where this cruise was going, so I said yes. Off we went—me, Matt, Josh, and his nanny, Liz Webb. I was in a Bangkok hotel when I got a phone call from the director of Master Class, Leonard Foglia. He tried to persuade me himself to at least read the play before I finally said no. “Okay, I’ll read it,” I said.
Robert’s office sent a thirty-two-page fax to the hotel. I couldn’t believe it. It was another truly theatrical moment, like the time Dino De Laurentiis found me in the Australian outback and offered me a role in his next movie. The next day I took the family and the thirty-two-page fax with me to Phuket. I read the script on the beach. I finished it and said to myself, I’d be a fool to follow Zoe in this role. But I’d be a fool not to play this part. I talked it over with Matt, and we both agreed it should be the next step in my career. I said yes to Lenny and Robert, and asked Zoe for her blessing. In mid-1996 I went into rehearsal with most of the original cast, but sadly without Audra McDonald. I played Master Class at the Golden Theatre on West Forty-fifth Street for seven months and was well received except by the New York Times, whose critic just had to bring up Sunset Boulevard.
In the spring of 1997, we took Master Class to London. During rehearsal one day, a note was sent to me from Sunset Boulevard’s stage management asking me to come to Sunset’s closing night.
Whaaaaat? I was quite sure Andrew Lloyd Webber knew nothing about this. Stage management and front of house wanted me there. Nobody from the original company was still with the show, but people I’d worked with at the theatre wanted me to come.
When I got home from rehearsal that day, I said to Matt, “Wait until you hear this one. They want me to come to the closing night of Sunset Boulevard.”
“Let’s go,” he said. He was actually excited by the prospect. I couldn’t figure him out.
On closing night, I entered through the lobby of the Adelphi Theatre, which was a new experience for me. As soon as I walked in, the first three people I saw were Trevor Nunn, Christopher Hampton, and Anthony Powell. I walked right up to them—I think I actually punched Anthony Powell in the arm, not the person I should have punched hello. I was very nervous, as you can imagine. They turned around and looked at me as though they had seen a ghost. Trevor turned white.
I took my seat with Matt in the orchestra and started watching Sunset Boulevard. It was boring and slow. The black, white, and gray set didn’t help the production, in my opinion. At the intermission I saw David Caddick, and I actually said to him, “David, were we this boring?” He said no. Clearly the show had gone downhill in the two or three years it had been running, as shows can do. That’s not unusual.
I went to the closing night party for a while. When I talked with Trevor, he said the show didn’t deserve to close. I just looked at him and said, “But, Trevor, it was so boring.” He gave me a stupefied look. Well, it was, Trevor. I walked away knowing that whatever was wrong with the show wasn’t entirely my problem. I may not have been the ideal Norma for a lot of people, but Sunset Boulevard was a deeply flawed musical—with me or without me.
Master Class opened and closed rather quickly in London. In fact, London is the only city worldwide where Master Class failed. Somehow they just didn’t get it. Strange, a hit in one place, a flop in another. Pack up the trunks—we’re out of here.
Left to right: Dick Gallagher, Marc Shaiman, and Scott Wittman—all three deep and dear friends—the creative team for my Carnegie Hall solo debut.
In the summer of 1999, Scott Wittman was approached by New York’s Gay Men’s Health Crisis to put together a benefit concert, which would become my solo Carnegie Hall debut. The two of us started brainstorming a new show with my musical director, the late and dearly missed Dick Gallagher. Jeff Richman would once again write the dialogue and the jokes. (He hates me calling them jokes. But there’s no one better at writing them.)
That fall I was rehearsing the Carnegie Hall show, which was called Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda, in New York, and living a sweet life at home in Connecticut with my family. I cooked dinner, I did laundry, I attended my son’s hockey games, and I had doctors’ appointments. One was a routine mammogram.
I had the mammogram and waited in the office for the official dismissal—that everything looked good. I didn’t wait long, and I didn’t get the all-clear. A radiologist told me that there was a suspicious cluster of cells in my left breast and that I needed a more detailed mammogram to determine whether I had breast cancer or not. Apparently this cluster had been visible the year before, but now the radiologist felt it was time to do something. I asked why I hadn’t been told the previous year about this abnormality. No answer or a lame one at best came out of his mouth.
Matt and I now started the rounds of interviews with breast surgeons and radiologists. We settled on a New York radiologist who believed there was nothing wrong with me, and we settled on a breast surgeon at Mass General in Boston in case there was. I went to New York and had the more detailed and excruciatingly painful mammogram. I continued rehearsing, with the concert looming just a mere week away.
Finally the concert was upon me. I was in the Parker Meridien hotel the day of the concert when I got a phone call from the radiologist with the bad news: I had breast cancer. She was sorry she had misled me, but she told me that I had the kind of cancer that, if I was to get breast cancer, was the kind to get. What a statement.
I heard every word she said, while in the
back of my mind I was saying to myself, I’m singing at Carnegie Hall tonight. Get to the point. When I hung up the phone I was a total blank. Matt was with me and he figured out what was happening. We just looked at each other. What can you say at a time like that?
The phone rang again. It was Scott. I blurted out, “I have breast cancer.”
He said, “You have a sound check.”
It was perhaps the wisest thing to say. I went on with my life. I sang at Carnegie Hall that night without thinking of the cancer cells my body was now producing. There was no time. I went back to Connecticut, revisited Dr. Barbara Smith at Mass General, scheduled the operation, and had a lumpectomy, followed by six weeks of radiation treatments at the New Milford Hospital.
I was grateful that the cancer was caught early and that I had a great surgeon and radiologist. I am deeply grateful that I’m now ten years out, but it is never far from my mind that I could produce cancer cells again. I had a trainer at home who was well versed in what a woman should and should not eat during radiation. I lived on fish and soy. I viewed it as yet another test. There was no other way for me to process breast cancer.
The day I finished my last radiation treatment, I drove to New York City and started rehearsals for the New York Philharmonic production of Sweeney Todd. Finally I would sing my first Sondheim role, in an inspiring production that would be the third benchmark in my career.
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Several Sweeney Todds, and Sondheim
2000, 2001, 2005
“The Worst Pies in London.”
© STEPHANIE BERGER
“A Little Priest,” with Michael Cerveris.
PHOTO BY © PAUL KOLNIK
It began with another one of those “Are you interested?” phone calls. Was I interested in playing Nellie Lovett in a concert production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd with the New York Philharmonic that was still several months away?
“Are you kidding?” It was a dream production—operatic and Broadway singers performing with the New York Philharmonic, in their home, Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. “Does Steve know I’ve been asked to play Nellie?” My agent said he would find out. Of course I wanted to do it, but I wanted to be sure Steve knew and approved. He did, and I was elated.
This would be my first Sondheim role, a role I never imagined I would play. I had seen the original production on Broadway, and was gobsmacked by Hal Prince’s concept, by Len Cariou’s and Angela Lansbury’s performances, and by Steve’s very complicated and heartbreakingly beautiful score. But it just wasn’t a part my name would normally be associated with. This casting choice came out of left field.
I asked my agent who exactly thought of me for the part, and we found out that it was the brainstorm of Welz Kauffman, who at that time was the artistic administrator of the New York Philharmonic. Welz was embarking on a five-year birthday celebration in honor of Stephen Sondheim—from his seventieth to his seventy-fifth—a retrospective of Sondheim’s work, and Sweeney Todd was to be the first production.
With Welz Kauffman, my theatrical muse.
Welz had already cast the opera singers for the concert. Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel was cast as Sweeney, soprano Heidi Grant Murphy was Johanna. He also cast Neil Patrick Harris as Tobias. His greatest gift to me, however, was the chance to work with Audra McDonald, who played Lucy. The two of us became friends and have performed together many times, but it was Welz who initially brought us together for Sweeney.
Welz approached Walter Bobbie to direct the show. When Walter fell out, I was asked for suggestions and Lonny Price immediately came to mind. We had worked together on two concert productions, Pal Joey and Annie Get Your Gun. He knew how to get it done.
Mrs. Lovett was a massive role to learn. I knew that I had to come in knowing my part, because the rehearsal time for concert productions is brief, often as little as a week. One of my favorite memories from our brief rehearsal period was seeing Steve read the New York Times in the theatre while orchestrator Jonathan Tunick corrected mistakes in the score as the Philharmonic rehearsed. It made me proud to be a New Yorker. I was envious of all of the actors who had these two men in their rehearsal room every day.
For this Sweeney, the orchestra was massive, approximately seventy-five musicians filling the entire stage of Avery Fisher Hall. Lonny solved the blocking limitations by installing ramps everywhere. This meant that during the performance, actors were moving in front of, through the middle, behind, and onstage left and right of the orchestra. The musicians’ space is usually sacrosanct; they were definitely not used to seeing actors within their orchestral cocoon. Now, all of a sudden, they were in the thick of it, with people’s legs, feet, arms, props, costumes, and wigs all around them. I remember watching the musicians watch the actors and thinking, They’re involved with the play. They were as engaged as the actors—not that they wouldn’t be focused when they were playing the score, but in this production they were far more than that. It was pretty amazing to experience, and a gorgeous production to play in.
About two weeks before we were to perform, Bryn Terfel suddenly had to cancel due to a recurring back problem. The question now was who could replace him on such short notice. Welz tapped George Hearn, which turned out to be nothing short of a stroke of genius.
George was no stranger to the role. He had replaced Len Cariou as Sweeney in the original 1980 Broadway cast and had sung the part with both Angela Lansbury and Dorothy Loudon. Because he lived in rural New York and I lived in rural Connecticut, George came to my house for some early rehearsals. George had gone to college in Memphis, Tennessee, where he learned to love hard cider. Coincidence: My neighbor down the road made hard cider—scrumpy, it’s called—and I gave some to George before we started rehearsal. We had some tipsy, scrumpy-fueled blocking and script-analysis sessions in my house. Now, that’s how to develop a character! When push comes to shove, drink the “miracle elixir” from a square bottle.…
George Hearn and me as Sweeney Todd and Nellie Lovett.
© STEPHANIE BERGER
George Hearn was a blessing for this production. He led a company of Sweeney Todd virgins through the tricky channels of a Sondheim score and style. Nobody in the company had done it before except for him. George knew the Grand Guignol—its macabre, over-the-top violence—and led the rest of us merrily into the gore. He also led us, by his interpretation of Sweeney, to find our own interpretations in the style of the piece. Without him we would have been more frightened to take the theatrical leap. I’m always grateful when an actor has generosity of spirit, and George is both generous and a gentleman—on top of being a great actor. He’s another of my favorite leading men.
It was a fun new experience to watch the opera singers at work, especially Heidi Grant Murphy and John Aler, who played Beadle Bamford. I was thrilled that George, Neil Patrick, and I connected onstage. Audra was there with her undeniable goddess presence. It was an exhilarating time. Sweeney is the most difficult score I’ve ever sung. To this day, I’ve never sung a section of “God, That’s Good!” correctly, and I’ve played Nellie three times. In the midst of all this exhilaration, I was actually able to forget that I had just completed radiation treatment on my left breast. I had too much to do and too much was at stake. I couldn’t fail in this part in front of the heady crowd attending these performances in Avery Fisher Hall—fans of the Philharmonic and fans of Steve Sondheim.
We played for one weekend only, May 4 to 6, 2000, and were enthusiastically received.
Not only was I finally singing a Sondheim role in one of the greatest musicals ever written, but there I was, on the stage of Avery Fisher Hall, singing with one of the world’s greatest orchestras, the New York Philharmonic. It’s just not a frequent occurrence for Broadway actors to be in that environment. I was stunned by my good fortune. I was also working across the street from Juilliard, thus pulling together so many various threads of artistic life. It was the classical musician’s world, the opera world, and Broadway all wrapped into
one, and it all culminated in this moment on the stage of Avery Fisher Hall. What a great feeling it was when I walked through the stage door.
The following summer, I played Mrs. Lovett once again. The Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco was host to the identical concert production of Sweeney Todd that we had done in New York. Most of the cast (including George, but not including Audra) appeared with the San Francisco Symphony, with Rob Fisher conducting. Although the New York Philharmonic version had not been recorded, this one was. Our three-concert engagement of July 19 to 21, 2001, was videotaped for broadcast on PBS. They also issued a DVD, and of course, cuts from the show have been immortalized on YouTube.
In August of 2001, just a month after doing Sweeney in San Francisco, George and I performed it again, this time at the Ravinia Festival just outside of Chicago. The fact that we were reprising the New York Philharmonic production once again was no coincidence. Welz Kauffman had moved on from New York and was now the president and CEO of Ravinia. When Welz left the Phil, he took his long-planned Sondheim retrospective with him. This production, with George, once again kicked off his five-year celebration of the works of Stephen Sondheim.
Ravinia has been a part of my theatrical life for more than thirty years. The first time was in 1976, with The Acting Company’s production of The Robber Bridegroom. We played the Martin Theatre. I returned in 1984 with The Cradle Will Rock, again at the Martin Theatre. Since 2000, it’s become my annual August event and something I so look forward to because Welz Kauffman is my theatrical muse. Only he would have thought of me for Nellie Lovett, only he would have brought Jake Heggie’s original opera To Hell and Back with soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian and me to the Martin Theatre, and only he would have suggested a Kurt Weill evening that included The Seven Deadly Sins at the Pavilion Theatre. Each year I wait for another creative idea from Welz. He makes me work very hard, and I only get deeper and better through the work and creative stretch. There is no one else who has so wholly embraced who I am, and who has had the vision to create productions around my talent. It’s because of Welz that I’ve been able to play the Sondheim roles: Desiree in A Little Night Music, Fosca in Passion, Nellie in Sweeney Todd, Cora Hoover Hooper in Anyone Can Whistle, and Rose in Gypsy. None of those roles would have happened without Welz Kauffman.