by Patti Lupone
It still took every ounce of energy. Boyd and I would come offstage during the Grantziger scene in the first act gasping for air. It was our age, but it was also the intense emotional outpouring of both of these characters. We had a sweet ritual before the show. I’d come down the stairs at the places call and he’d be waiting for me outside of his dressing room. We kissed each other, and then came the inevitable question, followed by the equally inevitable answer:
“Did you sleep last night?”
“No.”
“Neither did I.”
I was wired to beat the band. I’m high energy, but I needed double my energy to play Rose, and the energy that wasn’t burned off onstage kept me going till at least 3:30 A.M. But nervous energy or not, lack of sleep or not, when I met Boyd for the traditional hug and kiss, I knew that when I saw him onstage in our first meeting, he would infuse me with all the strength, energy, laughter, challenge, and love I needed because we had so much fun out there. It was a great game we played every night and everything informed our performances, as it should be. The show was never the same, which was fine by Arthur. At one note session he said to us, “It’s never the same but it’s always right.”
Arthur told me not to cry in this scene. It was so hard to do. He was so right.
© JOAN MARCUS
At the end of September 2008, it suddenly began to look like the world, at least the financial world, was coming to an end. The stock market was in free fall and it wasn’t long before the economic meltdown turned into blood on all the streets in the Theatre District. Because times had become uncertain, people stopped buying theatre tickets in the same way that they stopped buying everything else that wasn’t absolutely necessary.
Virtually every production on Broadway started hemorrhaging red ink—the biggest hits, the best shows, including Gypsy. We had been playing to sold-out houses. When I started seeing empty seats, then lots of empty seats, I knew the handwriting was on the wall. We were one of eleven shows that closed in the first two months of the year. Instead of closing in March, as planned, it was announced that we would close on January 11, 2009, seven weeks ahead of schedule. Even though it was hardly unexpected, it was painful to think that this extraordinary company would be disbanding. We played the rest of the month in a kind of denial. There were tears and then there was laughter. There were long faces and mournful sighs and then out on the stage these troupers went with their biggest smiles. As they say in the song:
There may be streets that have their sorrow
A smile today a tear tomorrow
But there’s a street that lives in glory
It always tells the same old story
Don’t bring a frown to old Broadway
You’ve got to clown on Broadway
Your troubles there are out of style
’Cause Broadway always wears a smile
A million lights they flicker there
A million hearts beat quicker there
No skies of grey on the Great White Way
That’s the Broadway Melody
January 11, 2009: It was an unforgettable closing night.
© JOAN MARCUS
Epilogue
Closing Night, Gypsy
BROADWAY, JANUARY 2009
Opening nights are like a little death because the nerves can literally take minutes off your life.
Closing nights are a little death. It is the end of a theatrical experience, of the atmosphere onstage and off, of the interaction with the audience, the interaction with the characters, of the camaraderie among the players, the Sunday brunches, the practical jokes, the corpsing onstage, the missed lines—the life in the theatre.
My closing nights for Gypsy were extraordinary events. I don’t remember the Patio Players closing night, just that damn sheep. I do remember Ravinia, City Center, and the St. James closing nights. Ravinia’s was frenzied because there were only three performances. Friends and strangers alike covered the lawn and filled every seat of the Pavilion Theatre to see the show. I remember hearing the applause but it’s a vast theatre—more like an amphitheatre. You can see the first couple of rows—then you feel everyone else. There were thousands of people on closing night. Three performances of any show are more exhausting than an eight-show week, and I left Ravinia wrung out and needing a month’s vacation.
City Center’s closing night was the same kind of madness. I’m a New Yorker, and fellow New Yorkers showed up to say farewell to my Rose. After that Brantley review, I’m sure they thought it was farewell for good.
The City Center Theatre, which is in excess of two thousand seats, was packed to the rafters. Each song delivered by each character was met with thunderous applause. The curtain call was deafening. People were standing and cheering. When I came out for my call—well, let’s just say I was grateful to be alive. It had been arranged that Arthur and Stephen would take a bow. They left their seats in the house, made their way onto the stage, and turned to face the audience. The roof blew off. The company surrounded them, we all took our final bow, and then another bow, and then another bow. The audience would not let us leave the stage. Craig Jacobs, our stage manager, did something so inherently theatrical. I just love it when people maintain tradition in the theatre. He did not bring the curtain in. The curtain never closed on City Center’s Gypsy.
We all walked off the stage amidst the still-cheering crowd. I said my farewells and went with my husband and son back home to Connecticut, exhausted, elated, and wondering what the future had in store. Gypsy was done.… but not really.
The closing night of Gypsy at the St. James Theatre on January 11, 2009, was perhaps the most extraordinary closing night I have ever been a part of. I had prepared for this day for a month. I’d moved pretty much everything out of the apartment that the company had rented for me. There were just bits and pieces left. A couple of days earlier, I cried myself to sleep and then slept like a baby, which I hadn’t done in months.
I’d moved everything out of my dressing room as well—the opening night gifts and the accumulation of ten months of Gypsy souvenirs. The rooms were barren but not the walls because wherever a picture had hung I drew a replica in Magic Marker with little quotes underneath, such as “Here was Ethel Merman” or “My Orpheum stock runneth out.” People coming into my dressing room during those final performances could literally see the writing on the walls.
I went to the theatre in preparation for the same onslaught I experienced opening night. Closing nights are equally as busy as opening nights. There are flowers, champagne, cards, and tears. I got there in plenty of time to get made up and costumed so that I could hug and kiss my beloved company and the St. James backstage crew farewell. My son, Josh, who had spent the summer with me, engulfed in the backstage life, was visibly upset. According to Josh, it was the best summer he’d ever had and now it was over. He had tasted the magic and the heartbreak of Broadway.
Steve came to my dressing room and chatted with everybody there. He found a cute hat on my couch, put it on, and left with it. Choreographer Joey Pizzi has been too scared to ask for it back ever since. Matt and Josh stayed as long as they could, then Matt took his seat and Josh stayed backstage for one last poker game in the men’s dressing room. My friends hugged and kissed me and took their seats. Arthur came in and vowed we’d do this again. We had weary tears in our eyes. Places was called. Laura, Boyd, and I refused to say Good-bye. We just silently hugged each other. I took my position, as I had done for ten months, at the back of the house, house right, with my dresser standing next to me, and Margaret the usher making sure the path was clear for my entrance down the aisle.
When my cue came, I said my line, “Sing out, Louise,” and started down the aisle. The theatre erupted. Baby June (Sami Gayle) and Baby Louise (Katie Micha) were facing the audience and I could see Katie crying uncontrollably. When I reached the stage, I shielded my two little friends. As the ovation continued, with my back to the audience, I cupped their chins and said, “No tears, no tears
, no tears.” When we were able to begin the play, it took every ounce of energy I had to keep the play onstage. It was turning into a grand and glorious free-for-all in that theatre. But we played our play as we had rehearsed it around that table with Arthur at the helm, with one small difference: In each scene, if it was the last scene we played with a particular character, we said our farewells to each other. My last scene with Boyd broke my heart. My last scene with Laura broke it again. I was a bloody mess by the time I got to “Rose’s Turn” and drew on the very last ounce of energy I had to turn it out, knowing it was the last time I would be doing this monumental actor’s turn, now unblocked and wildly free. The release on a closing night is extraordinary. Every acting dilemma, every confusing plot point, every bad staging issue is resolved, and the liberation one has in a final performance informs a character more than eight times a week for ten months does. The irony.
Onstage at the St. James with Arthur Laurents.
Our curtain call was festooned with roses upon roses upon roses. I picked up as many as I could and gave each company member a flower. Boyd, Laura, and I were holding hands for moral support, but each of us was hanging by a thread, barely keeping it together. Then Arthur and Steve came onstage. Again, it was an overwhelming moment, a truly historic moment, one that would never be repeated. Gypsy is unlikely to be revived anytime soon.
The ovation lasted more than twenty minutes. We remained onstage well into our stagehands’ golden overtime. This was an event nobody in that building ever wanted to forget—the audience, ushers, stagehands, and cast. The curtain rang down on this Gypsy.
Behind the main drape, we all remained onstage. There were bittersweet hugs and kisses, a champagne toast to Arthur, then tears and bowed heads as people disappeared into the woodwork.
I miss this company more than I can say. I have never experienced such talent, dedication, goodwill, and generosity. I treasure the memory of our table reads, of watching the actors, from character men to children to young adults, listening to Arthur, absorbing every single word he said, then watching scenes being investigated, watching us fail, watching us succeed. I will never forget the actors making their Broadway debuts with starstruck awe in their eyes. Their gratitude and desire came onstage every single night. Nobody ever phoned it in, ever.
I know that Gypsy will remain one of if not the best experiences I’ve ever had in my career.
I don’t normally finish a run. I usually leave it before the show closes because of how emotionally painful a closing can be. (Of course, that’s still no guarantee it won’t be painful—again, see the Sunset Boulevard chapters, 12 and 13.) But I was proud and thrilled to have been on that St. James stage closing night. Theatre memories are precious to me—the only thing a stage actor has, really (besides stolen bits of the producer’s property)—and this one was a big one.
How ironic that this show, one that initially generated the most theatrical controversy for me, turned out to be the most blissful production, the kind everybody lives for. And if you choose a life on the stage, my wish for you is the kind of experience I had—the kind of experience we all had—in this show.
Coda
I have been incredibly fortunate over the course of my career to have been associated with some extraordinary dramatic and musical productions, and also some rather spectacular disasters. Looking back, I can find gifts and life lessons in every one—even the flops.
From Esther Scott and the Northport music department, I got the nurturing I needed, and the confidence in my talent to make it my lifework. From Juilliard and John Houseman, I got perseverance, versatility, resourcefulness, and the ultimate actor’s training. From The Acting Company, I learned about life on the road, gaining years of technique that would serve me the rest of my career, life with my first love, and eventually, The Robber Bridegroom.
From The Baker’s Wife, I learned the true meaning of the phrase “The show must go on,” and on and on and on. As dysfunctional and emotionally debilitating as The Baker’s Wife was, I would not have had the gift of “Meadowlark,” one of my signature songs, without it.
Encouraging me to abandon the idea of “acting” and to trust the script to do the work, David Mamet’s sage advice to live your life and ply your craft and keep the separation clean, has truly been a touchstone.
Evita made me a star, but it took its toll on every part of my being. Its lessons were often hurtful, but ultimately rewarding and highly valuable. With Mandy Patinkin I perfected the art of roping in skeptical audiences who dared us to be worth the money. I learned what happens when one is sucked into the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical machinery … and eventually I learned how not to be ground to bits by its relentlessly turning gears. But I was also given the gift of another signature song—“Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.”
With Les Misérables, I was linked to the priceless connection between the long and revered history of the acting profession in England and my training at Juilliard. I also learned not to lose track of time in the dressing room between appearances onstage. With LBJ, I was given one of the greatest gifts of my life—my husband, Matt.
From Anything Goes, I learned how universally healing laughter can be when it rings in a theatre. (And Matt and I learned to always build the house before you get married.) From Life Goes On, I learned that even in unpleasant circumstances quality work can still be done and great friendships can be formed. On LGO the other greatest gift of my life was given to me—my son, Joshua.
With Sunset Boulevard, the lesson was reinforced that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger—but not until it almost kills you first. Almost. In the midst of huge emotional pain, I was rescued by the outpouring of love from the audience, my cast mates, and my friends who flew to London just to put their arms around me.
I learned that when you’re hurting, it’s all too easy to lash out at those who love you—and that it’s not easy to stop, even when you finally realize that’s what you’re doing. I learned that the people who love you will continue to love you, stand by you, and help you get through it.
There is a silver lining, and sometimes its name is Welz Kauffman. Welz gave me not only the chance to play Nellie Lovett in Sweeney Todd, but also the gift of a string of fantastic opportunities to perform the works of Stephen Sondheim.
Welz brought me to Chicago to play Rose several summers ago, which eventually led to a happy and heartfelt reconciliation between Arthur Laurents and me. A magnificent gift if ever there was one.
From there, Gypsy became the gift that kept on giving—in the relationships with other actors in the company, with Stephen Sondheim, and with Arthur himself.
And after all these years and all those experiences, I’ve never wavered from my love and dedication to the craft of acting and the belief in the value theatre holds in our culture. Whether you’re in the audience or on the stage, theatre is eternally transportive and transformational, allowing the soul to breathe and the spirit to rejuvenate.
The wonderful actress Patricia Elliott sent me a William Butler Yeats quote that says it about as well as anything: What is there left for us, that have seen the newly discovered stability of things changed from an enthusiasm to a weariness, but … to rediscover an art of the theatre that shall be
joyfal,
fantastic,
extravagant,
whimsical,
beautiful,
resonant,
and altogether RECKLESS.
Acknowledgments
AMY RENNERT, my literary agent and the reason this book exists.
SHAYE AREHEART, my editor and publisher, the reason this actual book exists with pages and a cover, and SUZANNE O‘NEILL, for the finishing touches.
DIGBY DIEHL, for the blueprint and the way forward—a true gentleman.
JEFFREY RICHMAN, for so many words, so much laughter, so much love.
PHILIP RINALDI, my friend and beloved press agent, whose job protecting and defending my reputation would’ve killed a lesser man.
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br /> PHILIP CAGGIANO, my oldest pal and source of many recovered memories.
KATRIN HALL, the last stop before turning this book in, for her invaluable input.
TIMOTHY JEROME and KURT PETERSON, my Baker’s Wife cast mates and fellow survivors who bore witness to the insanity of that time and helped me laugh about it.
KIMBERLY RIMBOLD of Actors’ Equity, who patiently explained David Merrick’s proposed A, B, C, D.
PETER MARINOS, my Evita descamisado who remembered the Casa Rosada better than I did.
ESTHER SCOTT, my teacher and inspiration.
JOAN LADER, the angel who saved my voice and taught me how to sing.
MY TEACHERS FROM THE JUILLIARD DRAMA DIVISION, who shared their knowledge and gave me the foundation for a life in the theatre.
The genius Ethan HILL for the cover photograph.
SYLVIA GRIESER, stylist; ANGELINA AVALLONE, makeup artist; CLARISS MORGAN, hairdresser; and LAURA DUFFY, jacket designer, for making me look so great on the cover.
BARBARA STURMAN, for her exquisite design of this book. All the wonderful theatre photographers who have documented my career:
STEPHANIE BERGER
DONALD COOPER
FRITZ CURZON
JOSEPH GIANNETTI
DIANE GORODNITZKI
RUSSELL JENKINS
PAUL KOLNIK
BRIGITTE LACOMBE
DAVID J. LANS
MICHAEL LE POER TRENCH
JOAN MARCUS
ROBERT MILLARD
JACK MITCHELL
JIM STEERE
MARTHA SWOPE
RICHARD TERMINE
GARY GERSH, my theatrical agent.
DAISY DECOSTER, my archivist.
BRUCE GLIKAS, for recording the celebrations.