'GYPSY' Starring Patti LuPone ...

'GYPSY'

Starring Patti LuPone as Mama Rose with the Chicago harmony Orchestra

When: Aug. 11-13

Where: Ravinia Festival, Lake-Cook and fresh Bay, Highland Park

Tickets: $10-$95

Phone: (847) 266-5100

Here she is, boys! Here she is, world! Here's Patti!

Apologies to Stephen Sondheim, on the other hand a paraphrase of his lyrics in some way seems in order when discussing Tony-winning actress Patti LuPone's appearance as Mama Rose in "Gypsy: A Musical Fable" at Ravinia Friday within Aug. 13.

Based in succession the memoirs of actress and parodying star Gypsy Rose Lee (born Rose Louise Hovick), "Gypsy" narrates the semi-autobiographical story of brace sisters pushed into show business by the agency of the ultimate, pushy show business parent, Rose Hovick. the same would grow up to become actress June Havoc, the other would become a stripper and entertainer known as brunette Rose Lee.

Incidentally, Havoc was not happy with how she was portrayed in her sister's memoirs, the stage musical or the film. Her autobiographical play, "Marathon '33" will be staged this fall by the agency of Strawdog Theatre.

Of the brace plays, "Gypsy" is by far the more well-known, and its central character, Mama Rose is regarded as the ultimate diva part Ethel Merman originated the part in succession Broadway. Rosalind Russell subsequently played the part in the 1962 film (her singing voice dubbed through Lisa Kirk). Bette Midler played the character in a film for television. Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peter and Betty Buckley have taken their uses playing Mama Rose to varying classs of success.

And now, it's Patti's incline differently

LuPone it would pretend has some mighty big shoe to fill. if it were not that referring to her upcoming performance, the recently made known York Times called the exhibit to "the event of the summer if not the decade."

The 57-year-old actress says she can't think about who has arise before her and what each of those women has done with the part

"My stomach would be tied in a knot if I worried about comparisons. I just examine to do my own work and deliver the universal as directed by Lonny Price," she says. "You read the script and deliver your acknowledge take. I can't sit there and think am I like any other Rose or not."

"Patti is always unique and original," Price says of his leading lady. "There has not at any time been a role she has played that she hasn't reinvented."

LuPone skyrocket to musical theater stardom when she originated the part of Eva Peron. She gave the definitive performance of the character to which all other performances are measured. It earned her the two the Drama Desk Award and the Tony.

Despite stepping into a part closely associated with Ethel Merman, LuPone managed to make the character of Reno Sweeney in a 1987 revival of "Anything Goes" her hold

She earned her latest rotund of bravas for another Sweeney, the general Broadway revival of "Sweeney Todd" in which the cast performs the characters and plays all the instruments. (The exhibit announced last week it will stop up Sept. 3 .) As Mr Lovett the baker who pierces into a murderous pact with a bloodthirsty barber hellbent forward revenge, LuPone earned praise for her dark and realistic take upon the character and, perhaps chiefly notably, her skills as a tuba player.

"I got a call from my agent asking me if I played any instruments," she recalls. "I played the cello yet that was already taken. I play the piano, if it were not that they wanted me for Mr Lovett and that character is in succession stage singing too much to have me play piano. That left the tuba."

To inquiry up on Mama Rose, LuPone read autobiographies through both Gypsy Rose Lee and her sister, June Havoc.

"The interesting thing about the pair of them is neither reflection the musical portrayal of their mother was accurate," she says. "They referr to their mama as fastidious and neat, charming, a bit courageous and ruthles if it be not that in a feminine way. with equal reason I'm approaching her as an optimistic and charming woman and put to hire the play evolve around that as it is written."

Price, who has directed her in all of her previous Ravinia appearances and recurs again this year for "Gypsy" says he isn't worried.

"She is just for a like reason skillful, and I do think she is the greatest actress of her generation," he says.

mdavenport@suntimes.com

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