Boyd Gaines to Star With Patti LuPone in City Center Gypsy

At last night’s Drama Desk Awards, Boyd Gaines told TheaterMania that he will play Herbie opposite the Mama Rose of Patti LuPone in the upcoming City Center Encores! Summer Stars production of the Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim-Arthur Laurents musical Gypsy, July 9-29. The show, to open officially on July 14, will be directed by Laurents, who wrote the book of the musical, based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee. No other casting or creative team personnel have yet been announced.

The production will be the first in a new spinoff of the popular City Center Encores! series of musicals in concert, the main difference being that the Encores! Summer Stars productions will have full sets and costumes.

Gaines received the Drama Desk Award as Best Featured Actor in a Play for Journey’s End and is nominated for the Tony Award as Best Actor in a Play for that performance. He is a three-time Tony winner for Contact, She Loves Me, and The Sisters Rosensweig.

LuPone was praised for her performance as Rose in a concert production of Gypsy last year at the Ravinia Festival. Most recently seen on Broadway in Sweeney Todd, she won a Tony Award for her performance in the title role of Evita. Her other Broadway credits include Master Class, Anything Goes, Oliver!, Working, and The Old Neighborhood.

Gaines and LuPone previously worked together while attending Juilliard and appeared in a benefit performance of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes in which LuPone played Reno Sweeney and Gaines played Lord Evelyn.