Follow Spot: Patti LuPone

Don’t you try to pigeonhole Patti LuPone! After completing her training with the first class of the Drama Division of the prestigious Juilliard School, she began her career as a founding member of John Houseman’s The Acting Company. But almost immediately — thanks to her performances in The Baker’s Wife on its ill-fated tour, The Robber Bridegroom for The Acting Company, Broadway’s Evita (for which she won a Tony Award), and the original London production of Les Misérables — people began to think of LuPone as a musical theater diva of the highest order. That status was confirmed by her subsequent brilliance in Anything Goes at Lincoln Center, Pal Joey and Can-Can for the City Center Encores! series, and concert presentations of Sweeney Todd in New York, San Francisco, and at the Ravinia Festival. LuPone has become something of a Stephen Sondheim specialist at Ravinia, starring in several of the master’s shows there — most recently in Passion, which she and co-stars Audra McDonald and Michael Cerveris will reprise in Lincoln Center American Songbook Series concerts on March 30 and April 1.

Talk about range: LuPone’s non-musical credits on the New York stage include Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist, David Mamet’s The Water Engine and The Old Neighborhood, Terrence McNally’s Master Class (in which she played Maria Callas), and the 2001 revival of Michael Frayn’s hilarious comedy Noises Off. She’s been seen on film in City By The Sea, State and Main, Summer of Sam, Driving Miss Daisy, Witness, etc., and her TV résumé includes Oz, Remember WENN, and Life Goes On. Though she hasn’t starred in a Broadway musical in years, LuPone has continued to sing out, Louise, holding forth in concert and cabaret appearances throughout the country. From November 8-20, she’ll be presenting a new edition of a show titled The Lady With the Torch at Feinstein’s at the Regency. And, never one to avoid challenging herself, she will take on the monumental title role in the Marc Blitzstein opera Regina at the Kennedy Center, March 10-12. I recently phoned the indefatigable Miss LuPone in Cincinnati, where she was performing her one-woman show Matters of the Heart, for a chat about all this activity.

********************

THEATERMANIA: How’s the tour going?

PATTI LuPONE: Very well, thank you. Cincinnati is great. Oh, here’s the coffee I ordered, hold on! [She begins to caffeinate herself.] I’m lucky to be working, and my career always takes me by surprise. I did not go after Regina; it came to me. I was asked to sing for [Kennedy Center president] Michael Kaiser, so I did — and the next thing I know, they’re offering me Regina. I looked at the score and I thought, “Are you kidding?” They’re going to do whatever they need to do; we’re lowering the keys to the arias. But I’m as surprised as anybody else about that one.

TM: Talk to me about your one-woman shows.

PATTI: They run the gamut from piano only to symphonic shows. In the symphony world, which is cyclical, you need new shows to go back to these top orchestras. I think Matters of the Heart and my Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda show are timeless; they can play for as long as I can sing the music! Matters of the Heart was what brought me to Clear Channel. We did the show in California, Las Vegas, and a few other places a couple years back, and every place we played, the audience reaction was the same. I was talking to my lawyer about something else and I said, “How can I get Matters of the Heart on a theater subscription?” So he brought me to Clear Channel. We did the show for them, they booked it, and so far my point has been proven: People love the show. I attribute that to Scott [Wittman] and Dick [Gallagher], who put it together. The reviews have been incredible.

TM: Do you enjoy touring?

PATTI: Well, I miss my family. If they could come with me — my husband, my son, all three dogs and my cat — I’d be thrilled to death. But I have wanderlust. I don’t think that I will even stay in this country, ultimately. I love to travel and see new things, but I do want to be in the same city with my family one of these years. I could live anyplace. I love Australia, Italy, France, England. And I love Spain; that’s my new favorite country.

TM: Tell me how The Lady With the Torch came about.

PATTI: It was time to do a show. I wanted to do bluegrass — I think it’s the happiest music on the face of the earth — but Scott wanted me to do torch, so we’re doing torch! We did about 15 songs at Feinstein’s in April. I’m set to do a full-length concert at Carnegie Hall on March 14, so I’m basically going to do the second act of that show at Feinstein’s this month. It will be nice not to be singing these songs for the first time in my life at Carnegie Hall! I like the program; we try not to send people out to slit their wrists.

TM: Are there any particular songs in the show that you especially enjoy performing?

PATTI: The Cole Porter. We do “I Love Paris” and “C’est Magnifique” [from Can-Can]. We’re also doing “Make it Another Old Fashioned” and “So in Love.” Oh, and “Find Me a Primitive Man.” I guess I’m a Porter girl.

TM: Did you like De-Lovely?

PATTI: I didn’t see it.

TM: It got a very mixed reception. I thought maybe you had seen it because it stars your old pal Kevin Kline.

PATTI: My old pal? He’s my old boyfriend!

TM: Yes — I thought so, but I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t want to say that. Of all the projects that you have coming up, what are you most excited about?

PATTI: Well, Regina‘s scaring the shit out of me — excuse my language. We do four performances at the Kennedy Center, then I have one day of rehearsal for my Carnegie Hall concert — and it’s the same agent for both! I thought, “What do you think I am?” Regina is not an easy thing, even with the keys of the arias dropped a third. It’s huge. But I love it and I think we have a pretty incredible cast: George Hearn, Timothy Nolen, Neil Patrick Harris.

TM: Over the past several years, you’ve done just about everything except return to Broadway in a musical.

PATTI: Is there a musical out there for me? I have not been asked to do one. And I don’t think I’m going to in the next couple of seasons if the trend is toward rock shows.

TM: It would be so great to see you in Gypsy.

PATTI: Well, I’m sure you know the story behind that. It’s all about my not doing an Arthur Laurents play called Jolson Sings Again in New Jersey. I was asked to do it when I got back from doing Sunset [Boulevard] in London. I said I would do the play but then it turned out not to be a good contract, and there was no guarantee that the show would be going to Broadway. So I decided not to do it, and [Laurents] decided to take out his wrath on me. The thing is, [director] Sam Mendes had asked me to do Gypsy when I was doing The Old Neighborhood. Sam said he wanted me to do it; we talked about it at Joe Allen’s one night. That’s the business.

TM: I was surprised that Laurents had so much control over casting, even if he did write the book for the show. Well, anyway, I hope that someone comes up with a great new musical for you.

PATTI: That would be nice!