Patti LuPone Teases Broadway Reopening: 'It'll Be One Hell of a Show'

LuPone next stars in a female-centered revival of Company.

Neal Broverman

Neal Broverman is the Editorial Director, Print of Pride Media, publishers of The Advocate, Out, Out Traveler, and Plus, spending more than 20 years in journalism. He indulges his interest in transportation and urban planning with regular contributions to Los Angeles magazine, and his work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He lives in the City of Angels with his husband, children, and their chiweenie.

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Neal Broverman

May 12 2021 11:26 AM EST

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With Broadway inching toward reopening, one of its biggest stars is working to juice public excitement.

Grammy- and Tony-winner Patti LuPone -- the star of dozens of Broadway productions, possibly most memorably, Evita -- filmed a video promoting her industry's reopening. LuPone next stars in the revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's Company, a musical set of vignettes on love and friendship in modern New York City (and it replaces the single male protagonist with a female one). In March 2020, LuPone and her castmates and crew were in previews, 10 days away from opening, when COVID forced the shuttering of all of Broadway's theaters.

"My hope had signicantly faded if not walked out the door, but if there's an upside from having to be away from my spiritual home for so long, it was that it made me realize how much theater means to me," LuPone says in the video.

Days after announcing that New York State will lift pandemic-related capacity restrictions May 19 for restaurants, bars, museums, concert halls, and theaters, including Broadway and other live-performance venues, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said last week that Broadway can reopen at full capacity September 14. The latter is a more realistic date for shows to be ready anyway, given the cost and logistics of mounting them.