celeb news Patti LuPone drags Nicole's Sunset director for rehashing musical

[SoldierofLove]

Patti LuPone, famously fired by Andrew Lloyd Webber from her role as Norma Desmond in the 1993 London production of Sunset Boulevard, is putting old grudges aside — kinda, sorta — and plans to see the new Jamie Lloyd-directed Broadway production on Wednesday.

 

In a deliciously on-point LuPone appearance on ABC's The View today, the former Evita was in peak candid form in delivering a side-eye "compliment" about the hot new Broadway Sunset revival starring Nicole Scherzinger as Norma.

 

"I can't wait to see it!" she belted, adding that she's scheduled to see the show next Wednesday. 

 

"I'm very curious to see what Jamie Lloyd has done with this," she said, then added that she wishes talented directors like Lloyd would focus on "original material, support new playwrights and new composers and lyricists instead of things that we've seen." 

 

"But I'm curious to see it," she said, adding, "It's a lumbering musical" – here she intoned the word lumbering like it carried an Agatha All Along curse. "It always has been, so I'm curious to see what he's going to do to make it less lumbering."

 

With that, she burst into her trademark laugh, only to stop when co-host Joy Behar mentioned the new production's good reviews.

 

"Well, we'll see," LuPone said. "There's no accounting for taste."

 

https://deadline.com/2024/11/patti-lupone-the-view-sunset-blvd-1236164486/

 

Still bitter as always 

Edited November 1 by SoldierofLove

[EnigmaticAndroid]

3 minutes ago, SoldierofLove said:

"I'm very curious to see what Jamie Lloyd has done with this," she said, then added that she wishes talented directors like Lloyd would focus on "original material, support new playwrights and new composers and lyricists instead of things that we've seen." 

 

"But I'm curious to see it," she said, adding, "It's a lumbering musical" – here she intoned the word lumbering like it carried an Agatha All Along curse. "It always has been, so I'm curious to see what he's going to do to make it less lumbering."

I mean... she's not wrong. 

 

While there's obviously merit and a necessity to reimagine older shows, it would be nice to see new talented directors help shepard new works that will be reference points in the future. 

 

And the show has notoriously been seen as a slog. The songs are good to great but the book has long been criticized and people joked that it only won the Tonys it did because there was only one other original musical that season.  Lumbering is the perfect word for it as a piece of theatrical text to be staged.

[Princess Aurora]

Oh dear

[IMadeYouReadThis]

Patti having widespread recognition as an actor and a troll is most pleasing to me

[The7thStranger]

I must not have the gay-man-must-love-Patti-Lupone gene. I've always found her insufferable, both as a performer and a person. Girl, sit down.

[Gui Blackout]

Most of the musicals she's done are revivals so this is a weird dig

[Keter]

She's been a bitter woman for many years. 

[Elusive Chanteuse]

Her voice is awful to me 

[SoldierofLove]

1 hour ago, Gui Blackout said:

Most of the musicals she's done are revivals so this is a weird dig

This is so true  

 

I guess she doesn't consider the directors she has worked with on revivals to be talented 

[vuelve88]

She's perpetually unhappy 

[Rep2000]

2 hours ago, The7thStranger said:

I must not have the gay-man-must-love-Patti-Lupone gene. I've always found her insufferable, both as a performer and a person. Girl, sit down.

I haven't seen a person advertising their lack of taste this proudly 

[Jack!]

She's right about Broadway/the West End/theatre in general needing to focus its larger spaces for new work and talent. But it's difficult to mould this conversation to Sunset Boulevard since its run on Broadway was considerably short anyway. It only stuck around for a few years, and had a short revival in 2017 and again now. There's bigger hurdles to tackle. Phantom was on Broadway for 35 years (it's still going in the West End too), plus you've got Chicago going for 28 years so far (and this was a revival), The Lion King going for 27 years and Wicked going for 21 years. The latter will more than likely see ticket sales expand following on from the movie coming this year, so we can expect again for a number of years it'll be occupying the space of one of the New York's largest theatres.

 

I love theatre but definitely they need to look at wrapping some of these productions up and breathing a new life into the forthcoming era of theatre since it is pretty much a traffic jam at the minute of decade old shows.

[simplywohoo]

I love hearing her talk she's so funny 

[tiagol88]

She sounds like a miserable human being all the time tbh

[popmusicisdead]

the only time i hear about Patti Lupone is when Patti Lupone is mad about something. she needs to chill

 

[The7thStranger]

6 hours ago, Rep2000 said:

I haven't seen a person advertising their lack of taste this proudly 

She's a ham.

[UnderratedVocalist]

I'm really curious to see what she thinks of the show.

 

Andrew Lloyd Webber feud aside, I want to see if she will at least respect and recognize Nicole's PHENOMENAL performance.

 

Glenn Close was gracious and even sent Nicole flowers for opening night.

[fridayteenage]

11 hours ago, Jack! said:

 

 

I love theatre but definitely they need to look at wrapping some of these productions up and breathing a new life into the forthcoming era of theatre since it is pretty much a traffic jam at the minute of decade old shows.

per Broadwayworld, of 31 current shows (sans previews) 18 opened this year. 58%.

There's 5 that are actually 10+ years, 16%; that's not much of a traffic jam.

 

I don't see the logic in 'they should close the handful of guaranteed classic hits to get some new plausible flops in here.'

well, Chicago isn't so much a hit in recent years, but supposedly it's cheap to put on so remains profitable and the theater itself is cheap n crappy.

Edited November 2 by fridayteenage

[Haze]

She's an old school diva. How can you not enjoy her drags when they're brought with such verve? The way she says lumbering, sneaking another read in at the last moment ... that's mother.