The production, directed by the show’s bookwriter Arthur Laurents and with a cast featuring Patti LuPone, Laura Benanti, Boyd Gaines, and Leigh Ann Larkin, explores the emotional depths of this classic and captures the happiness, sadness, triumphs and tragedies that are usually limited to great dramas.
If you are looking for a musical that allows your cast to exercise their acting skills to the fullest and to sing one of Broadway’s greatest scores, you need look no further than GYPSY.
"Laurents also wrote the book for the show, which is based on Lee’s memoirs. And what’s particularly exciting about this revival is the care with which those book scenes are played. Rarely, in musicals, do you see people of such depth and complexity.‘Gypsy’ may be emotional but it is not sentimental. Laurents laces the tale with humor and heart, most emphatically in the blossoming of Louise, whose ugly duckling transformation into a young woman of assurance is beautifully handled by Laura Benanti." - Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press
"'Gypsy' - with its wrenching and brilliant lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and its brassy-bravura music by Jule Styne - belongs on Broadway for as long as people need musicals." - Linda Winer, Newsday
"... Mama Rose, arguably the greatest musical-female role in probably the most satisfying backstage musical of American theater’s golden age." - Linda Winer, Newsday
"This revival circles around a distinctively American theme: the desire for a better, more glamorous future, complete with autograph hounds and nightly standing ovations. The production floats with the surreal swiftness of a dream in which sighs turn instantly to showstoppers." - Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times
"Absolute perfection may not be within human grasp; but story, lyrics and music... fuse into a more than reasonable facsimile." - John Simon, Bloomberg
"From its pulse-racing overture to its knockout finale, ‘Gypsy’ is one of those great, glorious musicals that can be enjoyed repeatedly thanks to its tremendous score, compelling showbiz story and splendid opportunities for front-rank artists to strut their stuff." - Michael Sommers, The Star-Ledger
"Rose is one of the great parental monsters, a figure whose epically misguided love makes her kin to King Lear and Mother Courage. Not that these comparisons are earned by Laurents’ dramatic treatment alone. But when you add the sweeping theatricality of Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics and Jule Styne’s music - one of those proverbial desert island scores that could leave a castaway in utter bliss - the very heartbeat of the protagonist can be heard racing." - Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times
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