Patti Lupone

Broadway, Her Way

With her “Don’t Monkey with Broadway” showcase at the Kimmel Center, the Tony Award-winning singer and actress sings her life story. And at a reasonable volume.

Named after a 1940 Cole Porter song, and as dedicated to the sounds of the Great White Way and Tin Pan Alley, past and present, as it is her youth in Long Island, Patti Lupone’s “Don’t Monkey with Broadway” could be yet another of her Tony Award-winning musicals, tense dramas, or yarn-ripping comedies. Each song that Lupone executes has more nuanced theatrical arcs than A Doll’s House and A Doll’s House II, combined, and twice the emotion. This concert-setting soliloquy—nestled at the Kimmel Center on June 9—is all talking, all singing and all Lupone kicking ass on songs from composers such as Jule Styne, Stephen Schwartz, and Stephen Sondheim, productions such as Evita, Gypsy, Sweet Charity, and Oklahoma! And, as opinionated as Lupone is, she’s taking numbers (surely, she’ll rip on Trump as she did in this interview). I caught up to her on the morning of the Obie Awards in Manhattan, making tea and prepping her laundry.

Q: As a youth on the stage you worked with who you could get and did what you could. As an award-winning star, you all but have your choice of collaborators and music. As a legend, you can do absolutely anything you damn well please, experiment, craft your own concerts. What do you look for within the adventure of music—songs and collaborators?

A: If it’s a musical, I just look for really great directors. That’s the only reason I did [Sondheim’s] Company in London—because I wanted to work with Marianne Elliott. I’m actually not that kind of person, though. I don’t look for things, because I never get them. If I audition, I don’t get the part. So I sort of let the universe bring things into my sphere. That’s how I operate now. It’s too depressing to lose a role, or not get a role. What comes my way is what I’m supposed to be doing.

Lupone as Joanne in a London production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company.

Q: Would you say that once something does come your way, it’s instinct that becomes your guide as to how you’ll tackle it, or is there something else?

A: Oh, instinct.

Q: Is the same thing true when you’re handling songs—rather than entire staged and choreographed musicals—the likes of which fill “Don’t Monkey with Broadway”?

A: It’s stuff that I—and I alone—want. “Don’t Monkey with Broadway” is stuff that’s been in my life since I was a child. It’s stuff that shows how I wound up on the Broadway musical stage. That’s what this show is about. And it’s the music I grew up with.

Q: Do you recall the very first song you fell in love with, and why you fell in love with it?

A: I do. It’s in the show. I don’t know exactly why I fell in love with it, but, I remember… I don’t want to give the show away… ah, the question is why these songs, right? And maybe I don’t know why beyond that they were beautiful. I didn’t fully understand what I was hearing—I was so young—but they were beautiful. If I was alone in the house when I was listening to this music, these songs transported me. I was imagining the action of what the lyrics were saying.

Q: What do you think you see in yourself as an artist that people miss?

A: I think that I’ve been given the opportunity to display a variety of emotions. I can’t imagine what they haven’t seen.

As Helena Rubinstein in War Paint on Broadway.

Q: See, I think that critics miss the great nuance in what you do, that you’re often gnawing at the sinew of a song’s dynamics or a lyrical phrase like a rib. OK, one could confuse your level of precision and exactitude with confidence. Do you feel as if as an artist you’re always confident?

A: No, not at all. I still have nerves. I still get scared. Being onstage—putting yourself in front of a lot of people—is nerve-wracking. It doesn’t get easier.

Lupone sang “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” in a tribute to Andrew Lloyd Webber at the 2018 Grammys.

Q: You’ve been called the queen of the modern musical. No doubt. You’ve executed older works such as Gypsy—Broadway’s origin stories—with equal aplomb. How do you feel about where staged musical melody is in the present? The Pasek & Pauls of the world, post-Rent, and its very opened-ended phrasing?

A: This is how I feel about new musicals now: I wish the sound department would turn it down so that I can hear it. I can’t hear musicals anymore because they’re just too loud. That’s been for a long time. I went to Hadestown, and I thought that would be too loud—what, an alternative rock, or alternative folk musical—and it was better. Or at least better than other recent musicals that I’ve seen. Such loudness means that you can’t hear the lyrics. You can’t hear the dynamics in the music. I don’t know why they bother to orchestrate. Why do they think that I’m deaf—that I have to play the sound at such loud levels? The band is mixed at the same level as the voice. If there’s fortissimo, if there’s volume—you can’t tell the difference. IT. IS. TOO. LOUD. That’s depressing. Don’t you find that?

Q: Yes, but I also come from a pop place where I know that such volume is necessary. They’re mixing for—and this lacks a better way of putting it—a younger generation’s ears.

A: Why are they making under-18-year-olds go deaf, though? They’re second-guessing an audience.

Q: Thinking about you and your level of activism, it strikes me as funny that two of the most prominent actors in New York City—you and Robert DeNiro—are the two most vocal critics of President Trump. Would you say that it’s because you’ve watched him through of all his years as a loudmouthed developer in Manhattan?

A: Oh, definitely. I’ve seen him be that level blowhard since the late ’70s and ’80s. This guy is dangerous. And you just don’t know what he’s going to do next. What he has done though—and mark my words—the damage will be irreparable.

Q: Do you feel as if “Don’t Monkey with Broadway” is a respite from such headaches and heartaches?

A: I hope so. Sometimes, though, I feel as if I’m not doing enough—me singing my songs. That perhaps I should be out there protesting.

Q: I think that you’ll have plenty of chances outside of your concert to raise a protest banner.

A: I’m pretty sure you’re right.

A.D. Amorosi