LuPone Issues Response To Showstopping Vegas 'Texting' Incident

Theatre legend Patti LuPone has issued a response regarding the recent run-in with a Las Vegas audience member who was texting during the show. The action forced LuPone to stop the show and calmly reprimand the texter.

LuPone has taken issue with the blog entry New York Times ArtsBeat columnist Dave Itzkoff posted regarding the incident, and the actress has fired off an email response. The email, posted here, reads:

Dear Dave Itzkoff,

Your story about my stopping my concert in Las Vegas on the New York Times ArtsBeat blog was forwarded to me.

I found the tone of your report very snide and feel compelled to write you to ask - what do expect me, or any performer for that matter, to do?

Do we allow our rights to be violated (photography, filming and audio taping of performances is illegal) or tolerate rudeness by members of the audience who feel they have the right to sit in a dark theater, texting or checking their e-mail while the light from their screens distract both performers and the audience alike? Or, should I stand up for my rights as a performer as well as the audiences I perform for?

And do you think I'm alone in this? Ask any performer on Broadway right now about their level of frustration with this issue. Ask the actor in "Hair" who recently grabbed a camera out of an audience member's hand and threw it across the stage. Or ask the two Queens in "Mary Stuart" (Harriet Walter and Janet McTeer) how they react to it.

I find it telling that my story elicited 47 comments from your readers while a few other stories on the blog elicited a handful, with many getting 0 comments. It certainly touched a chord with people, almost all of whom sounded like audience members, who share in my frustration with what threatens to become standard behavior if no one speaks out and takes action against it.

This has been going on in my career for 30 years since I starred in "Evita," and, you're surprised I stop shows now?

Sincerely,
Patti LuPone

The incident described took place June 21, while Patti LuPone was performing her brand-new show, Gypsy In My Soul, at the Orleans Showroom in Las Vegas. While introducing the iconic "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" LuPone noticed an audience member texting on his cell phone. Steve Friess of VegasHappensHere.com was at the show, and Tweeted (@thestrippodcast) immediately after the event.

Friess reports that LuPone kept her cool and even told the audience member, "I'm not going to yell at you, I don't think." Then she proceeded to kindly berate him -- she was sweet but terse -- and say she was on "a campaign" because such behavior is distracting and insulting to performers.

"The thing is, the people who text, they don't seem to understand that we can see you," LuPone stated.

As described by the Las Vegas Sun's Joe Brown, the Tony Award winner "stalked the stage and went on a bit further about the rudeness to herself and to the rest of the audience, threatening the offender that she'd have him or her tossed out if it happened again. The crowd applauded with loud approval, and the bond between performer and audience seemed even stronger as LuPone picked up the "Evita" number again from the beginning, working through a bravura suite of songs from "Anything Goes," "Oliver!" and her recent revival of "Gypsy."

Brown adds, "When she returned for her encore, LuPone winked at the event and her reputation as the Terminator of poorly-behaved audience members. While she sang "The Way You Look Tonight," she was snapping photos -- with a flash! -- using a disposable camera. The crowd waved and cheered and posed."

Tony Award winner Patt LuPone's new one-woman show, The Gypsy In My Soul, has announced several additional performances dates nationwide. The show debuted June 20 and 21 at The Orleans Showroom in Las Vegas.

In The Gypsy In My Soul, under the musical direction of Joe Thalken, LuPone will perform songs that have long been associated with her four-decade Broadway career, as well as some of her personal pop favorites. "I Get A Kick Out Of You" from Anything Goes, "As Long As He Needs Me" from Oliver! and "Some People" from Gypsy are some of the well-known show stoppers the two time Tony Award-winner will perform. In between musical numbers, LuPone will engage the audience as she shares backstage stories and personal reflections from her illustrious career.

New dates for The Gypsy in My Soul include:

* Aug. 15 at the Music Box, The Borgata Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey

* Sept. 26 at the University of North Carolina's Aycock Auditorium in Greensboro, North Carolina

* Feb. 17, 2010 at the Tennessee Williams Theatre in Key West, Florida

* April 24, 2010 at the Music Center at Strathmore in N. Bethesda, Maryland

For more information visit www.pattilupone.net.

Patti LuPone swept the 2008 theatre awards winning the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Actress in a Musical and the Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance for her performance as Rose in the critically-acclaimed new Broadway production of the classic Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim-Arthur Laurents musical Gypsy, directed by the show's author, Mr. Laurents, which played at the St. James Theatre.

Miss LuPone's recent stage credits include her debut with the Los Angeles Opera in Weill-Brecht's Mahagonny, the world premiere of Jake Heggie's new opera To Hell and Back with San Francisco's Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Mrs. Lovett in John Doyle's award winning Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Award nominations - Best Actress in a Musical; Drama League Award for Outstanding Contribution to Musical Theatre), the title role in Marc Blitzstein's Regina, a musical version of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes at Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center, a critically acclaimed performance as Fosca in a concert version of Stephen Sondheim's Passion, which was also broadcast on PBS' Live From Lincoln Center, and a multi-city tour of her theatrical concert Matters of the Heart. She has also performed Matters of the Heart internationally, including runs at Australia's Sydney Festival and London's Donmar Warehouse Theatre. Her CD recording, based on this concert, was named one of 1999's best recordings by both The Times of London and Time Out/New York.

In addition to Matters of the Heart, Miss LuPone also performs two other solo concerts Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda and The Lady With The Torch. She made a triumphant solo concert debut at New York's Carnegie Hall in Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda resulting in a sold-out encore performance, and performs the concert with major symphony orchestras around the country. The Lady With The Torch is the basis for Miss LuPone's latest solo CD, on Ghostlight Records. She also tours in a new concert with her Evita co-star Mandy Patinkin - An Evening With Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin.

Patti LuPone's other recent New York stage appearances include performances as La Mome Pistache in the Encores! production of Cole Porter's musical Can-Can at New York's City Center, as The Old Lady in the New York Philharmonic's concert production of Leonard Bernstein's Candide, and performances on Broadway in the hit revival of Michael Frayn's Noises Off, in David Mamet's The Old Neighborhood, Terrence McNally's Tony Award-winning play Master Class and in her own concert Patti LuPone On Broadway, for which she won an Outer Critics Circle Award. Over six consecutive summers, she's appeared in the Ravinia Festival's Sondheim series, starring as Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd, as Desiree in A Little Night Music, Fosca in Passion, Cora Hoover Hooper in Anyone Can Whistle, Rose in Gypsy and was featured in two different roles in Sunday in the Park with George.

After completing her training with the first class of the Drama Division of New York's Juilliard School, she began her career as a founding member of John Houseman's The Acting Company playing a variety of leading roles, both on and off-Broadway and on tour throughout the United States. Her subsequent New York dramatic credits include Dario Fo's Accidental Death of An Anarchist; David Mamet's The Water Engine, Edmond and The Woods and Israel Horovitz' Stage Directions. Miss LuPone's memorable performances on the New York musical stage include Vera Simpson in the Encores! production of Pal Joey, Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes, (1988 Drama Desk Award, Tony nomination, Best Actress in a Musical), The Cradle Will Rock, Nancy in Oliver!, Evita (1980 Tony and Drama Desk Awards- Best Actress in a Musical), Working and Rosamund in The Robber Bridegroom (1976 Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations, Best Featured Actress in a Musical).

In London, she created the role of Fantine in the the RSC production of Les Miserables, a role she subsequently played on the West End. For that performance, as well as the reprise of her performance in the London production of The Cradle Will Rock, she won an Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Miss LuPone created the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard (1994 Olivier nomination, Best Actress in A Musical), and recreated her Broadway performance of Maria Callas in the West End production of Master Class.

Photo credit Rahav Seger-Photopass.com