Nan Gurley Takes Her Turn as Mama Rose in GYPSY

Earlier this summer, when word spread quickly among Nashville's theater community that Nan Gurley had been cast as Mama Rose in Studio Tenn's 2015-16 season opening production of Gypsy, the response was universal: artistic director Matt Logan once again had proven his brilliance. Simply put, Nan Gurley - a member of Nashville theater's first family - was the perfect choice to play the overpowering and flawed mother of stripper/entertainer/author/raconteur Gypsy Rose Lee.

In fact, everyone around Music City just assumed that Gurley had been pre-cast in the role originated by Ethel Merman and later played to acclaim by such theatrical luminaries as Angela Lansbury, Patti LuPone, Tyne Daly and Bernadette Peters (with whom Logan worked on the Broadway production a few years back). But the real story is even more entertainingly serendipitous: Gurley found out about the show - more to the point, auditions for the production - when actress Casey Hebbel reached out to her, asking for help in preparing for her own audition for Studio Tenn's upcoming Gypsy.

"I didn't know Studio Tenn was doing Gypsy...so I found out about it when Casey asked for help with her audition," Gurley explains. "I auditioned like everyone else - I had to earn it - and the more I worked on preparing for auditions the more I wanted the role. I knew I could really sink my teeth into this and I could really do something with this role."

While Logan may well have been thinking about Nan Gurley as Mama Rose while he was in pre-production and while designing the show, he remains rather circumspect about details like that. But with a cast led by Gurley - who's joined onstage by a bevy of local actors of note, including Mia Rose as Louise, Matthew Carlton as Herbie, Maggie Richardson as Dainty June, Caleb Marshall as Tulsa, along with Erin Parker, David Compton, Derek Whittaker and Casey Hebbel as Electra - the stage is set for a show of near-epic proportions. Gurley is effusive in her praise for the rest of the company and for the creative leadership provided by Logan, producer Jake Speck and choreographer Emily Tello Speck.

"It's interesting that people who know me have said 'Nan should play Mama Rose,' but what Matt has been asking us to do in rehearsals is to find in Mama Rose that which is not like Nan," Gurley, a 2013 First Night Honoree, confides. "He doesn't want us to play ourselves. I don't think I'm a control freak and I am not an emotionally manipulative person, so those are definitely fun things for me to explore."

Exploring the many facets of Rose Hovick, the quintessential stage mother of two daughters (the elder Louise would grow up to become Gypsy Rose Lee, the younger June would become June Havoc), offers a challenge to any actress who portrays her in Gypsy, widely considered to be one of the best musicals of all time.

The show's musical score, with music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, is filled to overflowing with iconic tunes ("Everything's Coming Up Roses," "Let Me Entertain You" and "Some People" - "As an actor you're always thinking don't be over the top, be real...but with Mama Rose it's just being honest and I'm trying to give myself permission to be over the top," Gurley muses.) are among the melodic riches found in the show) that any actress worth her salt would gladly delve into, but for Nan Gurley, it may be Arthur Laurents' beautifully incisive book that proves the greatest challenge - even for an actor of her experience.

"Arthur Laurents' script is much deeper, wider and richer than your typical musical theater script," Gurley says. "It's a play in itself."

So richly evocative is Laurents' book, she says, that actors yearn for a far lengthier rehearsal process than is afforded by the economics of producing such a leviathan of a production. "But the reality is that you must work fast, think fast. I came to rehearsal off-book because I knew I had to come in prepared and ready to do the work necessary to reveal the depth of this character."

"If you play Mama Rose as evil, it's not real," Gurley suggests. "What I have to is figure out whey this character feels like she is doing the right thing. I love the character and have to figure out why she sees herself as good. She genuinely believes she is living to give her best to her daughters, to force them to become stars, to everything they can to make them stars."

To Rose's way of thinking, Gurley says, "She's giving them everything a mother should give. I have to play the true motivation of this woman: she's giving her daughters the best she can give."

As part of her research into the character of Mama Rose, Gurley this summer read numerous books about the very real woman behind the fictionalized character: "I read a couple of books this summer, including one called Mama Rose's Turn and Gypsy Rose Lee's own autobiography. In the first book, the writer reveals that Rose's mother abandoned her at an early age, so she was left to fend for herself. This was a life-shaping event! Rose is operating from a fear of abandonment - and I'm no psychologist, but in my limited knowledge, I think her efforts to control her daughters stems from that experience. She is determined not to abandon them to their own devices."

Photos by Anthony Matula

Gypsy. Music by Jule Styne. Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by Arthur Laurents. Directed by Matt Logan. Choreography by Emily Tello Speck. Presented by Studio Tenn at Jamison Hall at The Factory at Franklin. Through October 4. For tickets, call (615) 541-8200 or go to www.StudioTenn.com.

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