Patti LuPone is welcoming audiences back to Broadway in her own inimitable style – directly and with a big, belting voice.
In a social media video message urging audiences back to Broadway, the star of the upcoming production of Company acknowledges her recent doubts and fears about taking to the stage – doubts she expressed to Deadline for our oral history of Company‘s pandemic year.
Watch the video above.
Earlier this week, Company announced its post-shutdown reopening plans, with previews to begin at Broadway’s Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on Dec. 20 and an opening night of Jan. 9, 2022.
In the video, LuPone says, “I’ll be the first to admit that at various moments since March last year, my hope had significantly faded, if not walked out the door completely. But if there’s an upside to having to be away from my spiritual home for so long, it was that it made me realize just how much theater means to me.”
LuPone, who co-stars in Company with Katrina Lenk, continues, “For those of us who love it, there’s no substitute, and without an audience there’s no show. So I speak on behalf of our entire community when I say welcome back to…” and here the stage’s great belter goes into musical mode by singing “Broadway! Broadway! We miss it so!”
Signing off, LuPone gets choked up, saying, “We miss you. Welcome back to Broadway. And when we’re together again, it’ll be one hell of a show.”
Company will mark LuPone’s 27th Broadway engagement. The musical, a gender-switching new production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s masterpiece, is directed by two-time Tony Award winner Marianne Elliott. The production was in previews and 10 days from opening when Broadway shut down due on March 12, 2020, due to the Covid pandemic.