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Gypsy
Gypsy
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Author: Arthur Laurents Lyrics by: Stephen Sondheim Music by: Jule Styne Publisher: Theatre Communications Group Format: Softcover # of Pages: 108 Pub. Date: 2009 ISBN-10: 1559360860 ISBN-13: 9781559360869
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About
the Play:
Gypsy is a full-length musical with book by Arthur
Laurents, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Stephen
Sondheim. Indomitable stage mother Rose chases vicarious success
and stardom as she pushes her daughters through the vaudeville
circuit. When Baby June flees the act to elope, Rose vows to make
introverted Louise into a star. Cherished for generations, Gypsy
is regarded by many theatre professionals as the finest musical ever
created.
Gypsy is the ultimate tale of an ambitious stage mother
fighting for her daughters' success - while secretly yearning for her
own. Set all across America in the 1920s and 30s, when vaudeville was
dying and burlesque was born, it is the story of a domineering stage
mother's inadvertent creation of a burlesque stripper (suggested by
the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee). Arthur Laurents' landmark show
explores the world of two-bit show business with brass, humor, heart,
and sophistication. Gypsy was the second Broadway smash for
Stephen Sondheim and his West Side Story collaborator
Arthur Laurents, and yet another success for composer Jule
Styne. It introduced such standards as Let Me Entertain You
and Everything's Coming Up Roses and has, in its many
incarnations, starred Ethel Merman, Rosalind Russell, Angela
Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters, Patti Lupone as well as,
Bette Midler.
Gypsy opened in 1959 at The Broadway Theatre in New York
City, transferred to the Imperial Theatre, and closed in 1961 after
over 700 performances. After four
triumphant Broadway revivals, a successful Hollywood film adaptation,
a US national television broadcast and innumerable
productions worldwide, Gypsy is often cited as having the best
book of any show.
Cast: 6 female, 2 male
What people say:
"Best damn musical I've seen
in years!" — New York Herald Tribune
"Genius! ...Mr. Laurents
fought to place the figure of Rose, the stage mother to end them all,
at the center of the show. As a result Gypsy became
a musical that anatomizes the pathology of ambition and the need for
love with a trenchant humor that makes the show as vividly alive
today as it was when it opened in 1959."
— New York Times
About the Playwright:
Arthur Laurents (1917-2011) was an American playwright,
stage director and screenwriter. After writing scripts for radio
shows after college and then training films for the U.S. Army during
World War II, he turned to writing for Broadway, producing a body of
work that includes the books for two true classics of musical
theatre, Gypsy and West Side Story. His screenplays
include Rope for Alfred Hitchcock, and one of
Hollywood's most well-known romances, The Way We Were.
Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021) was an American composer and
lyricist known for his immense contributions to musical theatre for
over 50 years. His musical compositions and lyrics earned him a
Pulitzer Prize, an Academy Award, and numerous Tonys among other
awards and honours. Described by Frank Rich of The New York Times
as "now the greatest and perhaps best-known artist in the
American musical theater."
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Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine
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Stephen Sondheim & John Weidman
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