Catch Patti LuPone on Tour with 'A Life in Notes' and Get Ready with These YouTube Clips

Patti LuPone performs in concert at 54 Below on July 21, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images)

Patti LuPone attends the 75th Annual Tony Awards Meet The Nominees Press Event at Sofitel New York on May 12, 2022 in New York City.

Patti LuPone is currently on a tour with a new solo show, called "A Life in Notes," that takes her to twelve venues throughout the country. Last week she premiered the show in Houston that was reviewed by Brett Cullum for Broadway World who raved: "If you get a chance to catch Patti LuPone in 'A Life in Notes,' it is well worth seizing the opportunity."

"Patti and her music director, Joseph Thalken, have perfectly honed a surprising collection of diverse songs. She even pulls out a Judy Garland standard that everyone gasped at the start," Cullum writes. "Hearing the twists and turns as she goes through the set with some real surprises for a Broadway gal is so fun. Lupone has always known how to merge pop culture with her theatrical training, and she can craft a story around any song she chooses. And that is why we come, to hear the storyteller tell her tale."

But what stories in song will she tell as she brings the tour to Boston next week on Tuesday, April 2 at Boston's Symphony Hall for a date sponsored by the Celebrity Series of Boston? (Remaining tickets are going fast, according to the CSoB. For more information about tickets and the event, follow this link. And on the tour's remaining nine dates, which include two dates in the New York City area (including Carnegie Hall on April 7); Palm Desert, CA; San Francisco, CA; Scottsdale, AZ; Los Angeles, CA; Kalamazoo, MI; and Hartford, CA. //pattilupone.net/tour.htmlFor dates and venues, visit LuPone's website at this link.

That question comes to mind because Cullum points out that because there was no program with a set list, much of the fun of the show comes with speculation of what just songs LuPone will perform from her six-decade career and the rich array of musicals she has performed in. LuPone has not only lived her life in notes, she has also has lived it in YouTube where many of her most iconic moments have been captured. Here is a sample:

'Meadowlark' from 'The Baker's Wife'

After graduating from Julliard, LuPone was an original member of The Acting Company, a professional touring group, where she appeared in a variety of classic roles. Her Broadway debut was with "The Three Sisters" in 1973, but it was her work in the musical "The Robber's Bridegroom" in 1975 that brought her a Tony nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical. The following year, she replaced the lead in the prolonged tryout of "The Baker's Wife," Stephen Schwartz and Joseph Stein stillborn musical based on a classic French film. It was not a happy experience, with both Stein and Schwartz leaving the show before it met its death at DC's Kennedy Center; and producer David Merrick wanting to Lupone's first act showstopper – "Meadowlark" – that has gone onto becoming a cabaret standard and audition standard.

"This could all just be myth," LuPone told the New York Times in 2020, "but let's hope it's true: He was heard in a bar the night before saying, 'I'll get that song out of the show if I have to poison the birdseed.'"

'A New Argentina' from 'Evita'

LuPone's next musical role was that of Eva Peron in Andrew Lloyd Webber's and Tim Rice's "Evita," which came to New York in 1979 following success in London. While it brought her stardom, it came with some grief. "'Evita' was the worst experience of my life," she told the Times in an another interview. "I was screaming my way through a part that could only have been written by a man who hates women. And I had no support from the producers, who wanted a star performance onstage but treated me as an unknown backstage. It was like Beirut, and I fought like a banshee." Nonetheless she gave a performance that won her a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Watch her and the company perform "A New Argentina" from the 1980 Tony Awards.

'I Dreamed a Dream' from 'Les Misérables'

Post-"Evita," LuPone was asked to appear in a new musical produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. She jumped at the opportunity to play Fantine in the now landmark musical where she introduced another cabaret standard, "I Dreamed a Dream." She talks about how much she loved --and hated -- the experience in the introduction to singing the song in a 1997 concert. She also won her first Olivier Award for her performance. Her complaint may be why she didn't repeat the role when the show came to New York.

'Anything Goes' from 'Anything Goes'

In 1988 Lincoln Center Theater revived the classic Cole Porter musical "Anything Goes" with a new book by John Weidman and Timothy Crouse and its showgirl lead, Reno Sweeney, played by LuPone. With the score re-orchestrated for a dance band and a lavish production, the revival was a big hit that gave LuPone her third Tony nomination for playing the saucy Reno. Here is a clip of her singing the title song from the Tony Awards.

With One Look' from 'Sunset Boulevard'

Everyone makes mistakes. In LuPone's case it was taking Andrew Lloyd Webber's offer to star as Norma Desmond in his adaptation of the film "Sunset Boulevard" in London. It led to what the Guardian called "one of the most infamous feuds in theatre." London was thought to be the first stop for the luxe musical prior to New York. LuPone appeared to be a great choice to play forgotten silent movie star. Even the film's director Billy Wilder was impressed, saying LuPone was "a star from the moment she walks on stage" after the London premiere; but critics thought otherwise and the show was finding difficult to sustain its large operating costs. Then nine months into the run, LuPone was unceremoniously dumped by Webber and replaced with Betty Buckley. When it opened on Broadway, Glenn Close triumphed in the role, winning a Tony. But it is LuPone who had the last laugh, suing Webber and receiving $1 million in a settlement. She said she later used some of the money to build a swimming pool in her Connecticut home, naming it the Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool. She subsequently didn't sing any songs from the show until she appeared in London in 2013 when she sang "With One Look" with Seth Rudetsky. Could "As If We Never Said Goodbye" be part of her set?

'Everything's Coming Up Roses' from 'Gypsy'

In 2001 she began a collaboration with the Chicago Ravinia Festival where she starred in a six-year-long series of concert presentations of Stephen Sondheim musicals to honor his 70th birthday. Subsequently, two of them made it to Broadway: "Sweeney Todd" in John Doyle's minimalist production that featured the actors all playing instruments. (LuPone played the tuba.) Her Mrs. Lovett brought her another Tony nomination. She followed "Todd" with "Gypsy" in 2009, for which she won her second Tony Award as Best Actress in a Musical. But it was towards the end of the run that LuPone made headlines when she admonished an audience member for taking snaps of her while she performed "Rose's Turn." When the camera's flash threw off LuPone's footing, she stopped mid-number to speak to the unseen audience member. ""Stop taking pictures RIGHT NOW. Who do you think you are?" she screamed, in a rant that further cemented her reputation as a diva. She doubled-down on her 'don't mess with Patti LuPone rep' with two other incidents since then. In one she took the cell phone away from an audience member (who were sitting on the stage); in another she talked down audience members for not wearing their masks properly under Covid protocols.

'The Ladies Who Lunch' from 'Company'

"Does anyone still wear a hat?" is a line long identified with Elaine Stritch, who originated it when she played Joanne in Stephen Sondheim's "Company" in 1969. But LuPone all but appropriated the line when she played the role in the recent Tony-winning revival (that also won her a third Tony, this time for Supporting Actress in a Musical). In the musical, Joanne is a moneyed matron who stops the show with her drunken rant, "The Ladies Who Lunch" when she comes onto the show's protagonist, a bachelor named Bobby. In director Marianne Elliott's 2018 re-imagining, the show's lead is played by a woman, renamed Bobbie, which gives this scene an interesting same sex twist. LuPone was part of the original London production and won her second Olivier. When it transfer to Broadway in 2020, it close shortly after opening due to the Covid epidemic. It triumphed the following year when it reopened. Watch LuPone sing "The Ladies Who Lunch" on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

'I'm Still Here' from 'Pose'

"I know you are all thinking, who is this broad and why is she singing at an AIDS benefit?" says Frederica Norman, played by LuPone on the FX series "Pose." Norman is something of monster – a vicious and transphobic real estate tycoon – who inexplicably turns up at a benefit for AIDS that took place in a hospital ward and sings Sondheim anthem of show business survival, "I'm Still Here" with considerable panache. If anyone has rights to own that song today, it is LuPone.