Flatwoods to present musical ‘Gypsy’
FLATWOODS – Flatwoods Productions will present the musical “Gypsy” on June 29-30 and July 1 at Curfew Grange in Flatwoods. Performances will be at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, with a matinee at 2 p.m. Sunday.
The Grange is located at the corner of Buena Vista Road and Route 201 south (across from the cemetery in Flatwoods.
Dinner (a choice of roast beef or stuffed chicken breast) is available for all three shows with a reservation two days ahead.
Dinner is served an hour and a half before curtain. For more information or a reservation, call 724-785-6896.
The original show “Gypsy” opened May 21, 1959, at the Broadway Theatre and ran for 702 performances.
Madame Rose was the role of a lifetime for Ethel Merman.
Usually her assignments required little more than standing center stage and belting out song after song to the balcony. This time she showed she could act as well as project her voice to New Jersey.
Another aspect of the show that set it apart from other Merman vehicles was the nature of the leading role.
Rose was not the friendly, overzealous good old gal the star normally portrayed.
She was a bossy, domineering “stage mother” who drives almost everyone she loves away from her.
Based on the autobiography of the stripper Gypsy Rose Lee (star of a long-running hit, “Star and Garter,”) the musical follows the careers of Rose and her two daughters, June and Louise, as they trudge through every two-bit vaudeville house in the country.
Eventually, the talented June runs away, and the pitiful remains of the act winds up on the bill of a burlesque joint.
The shy Louise finds her niche as a stripper and becomes the fabulous Gypsy Rose Lee.
In the final number, “Rose’s Turn,” Rose takes to the empty burlesque stage to prove that she’s a bigger star than either of her offspring.
Tearing through reprises of almost every song in the show, including the show-stopping “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” the flinty mother reveals that she’s just an insecure child craving to be noticed.
Although Merman’s performance brought flattering comparisons to Lynne Fontaine, Helen Hayes and Dames Edith Evans and Judith Anderson, she did not win the Tony Award for best actress.
Since the musical opened late in the 1958-59 season, it was nominated for the 1959-60 Tonys, which was dominated by “The Sound of Music” and “Fiorello!” “Gypsy” lost all eight of its Tony categories, including Merman’s bid for Best Actress.
The award went to May Martin in “The Sound of Music.”
The musical has been successfully revived three times.
Those revivals include the following stars and years: Angela Lansbury in 1974, Tyne Daly in 1990 and Bernadette Peters in 2000.
The 1962 movie versions starred Rosalind Russell, Karl Malden and Natalie Wood.
Bette Midler headlined an acclaimed 1993 TV version.