Patti LuPone Stance on distractions from audience members How did Patti feel about distractions from the audience? LuPone grabbed an audience member's cellphone Did she get in trouble for doing so? It was returned after the show. LuPone stated: Did she do any other things to audience members? loudly demanded that the interloper be removed from the theatre. Was the person removed? he was removed, Was there another incident? I don't know. What else is interesting about the article? LuPone opposes recording, photographs, and other electronic distractions in live theatre. What live productions did she star in? Gypsy
Did she have any other performers who agreed with her stance on audience distractions?
Are there any performers other than Patti LuPone who agreed with her stance on audience distractions?
LuPone opposes recording, photographs, and other electronic distractions in live theatre. "Where's the elegance?" she asked in a blog post on her official site. "I mean, I'm glad they show up because God knows it's a dying art form and I guess I'm glad they're all comfortable, sleeping, eating and drinking, things they should be doing at home and in a restaurant. But it's just not done in the theater or shouldn't be." LuPone has been the subject of some controversy due to the bluntness of her statements regarding this matter.  A related incident occurred at the second to last performance of Gypsy on January 10, 2009. LuPone, irritated by flash photography, stopped in the middle of "Rose's Turn" and loudly demanded that the interloper be removed from the theatre. After he was removed, LuPone restarted her number. The audience applauded her stance. The event was recorded by another audience member, who released it on YouTube. She later stated that such distractions drive "people in the audience nuts. They can't concentrate on the stage if, in their peripheral vision, they're seeing texting, they're seeing cameras, they're listening to phone calls. How can we do our job if the audience is distracted?", and also mentioned that "the interesting thing is I'm not the first one that's done it".  On July 8, 2015, during the second act of Shows for Days at the Lincoln Center Theater, LuPone grabbed an audience member's cellphone while leaving the stage as the audience member had been using their phone during the play. It was returned after the show. LuPone stated:  We work hard on stage to create a world that is being totally destroyed by a few, rude, self-absorbed and inconsiderate audience members who are controlled by their phones. They cannot put them down. When a phone goes off or when a LED screen can be seen in the dark it ruins the experience for everyone else - the majority of the audience at that performance and the actors on stage. I am so defeated by this issue that I seriously question whether I want to work on stage anymore. Now I'm putting battle gear on over my costume to marshal the audience as well as perform. CANNOTANSWER
CANNOTANSWER
Patti Ann LuPone (born April 21, 1949) is an American actress and singer best known for her work in stage musicals. She has won two Tony Awards, two Olivier Awards, two Grammy Awards, and was a 2006 inductee to the American Theater Hall of Fame.

LuPone began her professional career with The Acting Company in 1972 and made her Broadway debut in Three Sisters in 1973. She received the first of seven Tony Award nominations for the 1975 musical The Robber Bridegroom. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Eva Perón in the 1979 original Broadway production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita. She played Fantine in the original London cast of Les Misérables and Moll in The Cradle Will Rock, winning the 1985 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her work in both. She won a second Tony Award for her role as Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy and a second Olivier Award in 2019, winning Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for her role as Joanne in the West End revival of Stephen Sondheim's Company. She has two Grammy Awards for the recording of the 2007 Los Angeles Opera production of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.

Other stage musical performances include her Tony-nominated role as Reno Sweeney in the 1987 Broadway revival of Anything Goes, her Olivier-nominated role as Norma Desmond in the 1993 original production of Sunset Boulevard in London, her Tony-nominated role as Mrs. Lovett in the new 2005 Broadway production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, her Tony-nominated role as Lucia in the 2010 original Broadway production of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and her Tony-nominated role as Helena Rubenstein in the 2017 original Broadway production of War Paint. She is currently starring in the Broadway transfer of the successful West End revival of Company alongside Katrina Lenk.

On television, she starred in the drama series Life Goes On (1989–1993) and received Emmy Award nominations for the TV movie The Song Spinner (1995) and her guest role in the sitcom Frasier (1998). She also had appeared in three Ryan Murphy series, American Horror Story: Coven (2013–2014), and Pose (2019) both  on FX, and Hollywood (2020) on Netflix. She guest starred in Penny Dreadful (2014–2016) before returning in a lead role. She voices the character Yellow Diamond in the animated series Steven Universe (2013–2019) and Steven Universe Future (2019–2020). She also appeared on The CW comedy Crazy Ex-Girlfriend as Rabbi Shari (2017). Her film appearances include Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979), Spike Lee's Summer of Sam (1999), Peter Weir's Witness (1985), as well as Driving Miss Daisy (1989), State and Main (2000), and The Comedian (2016).

Early life and training
LuPone was born on April 21, 1949, in Northport, New York, on Long Island, the daughter of Angela Louise (née Patti), a library administrator at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, and Orlando Joseph LuPone, a school administrator and English teacher at Walt Whitman High School in Huntington, Long Island. Her great-great aunt was 19th-century opera singer Adelina Patti. Her older brother Robert LuPone is a Tony-nominated actor, dancer, and director who originated the role of Zach, the director, in A Chorus Line. LuPone is Italian-American and Roman Catholic.

LuPone was part of the first graduating class of Juilliard's Drama Division (1968–1972: Group 1), which also included actors Kevin Kline and David Ogden Stiers. She graduated from Juilliard in 1972 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. LuPone has a mezzo-soprano vocal range, and she is famous for her strong/high "Broadway" belt singing voice. In a 2008 interview, she maintained that she was "an actor who sings", and thankful she "had a voice".

Career

Theatre

1970s: Early career 
In 1972, LuPone became one of the original members of The Acting Company, formed by John Houseman. The Acting Company is a nationally touring repertory theater company. LuPone's stint with the company lasted from 1972 to 1976, and she appeared in many of their productions, such as The Cradle Will Rock, The School for Scandal, Women Beware Women, The Beggar’s Opera, The Time of Your Life, The Lower Depths, The Hostage, Next Time I’ll Sing to You, Measure for Measure, Scapin, Edward II, The Orchestra, Love’s Labours Lost, Arms and the Man, and The Way of the World. She made her Broadway debut in the play The Three Sisters as Irina in 1973.  For her work in The Robber Bridegroom (1975) she received her first Tony Award nomination, for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. The Acting Company honored LuPone on March 12, 2012 in an event called "Patti's Turn" at the Kaye Playhouse.

In 1976, producer David Merrick hired LuPone as a replacement to play Genevieve, the title role of the troubled pre-Broadway production of The Baker's Wife. The production toured at length but Merrick deemed it unworthy of Broadway and it closed out of town.

Since 1977, LuPone has been a frequent collaborator with David Mamet, appearing in his plays The Woods, All Men Are Whores, The Blue Hour, The Water Engine (1978), Edmond and The Old Neighborhood (1997). The New York Times reviewer wrote of LuPone in The Old Neighborhood, "Those who know Ms. LuPone only as a musical comedy star will be stunned by the naturalistic fire she delivers here. As Jolly, a part inspired by Mr. Mamet's real-life sister and his realized female character, Ms. LuPone finds conflicting layers of past and present selves in practically every line. She emerges as both loving matriarch and wounded adolescent, sentimental and devastatingly clear-eyed."  In 1978, she appeared in the Broadway musical adaptation of Studs Terkel's Working, which ran for only 24 performances.

In 1979 LuPone starred in the original Broadway production of Evita, the musical based on the life of Eva Perón, composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, and directed by Harold Prince. Although LuPone was hailed by critics, she has since said that her time in Evita was not an enjoyable one. In a 2007 interview, she stated " 'Evita' was the worst experience of my life," she said. "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."  Despite the trouble, LuPone won her first Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. It was not until she had reprised the role in a production in Sydney when she had finally enjoyed the part and felt comfortable singing the score. LuPone and her co-star, Mandy Patinkin, remained close friends both on and off the stage.

1980s 
In May 1983, founding alumni of The Acting Company reunited for an off-Broadway revival of Marc Blitzstein's landmark labor musical The Cradle Will Rock at the American Place Theater. It was narrated by John Houseman with LuPone in the roles of Moll and Sister Mister. and Kent, Connecticut.

In February 2022, Lupone tested positive for COVID-19.

Acting credits

Theatre 
Sources: Playbill Vault; Internet Broadway Database; Internet Off-Broadway Database

Film
Sources: TCM; AllMovie

Television
Sources: TCM; AllMovie

Discography 
Selected recordings include:
 The Baker’s Wife (Original cast recording)
 Evita (Original Broadway cast recording)
 The Cradle Will Rock (The Acting Company recording)
 Les Misérables (Original London Cast recording)
 Anything Goes (New Broadway Cast Recording)
 Heat Wave (John Mauceri conducting the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra)
 Patti LuPone Live (Solo Album)
 Sunset Boulevard (World Premiere/Original London Cast Recording)
 Matters of the Heart (Solo Album)
 Sweeney Todd (New York Philharmonic recording)
 Sweeney Todd (2005 Broadway Cast recording)
 The Lady with the Torch (Solo Album)
 The Lady With the Torch...Still Burning (Solo Album)
 To Hell and Back (Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra World Premier recording)
 Gypsy (2008 Broadway Revival Cast Recording)
 Patti LuPone At Les Mouches (Live Solo Recording of 1980 club act)
 Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Original Broadway Cast Recording)
 Far Away Places (Solo Album)
 Company (New York Philharmonic recording)
 War Paint (Original Broadway cast recording)
 Don't Monkey with Broadway (Solo Album)
 Company (Revival London cast recording)

Her live performance of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" at the Grammy Awards was released on the 1994 album Grammy's Greatest Moments Volume IV.

In 2009 LuPone's 1985 recording of "I Dreamed a Dream" reached #45 on the UK Singles Chart It also reached the Billboard magazine Hot Digital Songs and Hot Singles Recurrents charts in the US.

LuPone recorded a duet with Seth MacFarlane (who was in character as Glenn Quagmire) on the 2005 album Family Guy: Live In Vegas.

A live concert special film, An Evening with Patti LuPone, was filmed in July 2012 and released in November 2012 on SethTv.com with 104 minutes of Patti LuPone songs and stories with host Seth Rudetsky.

A new CD of one of her shows, The Lady with the Torch, was released in 2006 on Sh-K-Boom Records. In December she released bonus tracks for that CD only available on iTunes and the Sh-K-Boom website.

Bibliography
LuPone wrote a memoir recounting her life and career from childhood to the present, which was released in September 2010. It was simply titled Patti LuPone: A Memoir, which was, according to LuPone, the winner of the competition she held to name the book.

Awards and nominations

References

External links

 
 
 Patti LuPone on IOBDB
 
 
 Patti LuPone Interview
 InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse: Patti LuPone (TV Interview)
 Patti LuPone – Downstage Center interview at American Theatre Wing.org
 University of the Arts Show Music Magazine Database
 Patti LuPone concert special on SethTV.com. Filmed July, 2012.
 Patti LuPone Papers at the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New York, NY

1949 births
Living people
American women singers
American film actresses
American musical theatre actresses
American television actresses
American mezzo-sopranos
American Roman Catholics
Drama Desk Award winners
Grammy Award winners
American people of Italian descent
Juilliard School alumni
People from Northport, New York
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Tony Award winners
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
Actresses from New York (state)
People from Edisto Island, South Carolina
George Fuller Golden (1868 – February 17, 1912), was a popular vaudeville entertainer at the beginning of the 20th century. He is best known for his monologues about his fictional friend Casey. He was also a prizefighter. He was the founder of the White Rats, a labor union for vaudeville performers.

Performing career

Notable stage appearances

Broadway appearances

 Nell-Go-In, Oct 31, 1900 – Nov 17, 1900
 The Supper Club, Dec 23, 1901 – Jan 25, 1902, roles: Boss Thomas, Master of Ceremonies

Formation of White Rats 

Golden was performing in London in 1899 when his wife became sick and he was unable to work. The Water Rats, a British entertainment charity, helped him with his expenses and with securing travel back to the United States.

When the Vaudeville Managers Association (VMA) formed in 1900, and began demanding a 5% kickback from all performers in exchange for steady bookings, Golden called on his experience with the Water Rats to form the White Rats as a labor union for performers. The White Rats attempted to negotiate with the VMA, led by E.F. Albee and B.F. Keith, to reduce or remove the kickback. After negotiations failed, the White Rats called a strike in February 1901. Vaudeville performers all over the United States refused to work. Many claimed they were sick.

The Western States branch of the VMA gave in to the union's demands, and the Eastern branch went without vaudeville for two weeks. Some theaters shut down completely, others booked replacement acts. Keith and Albee called a meeting with the White Rats in which they claimed they themselves had been against the 5% commission, and would ask the other members of the VMA to remove it. Albee and Keith also agreed to go on the record in the press as being against the 5% commission if the strike was called off, and they did so. As a result, the strike was called off, and performers began to sign contracts with the VMA again in order to secure valuable long-term performing contracts.

Golden wrote a book about the White Rats, My Lady Vaudeville and her White Rats, which was published in 1909 by the Broadway Publishing Company.

The White Rats received a charter from the American Federation of Labor in 1910. However, the union was unable to manage funds efficiently, and lost members because many performers did not want to pay dues to the union in addition to paying the vaudeville managers.

Personal life 

Golden had three daughters.

Olive Fuller Golden was born in New York on January 31, 1896. She became a film actress and married fellow performer Harry Carey in 1916. She went on to star in movies and television shows under her married name, Olive Carey. She died on March 13, 1988, in California.

Ruth Fuller Golden was born May 19, 1901, in New York and was a film actress in 1919 and 1920. She died on August 15, 1931, in California.

Mignonne Golden was born on February 27, 1904, in London. She also became a film actress for a few years in the 1920s. She died in New York on September 22, 1997.

Death

Golden died of tuberculosis on February 17, 1912.

References

Vaudeville performers
1868 births
1912 deaths Marietta Zanfretta (Madame Siegrist) (31 August 1832 – 8 February 1898) was an Italian tightrope dancer who found success in the United States. One of the greatest female tight-rope dancers in the world, she was known for performing en pointe on the tightrope, a rare feat.

Early life
She was born as Marie Catherine Charlotte Marietta Zanfretta in 1832 in Venice in Italy into a family of tightrope performers and acrobats in northern Italy. The oldest of eleven children, her parents were Jeanne Giovanna née Catania (1814–1875) and Barthélémy Bartholomé Bartholoméo Zanfretta (1809–1893), an acrobat. As a child she had received tightrope, acrobatic and ballet training, performing with her parents and siblings in circuses in Europe including in Franconi's Theatre in Paris.

In 1852 she was in the United States where she appeared as a featured rider with E. F. and J. Mabie's Circus before performing for Den Stone's Circus in 1854. In about 1855 the Zanfettta family were hired as part of the troupe of performers of Antoine Ravel (1812-1872) with whom Marietta Zanfretta also did solo and ensemble dancing. She quickly became popular with audiences because of her beauty, charm and skill on the tightrope on which she performed en pointe in addition to doing pirouettes and somersaults. For the Ravel Troupe the Zanfrettas played 300 performances at Niblo's Garden in New York during 1857–59. As her father's joints began to stiffen with age, and finding himself unable to perform, he returned to Paris where, because of his physique, he became an artists' model.

Performing career
After her booking with Ravel ended Zanfretta appeared in variety and theatres where she performed her signature tightrope descent. She toured the United States with the Caron and Ravel troupes which included the trapeze artists François and Auguste Siegrist and appeared at The Boston Theatre in Boston (1858). In that year she had a severe fall from which she soon recovered and resumed performing. With the Zanfretta Troupe she also performed in a number of circuses across the United States including in an equestrian act in which she danced and balanced on the back of a horse as it circled the ring. She also appeared with her brothers, with the clown Alexander Zanfretta (1847-1892) regularly appearing on playbills with her.

Of her performance at The Boston Theatre in Boston in 1858 Ballou's Pictorial reported: 
MARIETTA ZANFRETTA, THE CELEBRATED TIGHT-ROPE DANCER

The design given on this page was sketched for us by Mr. Champney, from one of the proscenium boxes of the Boston Theatre, during the performance of Marietta Zanfretta, now attached to the Ravel Troupe, and one of the greatest female tight-rope dancers in the world. La Zanfretta is very young–only twenty-one– and very pretty, with those black, lustrous Italian eyes that pierce like an arrow. Her form is exquisitely symmetrical, and while the exercises of her speciality have strengthened her muscles, they have not impaired its grace. Her movements are as lithe as those of a panther. She never uses the balance-pole, but poises herself on the rope without any adventitious aid.

She performs the same feats on the corde tendue, which we think surprising in a dancer on the firm floor. She runs backards and forwards, turning with incredible rapidity, dances on the rope, stands on the point of one toe, descends the angle of the rope into the parterre, and re-ascends unfaltering and fearless. Indeed her doings are unexampled. She would, like Madame Saqui, have ascended from the stage to the gallery, had she been permitted by the management.

Zanfretta is a Venetian by birth. Her parents pursued the same line, and her earliest steps were on the rope. It is thus only that such confidence, ease and grace could have been attained. The various great theatres of continental Europe have been the scenes of her ambition and triumphant displays, and she was the star of Franconi's, in Paris. She debuted in this country at Niblo's, and created the greatest enthusiasm by her performances. Her first appearance in Boston was a complete triumph. The first sight of her performances creates an uneasy sensation of extreme danger, but her perfect aplomb and self-possession soon banish that feeling, and your anxiety is lost in admiration of the witching and wonderful display.

Undoubtedly the extraordinary skill of Zanfretta is owing partly to her coming of a race of rope-dancers, for aptitude for particular exercises is unquestionably transmissible, and it is very possible to be "to the manor born."

She appeared with Orton & Older (1859–60) and in 1860 she appeared for 'Dr.' Gilbert R. Spalding and Charles J. Rogers at the Bowery Theatre in New York and appeared on the road for them in 1861, when she was billed as: 'Senorita Marietta Zanfretta, the Venetian rope dancer, and most brilliant star of the Ravel Troupe, during their last visit to America. This talented young lady exhibits in remarkable degree the grace, beauty and elegance, for which the belles of her native country have long been celebrated, while her wonderful exploits upon the tight rope, without the aid of balance pole, baffle description, and have challenged the admiration of assembled thousands in the theatre of the old and new world.' In Leavenworth in Kansas where the local newspaper described her as "a miracle of grace and skill on the tight rope", such was her charm that even when performances went awry the audience applauded. Here, when she had another slight fall from the wire "...what at first appeared a contre temps, the fall of the beautiful Marietta Zanfretta from the rope into the parquette, was so gracefully and skillfully gotten over by the charming danseuse, that the sympathy and applause of the large audience was accorded her, so vociferously, indeed, that we have a lingering suspicion that the fall was only another French coup d'etat of this Napoleon of tight rope performers, to take the house by storm." In 1862 she performed with the Ravel troupe at the National Theatre in Boston while in 1863 it was announced that she would walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. She was at Lent's Equescurriculum (1864) and the Hippotheatron in New York (1864). In November 1865 she was at Tony Pastor's Opera House in New York while she spent the Winter of 1865 to 1866 at the National Circus in the New American Theatre in Philadelphia.

With her brother Alexander and her husband François Siegrist with his brother and Auguste they made up a touring troupe of pantomimists and acrobats. In 1866 the Zanfretta Troupe, composed of Alexandre and Marietta Zanfretta, Siegrist brothers and members of the Caron family of entertainers took over the lease of the Olympic Theatre in New Orleans.

Later years

In 1871 she was performing with Van Amburgh & Co. With her husband and fellow trapeze artist François 'Frank' Laurens Prosper Siegrist (1828-1878), a French clown, gymnast and acrobat whom she met in New Orleans she had a daughter, Léopoldine Anneta Siegrist (1863–1919). They adopted a number of children from the New York Foundling Asylum who they trained to form a juvenile troupe of acrobats. These were: Fanny Siegrist; Blanche Siegrist; William 'Willie' Siegrist; Thomas 'Toto' Siegrist, and Louis Siegrist. During one show it was said that one of the babies replaced the globe traditionally turned by the feet of the acrobat until the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children swooped on the act and the baby was replaced by the globe. The infants were retired from the act until they reached a greater growth. The boys later performed as the 'Three Siegrist Brother', but they were only brothers by adoption. After the death of her husband in Paris in 1878 from heart trouble she married François 'Frank' Victor Kenebel in New York in 1883. Later she formed her own family troupe with her daughter and adopted sons and continued to perform in public until 1880, with her last appearance being with Orrin Bros.’ in Havana during which she had a fall, which convinced her the time had come to give up her acrobatic career.

Marietta Zanfretta died in February 1898 in New York. She was survived by her husband, her daughter and her adopted children.

References

1832 births
1898 deaths
People from Venice
Italian stunt performers
Tightrope walkers
Women stunt performers
19th-century circus performers