Patti LuPone, one of Broadway’s most beloved, most decorated stars, picked up her third Tony Award for her showstopping performance in the revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company.”
LuPone, who had already won best actress Tonys for her work in “Gypsy” and “Evita,” won this year for best featured actress in a musical for her portrayal of the jaded, cynical Joanne, who is tasked nightly with delivering a crowd-pleasing rendition of “The Ladies Who Lunch.”
In accepting her award, LuPone offered thanks to many, including her fellow actors, those backstage, and also to understudies and Covid safety workers.
“I started this journey with Marianne Elliott in 2018,” she said, referring to the show’s director. “Four years, two countries, a seemingly endless and extremely vulnerable lockdown, three different viruses in three consecutive months, and two sublime casts.”
“A finer group of actors and comedians I couldn’t imagine,” she added.
She worked on the song with Sondheim, and in a recent interview with The New York Times she described how bereft she felt after his death in November.
“On the night we found out that he had passed,” she recalled, “I said, ‘Who will make me better?’ I don’t think there’s anybody that is as difficult, complex and exacting, as Steve. Steve made me better. Every time I performed a role, he made me better. He’s the taskmaster, he’s the ultimate. I know that sounds ridiculous, but the longer he’s not with us, the more I miss him.”
Jesse Green, the chief theater critic for The New York Times, wrote that LuPone’s performance was among those that were “perfectly etched” in a “Company” revival, directed by Marianne Elliott, that he otherwise had mixed feelings about.
“It’s amazing what a little LuPone can do to distract from such things,” he wrote. “Whether swinging her legs like a mischievous child or squatting on a toilet — yes, Elliott’s staging goes there — she brings her precision comedy and riveting charisma to every moment she’s onstage.”
In winning her category, LuPone — who has been nominated a total of eight times — beat out her castmate Jennifer Simard; Jeannette Bayardelle (“Girl From the North Country”); Shoshana Bean (“Mr. Saturday Night”); Jayne Houdyshell (“The Music Man”); and L Morgan Lee (“A Strange Loop”).
A Tony is still an important validation of an actor’s work, LuPone said in the recent interview, adding that winning one “never gets old.”
