News, views and reviews about the multi-talented women of the musical theatre and the concert/cabaret stage.

News, views and reviews about the multi-talented women of the musical theatre and the concert/cabaret stage.

At its Broadway premiere in 1959, Gypsy was praised by most critics as a very solid late-career vehicle for the top musical theatre woman of her generation, Ethel Merman. It was only years later that the show was acknowledged as one of the finest works of the American musical theatre, and that the Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim score came to be regarded as a towering achievement in terms of character delineation, theatricality, and pure Broadway razzmatazz. And while the show was initially viewed as nothing more than a Merman-fest, the role of Rose -- the frustrated "pioneer woman without a frontier" who attempts to vicariously fulfill her dreams by pushing her daughters onto the stage, only to be left out in the cold when they grow up -- has, unlike most of Merman's roles, proved to be adaptable to a wide range of actresses.

At its Broadway premiere in 1959, Gypsy was praised by most critics as a very solid late-career vehicle for the top musical theatre woman of her generation, Ethel Merman. It was only years later that the show was acknowledged as one of the finest works of the American musical theatre, and that the Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim score came to be regarded as a towering achievement in terms of character delineation, theatricality, and pure Broadway razzmatazz. And while the show was initially viewed as nothing more than a Merman-fest, the role of Rose -- the frustrated "pioneer woman without a frontier" who attempts to vicariously fulfill her dreams by pushing her daughters onto the stage, only to be left out in the cold when they grow up -- has, unlike most of Merman's roles, proved to be adaptable to a wide range of actresses.