Queen of Broadway Patti LuPone on a life in notes | 7.30

Patty Leone you're very welcome to 7:30 thank you very much Sarah I'm thrilled to be here now you're coming back to Australia 2 tour tell us what to expect from this show it's um it's songs from my life basically um there are some broadway songs that I'm associated with but pretty much I think it's you know when we're growing up and we're listening to our music how it affects us and um I wanted to sing songs that I heard when I was a kid growing up on Long Island in America at the birth of rock and roll really um because I grew up in the 50s and 60s and it was really the burgeoning of rock and roll it wasn't classic rock uh which became my favorite rock and roll but it was Little Anthony and the Imperials the Shang Ras nobody sang in tune some of the songs were great some were terrible um but they were my music you know that my Dad loved Jazz my mother loved Opera on Broadway musicals and and but I had a transistor radio we had disc jockeys on the radio um and that this was my music and so it's sort of a it isn't sort of it is a a life in notes starting in the 50s through decades so I will recall decades with songs and then I will speak specifically to touch tones that changed my life because of this particular song song and do you do you remember the first song that woke up your musical inner life I think it was Little Anthony in the imperial's tears on my pillow pain in my heart over you I think it was Little Anthony and the Imperials at least it was the one that that I heard over and over again and there was also in the jungle the mighty jungle the lion sleeps tonight so it was those songs and it was summer you know a lot of times you would hear these songs because they' play them over and over again in the summertime we were in school spring fall and winter summertime is when you were just really listening to music at the beach whatever and those are the songs that really stick in my head are the ones that I remember from the summer and did you did you have a transistor radio in your bedroom in Long Island or where where else were you listening apart from at the beach well I you know there little transistor radios were every they were tiny and they they just went with you wherever you went H you know I don't recall ever having them in school I don't think it was in my pocketbook in school just like a phone would be in kids pocketbooks now um but that transistor radio yeah it was in my bedroom probably um battery operated little thing it's just radio just Radio AM radio now of course we all sang along with our first songs but not many of us could sing along like you do you remember when you realized that you had this incredible instrument this incredible voice I I was quite young actually and I hadn't really discovered music at that point but I remember that I was in elementary school and it was um I can't remember the guy's name I want to say Frogman Henry or Henry the Frogman I can't remember it was song but I knew I had a big voice at a very young age uh it could have just been in volume speaking but I did start singing um maybe along with the music that I heard or in in in in elementary school we were in chuses and I was singing I was a soprano so I knew I had this instrument and it was you know it wasn't a dream come true to end up on Broadway it was sort of Nature's Force I discovered I had this instrument and rather it told me I had this instrument and this is the way you're going and they I said because I wanted to be a rocker but every time I opened my mouth to sing a rock song I sounded like Ethel Murman so that wasn't going to happen Nature's Force now in in the course of your extraordinary career um you were lucky enough and and it's obviously luck that you thoroughly deserve but you you came to work with the great Steven sonheim I think you were in six of Steven sonheim shows what is so special about performing his characters his songs um the subject matter is always unusual the subject matter is always um challenging and then he's such a supreme lyricist um and a deeply emotional individual one might not think that about Steph but he was deep was deeply emotional and the complexity the complexity of his music to sing it correctly um it was an incredible Challenge and he was a Taskmaster uh he made sure you sang it correctly and his notes were could be brutal and so to achieve singing a stime song is an elevation of ones self in the business do you know what I mean in my mind not necessarily in the business but in my mind if if I can sing it correctly and sing it well I'm a better crafts person um and I when he died I said who will make me better that was the first thing I thought what what is it about those songs that is difficult what is it about the combin is it the combination of the way the lyrics and the music work together that it's hard to get the phrasing right what is the challenge no I mean if I think if you if there is a a perfect song it's the lyrics and the the melody or married it is in lyrically discovering the depth of the song and then musically his intervals and he gave me a note once he told me he said don't slide up to to the note you're not doing your Cabaret act and I thought well I wasn't doing a cabaret act I didn't even know I was sliding up usually in my case I can't answer for anybody else if I'm sliding it's because I'm afraid to hit the note straight on because I don't want to be sharp or flat and so if I slide I'll be able to control the pitch and he's saying no hit the Pitch hit what I wrote I didn't write a slide um he he was a he was a master he taught he taught me a great deal about singing um so there's a run in Sweeny Todd between that's a dualog between Sweeney and Nelly and God that's good or more hot pies I can never remember the name of it when she goes upstairs to see the chair and there's three different patterns that she sings and they're all different and it's a very close the notes are very close together the run is very close together but all three of them are different and I said to Steve I'm trying I'm trying he said oh well I wrote that one when I I I sang that when I wrote it and I went I don't what does that mean I'm not supposed to oh he said I I wrote I sang that when I wrote it and I'm not a singer and I went well I don't know what that means am I not supposed to sing it correctly I didn't understand what he meant but it to achieve it and every night I came to that part going am I going to get this correct tonight the note the intervals are so close together uh I don't know whether I ever did it correctly I mean it as you say exacting but was he so great that it was okay to take hard notes from him I yes but they hurt they hurt I'm sorry they hurt and you have to be tough in this business to survive that kind of onslaught of criticism but I wouldn't change it for the world because I learned so much from him I'm sorry I'm sorry that I'm crying you please don't apologize um they are uh extraordinary they're obviously difficult but they are obviously Exquisite memories as well do you think that he I want to separate him from some of the other people that you worked with but do you think that even he didn't understand the impact and the force of the things that he was saying to you absolutely I don't think he knew that um that there was another way to give the note um because he was so involved so passionate um that he spoke from an immediate reaction um and I do the same thing I've seen grow men cry when I'm yelling but you know I'm a woman I'm at the you know a woman in this business and then to get that kind of criticism or you know that a barrage of criticism uh I appreciated what he said when I was able to interpret it after the assault um and I don't blame him for it it was who he is and I as I said you know Show Business made me tough I didn't I wasn't born tough but what you have to you're dealing with personalities one is dealing with personalities and actors are low man on the theatrical totem pole everybody's coming at you the choreographer the director the composer The Lyricist the producer everybody's coming at the actor shoot the messenger um and so I'm an emotional creature and it's difficult for me then to separate I do remember once when he was giving me a tongue lashing that I sat there and I said to myself if there was anybody with less experience than me they would hand in their Equity cards that's how bad it was but the note because when I deciphered the note cuz I went around asking everybody what's can you hear me do you understand me can you hear me and the the um the mic person that handed the mic she said Patty when you're you're emotional we you you garble and went that's the note that's what he was trying to tell me he was telling me in Emotion enunciate because it's garbled and the next day he came in the the performance he said the difference between night and day and so I was glad that I understood and was able to correct it but that was a lesson for the future as well not just for that performance I mean as you say that was a a a clear note that had a positive impact on your performance but was it also to do with the uh the culture of the time that that degree of you know it's it is we would call it bullying now was tolerated just completely tolerated I you know I don't know whether it was in some cases absolutely there was bullying and I wonder I think now back on the the mostly gentlemen that I've worked with and wonder why um they approached it in that way and some time as it was to get a better performance out of you and like I said you have to toughen up um again I think it's a personality issue I think these these men in the position of power um needed to express something and that's the only way they knew how to do it and it was of a time it was definitely of a time I kind of afraid of the direction it's gone in now out because there's too much sort of codling of the entitlement do you know what I mean you have to put in the work and you have to listen to to criticism uh and you have to adjust you have to be better you have to you know in continually improve but we've gone the opposite way now completely where there's mental health breaks let me let me ask you about uh your the this the show associated with your first really uh huge breakthrough which is uh iita Now The Story Goes and I don't know if this is correct that you really found that character performing years after its initial success in Australia is that is that really what happened and was it to do with being away from Broadway it's not that I found the character I was playing the character that I developed in Los Angeles um and uh but there was great resentment to this production to this musical because it was a Nazi Harbinger uh somebody that was Harbor harboring the Nazis the the pon uh the pistas the pedon Juan and Ava were Nazi sympathizers um it was British upstarts um taking over American musical theater and uh it was a sung through Opera actually it was you know like a rock opera but it was really a modern Opera Hal did an incredible job of making it an opera modern Opera as opposed to a rock opera I found the character but every night my Applause used to dip after Mandy and as I was bowing i' go that's because they I've convinced them of the character I didn't know how to take it I was when I came to Australia that wasn't years that was months after I had left the Broadway production and I left the Broadway production because I'd lost my sense of humor I got a telephone call from Robert stigwood who's and I never picked up the phone because I had 14 to 16 hours of vocal silence that role was so difficult um I picked up the phone i' left the show three months earlier I picked up the phone it was Robert stigwood he said do you want to come down to Australia and I thought no one's ever going to ask me to go to Australia to work and I said yes and when I came to Sydney and opened one of the reviews said I acted like an inspired witch and it went they got it they got me I'm free I did not have the pressure of being a New Yorker in the New York environment which is vicious anyway and I'm I'm I'm here I'm I'm I'm in Sydney I'm in love with someone and I'm doing this play where I I'm the critics have appreciated the interpretation so it was a it could not have been a better experience and it was a phenomenal cast John om Peter Carol I mean I they wonderful wonderful actors and and Brilliant Ensemble that I think of to this day that I love to this day tell me something um obviously musical theater has changed over the decades that you've been performing have audiences changed as well um you know it's interesting I'm a Tony voter so I've been seeing a lot of theater and I think the audience goes to what they know um and so I went and saw The Whiz I went and saw Tommy and then I saw The Outsiders and then I saw mother play so the the audience I have to say this no phones are going off which is great and I just have to say audiences have become I have to say for the audience um uh you famously want some told an audience member in no uncertain terms to shut their phone off no not one several times but what audiences don't know is how many times we don't tell the audience we go to Stage management who goes to house management who sends an usher down but this was ridiculous it was on an automatic C you know flash um so less people are using their phones they're not necessarily turning them off but they're turning them on silent so you can sometimes still see that light um I do think audiences have changed and I don't think necessarily for the better I don't think we're educating audiences which is a pity because we need to educate them tell me about that what is it is it the the the type of subjects the way they're written what what are you not doing that you think the great writers of musical theater in the past did well it's not just musical theater it's plays as well I think it's there's a time where art reflects and then art leads and I think at this point art should lead um should it the it should reflect what is happening in the world today but people audiences don't want to be challenged they don't want to be they want to go to what they know so they're going to Michael Jackson shows they're going to Neil Diamond shows they're going to see The Whiz they're going to what they know as opposed to being challenged and that's a problem but that it's also insanely expensive here in it's ridiculously expensive I went and saw The Great Gatsby and we went after we out afterwards with a friend of a friend and I said how much did that set cost 36 million dollar I said how much are you getting paid that you don't have to tell me but that's the point the the emphasis seems to be on the wrong thing and I said this is Broadway season of sets and volume I'm going de de in the theater because it's so loud so how do you get audiences H so how do you get how do you retrain the audience to want more to expect more to be more demanding I don't know I mean I'm only the messenger I think the producers have to invest in the play rights and take the chance to put on you know stuff that will transform an audience but we don't have producers that necessarily want to do that everybody wants another Hamilton everybody wants another Wicked it's a crapshoot Broadway you know musical theater it's it's there's more flops than there are hits and you have to do it for the love of it and I'm not sure people that are in investing love it I think they want to make a fortune and that's crazy that's crazy I want to I want to just come back to to the show that you're going to do because this one is about your life in musical theater and your memory must just be full of songs and musical phrases when you think about it where did the moments of your greatest joy in music come from well first of all it's not it's not a show of musical theater I have to set that straight you will not hear oh yeah um I'll I'll tell you what sticks in my mind and my heart to this day um I had a coral master in junior high school who then moved with our class our graduating class to high school so I had her for six seven years Esther Scott and when I was growing up there were um competitions and there were you know all all suffk which all County All State and all Eastern which are the best singers in the county in the state and up and down the Eastern Seaboard and when I was in all Eastern in the soprano section and I heard the voices around me singing I was floored and and humbled I thought I was the center of the universe until I heard much better singers than me and I understood what I had to do how I had to apply myself and take my talent seriously it was and I've never forgotten it I've never forgotten any one of those um experiences especially all state and all Eastern listening to the voices and I don't I have no idea if any of them took it further whether they made a career in Opera or I don't maybe musical theater nobody's come up to me what my director no I beg your pardon I had a director on life goes on who said I was in all state with you when I went oh my God oh my God you were in all state with me um I remember some of the songs that we sang there and I remember the joy that I felt in a chorus in a chorus of over a hundred kids um it was stunning and I it it's the thing that's sort of set me on more serious path um no one can do better than end on Joy uh you've given me joy now and you've given countless countless people Joy over the years and you're coming here to give us some more so in the words of Your Great Character to the audience I'd like to raise a toast to the great Patty Leone and thank you so much thank you Sarah thank you very much thank you