LuPone's spokesperson confirmed that the award-winning actress-singer will appear in the Tony-winning musical at Chicago's Ravinia Festival Aug. 22-23, 2003. This will mark LuPone's third summer of Sondheim at the Ravinia Festival; she played Mrs. Lovett opposite George Hearn's Sweeney in the dark revenge tale Sweeney Todd in 2001 and Desirée Armfeldt, again opposite Hearn, in A Little Night Music this past summer. Based on Ettore Scola's Italian film "Passion d'Amore," Passion opened on Broadway on May 9, 1994, with a cast that featured Jere Shea (Giorgio), Marin Mazzie (Clara) and Donna Murphy (Fosca). The tale of obsessive love includes such Sondheim tunes as "Happiness," "I Read," "I Wish I Could Forget You," "Loving You" and "No One Has Ever Loved Me." The original Broadway production received the 1994 Tony Award for Best Musical; Donna Murphy also garnered her first Tony for Best Actress in a Musical, and Sondheim and Lapine were awarded prizes for, respectively, Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical. Judy Kuhn, Rebecca Luker and Michael Cerveris starred in the recent Kennedy Center production of the musical during the D.C. Sondheim Celebration.
A Tony Award winner for her work in Evita, Patti LuPone also earned an Olivier Award for her performances in the West End productions of Lés Misérables and The Cradle Will Rock. Her other theatrical credits include Sunset Boulevard, Anything Goes, Oliver!, Working, The Old Neighborhood, Master Class and the City Center Encores! production of Pal Joey. LuPone also headlined two solo concerts, Patti LuPone On Broadway and Matters of the Heart, and received glowing notices for her performance as Mrs. Lovett in the Lincoln Center concert version of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. Also a star of television and film, her screen credits boast "Life Goes On," "Frasier," "Driving Miss Daisy," "Witness," "The Water Engine," "State and Main" and "Monday Night Mayhem."
The Ravinia theatre is located in Highland Park, IL; for more information, go to www.ravinia.org.
