Patti LuPone receives Stephen Sondheim Award

Congratulations to the great Patti LuPone who earlier this week received the Signature Theatre’s Stephen Sondheim Award at the Italian Embassy in Washington DC.

The two-time Tony Award winner has appeared in such Sondheim works as Sunday in the Park with George, Sweeney Todd, Gypsy and in last year’s filmed version of Company.

Rather than just bask in the tributes, LuPone performed Sondheim’s classic Anyone Can Whistle as well as Kurt Weill’s September Song.

“I shouldn’t be singing for my supper,” LuPone told guests. “However, I had a little too much to drink; the wine’s been flowing. I’m not as young as I used to be, so the voice. . . we’ll see what happens. What the hell.”

LuPone won her first Tony for Evita in 1980 and was nominated again for Anything Goes.

Prior to the tribute, Sondheim said in a statement: “There are few performers who can play both Mrs. Lovett and Fosca, Evita and Reno Sweeney, Nancy in Oliver! and Cora Hoover Hooper in Anyone Can Whistle, and still create roles for David Mamet.  In fact, there’s only one. Versatility of such a high caliber is rare indeed, and therefore it couldn’t be more appropriate that the recipient of this year’s Signature Theatre Sondheim Award is going to the best tuba player on Broadway: Patti LuPone.”