Alec Baldwin sings the praises of Patti LuPone...

This is an excerpt from a column Alec Baldwin recently wrote for The Huffington Post:

Before I get into Obama, the SAG strike and renewable energy, I wanted to talk about Patti LuPone. Yeah. That's right. Patti LuPone. What the world needs now is Patti LuPone. I have worked in my business since 1980 and I have seen a lot of changes. One thing that hasn't changed is Patti.

That year, the year I started, Patti won the Tony for Best Actress in a musical for Evita. And now, more than twenty-five years later, Patti is as heartbreaking and wicked and volcanic and gorgeous as ever. Maybe more so. Go see her in Gypsy on Broadway. Surrounded by Boyd Gaines and Laura Benanti (both also Tony winners for this show), Patti makes the story of Mama Rose worth seeing again and then some.

Where movies today all too typically use the name of a big star to draw you into a theatre, only to have special effects people take over, what happens at the St. James theatre is live. Real. It is a stage covered with remarkable actors, directed by Arthur Laurents himself, breathing new life into an old story. And, it is Patti. As I left the theatre. a young man turned to me and said, "I liked that a lot and I normally don't go to musicals." Another woman near us smiled and said, "That was no ordinary musical. That was Patti." I told the young man to consider himself lucky. "You're not likely to see that again on Broadway for a long time.

"Go see Gypsy. Go see Patti LuPone, one of the great actresses of all time, give the performance of her life.