PICK Me Up Theatre is bringing the Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim musical Gypsy back to York for the first time in 25 years for a four-day run at the Grand Opera House from Wednesday.
Gypsy is best known for its “stage mother from hell”, Momma Rose, and her show-stopping number Everything’s Coming Up Roses. This feisty role has been played by everyone from Broadway legend Ethel Merman to Imelda Staunton in a West End production last year that scooped four Oliver Awards.
Susannah Baines will take the part in York in the wake of her stand-out turn last summer as Mrs Lovett in Pick Me Up's Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street, a role also played by Miss Staunton, incidentally, before she starred in Gypsy.
“I’m a massive fan of Imelda so it’s great to be following her lead,” says Susannah. “I thought I would never top the role from Sweeney, but then along came Rose. It’s certainly a challenge, but what a great part.”
Maren Fageras Naevdal as Louise in Pick Me Up Theatre's Gypsy
The show – with music by Styne and lyrics by Sondheim – is based on the true story of striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee, pushed into stardom by her mother, who will do anything for success on the 1930s' vaudeville circuit.
Susannah, however, believes that showbiz mum Rose often gets a bad press and she admits to sympathising with her on some levels. “I know she can be a nightmare and people accuse her of being selfish, but you have to remember Rose had nothing in her own youth and she’s determined to create a better life for herself and her daughters June and Louise," she reasons.
"Admittedly she does steamroller people to achieve this – and the dreams she has for her girls were clearly once hers – but I can’t help loving her. I believe she cares deeply for her family.”
Rose’s daughters will be played by two of the York company’s younger leading ladies, Maya Tether, as Dainty June, and Maren Fageras Naevdal as Louise.
Maya Tether as Dainty June
"June is a natural with high kicks and stage tricks while poor, mousey Louise would rather be anywhere than in the limelight," says Pick Me Up publicist Jo Hird. "So imagine everyone’s surprise when it turns out Louise has a penchant for the promiscuous and becomes an international success with the world at her feet. Rose’s dream has come true...but be careful what you wish for."
Director Robert Readman has assembled a cast of some of York’s finest musical theatre performers, and look out in particular for Katie Melia, Alexa Chaplin and Hayley Bamford, stars of Pick Me Up's British premiere of the subversive American musical Disenchanted! last September. They now re-emerge as "the three strippers" in Gypsy, sure to bring the house down with You Gotta Get A Gimmick.
Nick Lewis, director of drama at Queen Margaret’s School, Escrick, York, will play opposite Susannah Baines once more, this time as Momma Rose's long-suffering love interest Herbie after being Sweeney Todd to her Mrs Lovett.
"Don’t miss the much-loved numbers Everything’s Coming Up Roses, Let Me Entertain You, Rose’s Turn and Together in Pick Me Up’s all-singing, all-dancing production," advises Jo.
Pick Me Up Theatre present Gypsy, Grand Opera House, York, from June 28 to July 1, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: 0844 8713024 or at atgtickets.com/york
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