Exclusive: CHEWING THE SCENERY- Randy Lip Syncs Patti LuPone's Time in GYPSY!

Sang my first show tune when I was just three

My mother knew I'd go far I've been a show queen since way before Glee

Now I'm a Broadway star Well, not exactly, but my friend has a friend who knows Idina Menzel

You know, I mean, sort of So things are happening, you'll see But till my ship comes in, I've got a lot to tell her

Let's start chewing the scenery with Welcome to chewing the scenery with

Me. Turn off your cell phones. Would you hear about Sideshow? No

It's closing on January 4th. No. Yeah, well, I wouldn't make that up

Dear God, dear Lord. Even with all those great reviews. Oh, good news, though

Into the Woods just got a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture. Isn't that wonderful

Yeah, I can't wait to see it. And guess who is up for Best Actress? Carol Channing

No. Emily Blunt Isn't that wonderful? And Meryl Streep for Best Supporting

I know you love her dearly Don't you? No Oh, before I forget

I got tickets to an advanced screening of Annie Do you want to go with me? No I know me neither Oh pick up the latest Vanity Fair because there a whole spread on Honeymoon in Vegas Isn that wonderful Don forget to DVR the Barbara Walters special

Ten Most Fascinating People. Neil Patricia Harris is one of them. That is an honor

Boy, he's at the top of his game, huh? He got the whole world in his hands

You can say that again. Oh, I... He got the whole world in his hands

Carol. Yes. Don't. oh chapter 16 gypsy the first time i played rose was at the ravinia festival in august of 2006

wells kaufman and lonnie price the director wanted to do gypsy but there was one small problem and

that problem was me you know that i'm banned from arthur's work i said to them at least as far as i

know. About five years earlier, Arthur himself had offered me the lead in his play Jolson Sings

Again. I agreed to do it. Arthur and I first met in London when I was doing Sunset Boulevard

Almost a month after Arthur and I talked about Jolson Sings Again at his townhouse in Manhattan

the producer called and made what I considered to be a very insulting offer I don know why he thought I would be willing to work for that amount of money He said take it or leave it

I left it. I soon found out that my doing so caused the project to collapse

I was in Montreal when I received a phone call from a very angry Arthur Lawrence

He held me directly and personally responsible for torpedoing Jolson Sings again

No amount of explanation on my part would calm him down. Arthur never said so explicitly, but after that blow-up, I'd been told many times by others that he had banned me from all of his work

But Lonnie and Wells assured me that in terms of doing Gypsy at Ravinia, it was not an issue

Arthur had control over who appeared in full productions of his work, but not over concert productions

I took a hiatus from Sweeney Todd to play Rose at Ravinia. There was a lot of pressure on me to deliver this role

Pretty much since Evita, and even more so since Anything Goes, people had been telling me that Madam Rose was the role I was born to play

I was putting pressure on myself, but I was unwilling to let Lonnie put any pressure on me

Lonnie, or anyone else for that matter, living or dead. The ghost of Ethel Merman was surely hovering I worked with Lonnie many times before and I knew that his job was to get the show on its feet in a very short period of time

Nevertheless, what he was doing was not helpful. As we began rehearsal that night

I thought he was pressing me for way too much, way too soon. As he continued to push, I built into a rage

that culminated in a volcanic eruption. What are you doing? I just got off the plane

I just opened my mouth, and already you want results. I will figure this out in time

but you cannot ask me to deliver results this minute. It all paid off

Audiences were ecstatic. The place was sold out. The buzz in the media and within the theatrical community

was extremely positive. There was enough excitement generated about the possibility of seeing me continue to play Rose

that several major producers bought tickets to fly to Chicago. Only one actually made it

Everybody else canceled because they were too scared to fly. The day before we opened, a terrorist plot to blow up 10 commercial aircraft flying between London and New York had been uncovered

I was, in a word, f***ed. Isn't that wonderful