Audra McDonald Excels in Mixed ‘Gypsy’ Revival on Broadway

The glitzy advertising for the Broadway revival of Gypsy (Majestic Theatre, booking through June 29, 2025) starring Audra McDonald as Mama Rose says it all: AUDRA GYPSY—two words, banner-sized, McDonald’s first name fringed with flashing bulbs, the name of the musical in dramatic red. The promise to the Broadway devoted is emphatic: two icons are being brought thrillingly together.

McDonald doesn’t disappoint; she gives Mama Rose, the original nightmare stage mom, here a believable, focused frustration and determination, a battering ram unwilling to accept any moderation, capitulation, or go-slow in her mission to make her daughter June a star (Jordan Tyson plays her as an adult; Marley Lianne Gomes and Jade Smith share the role as a youngster).

When those plans go awry, Rose’s attention diverts to her other daughter Louise (Kyleigh Vickers as a youngster, Joy Woods as an adult), whose boredom and lack of application in the biz suddenly segues to late-in-the-day interest in stardom, and the eventual blooming of her well-known persona, Gypsy Rose Lee. Finally, there is a reckoning between mother and daughter—or rather a mother with herself and her own thwarted ambitions, the unresolved residue of which she has parlayed into the take-no-prisoners driving force she has brought to bear to drive her daughters towards fame.

McDonald herself has long wanted to play the role made famous by Ethel Merman, who played Rose first in the musical’s first Broadway production in 1959 (with book by Arthur Laurents, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim). At a 2022 Carnegie Hall concert, McDonald sang “Rose’s Turn”—Rose’s famous climactic aria—from the musical.

“It’s the King Lear of roles for women in musical theater,” McDonald, winner of a record-breaking six Tony Awards (out of 10 nominations), told the Daily Beast after that concert. “That’s the role isn’t it? I certainly wouldn’t say ‘No,’ let’s put it that way. Yes, I would love to play Rose someday. But when it came to singing that song, it was me dealing with my emotions on the occasion of my oldest daughter Zoe going off to college, and realizing a lot of the anger, hurt, and abandonment I was feeling were similar to what Rose was going through in that moment. I’m not saying Rose is the world’s best mom, or that I am. But we both love our children fiercely and do what we can for them, and that connected me to that song.”

McDonald—a phenomenal actor as well as singer—channels every ounce of Rose’s blinkered love and consuming frustration. Her eyes dart here and there, she shouts, cajoles, badgers, emotionally blackmails; she is always in motion, she ducks, dives, she vaporizes any “no” she receives on contact. She is not charming, but she is a force—an unstoppable quarterback who only a delusional fool would seek to tackle or obstruct.

McDonald is blessed to have outstanding support in this production directed by George C. Wolfe. Danny Burstein plays Herbie, the former agent turned manager who swings into action again, just for her.

One of the low-key best numbers, “Together, Wherever We Go,” sees Rose, Herbie, and Louise not in opposition, but dancing and singing in tentative unison; tonally it is reminiscent of the similar push-pull vibe—we’re friends, we’re rivals, we’re together, we infuriate each other, we love each other—of “Old Friends” in Merrily We Roll Along. Camille A. Brown’s choreography is a consistent, inventive charm here and throughout, especially in the numbers featuring its young male cast.

Burstein is a delicately exquisite foil for McDonald—bluff, wry, and steadfast until he can be no longer. Likewise, Smith makes the young June’s screeching, squeaking, farcically gross numbers to make herself noticed to unseen directors their own kind of dazzling—a too-glamorized kid doing flag-waving, patriotic numbers that feel a hundred kinds of wrong.

Vickers and Woods are just as funny as the unwilling version of Louise. “Sing out, Louise,” her mother infamously commands, as Woods eyerolls at the audience with minimum enthusiasm for the basic singing and choreography demanded of her.

While June is the star, she can escape attention. But when June skips Dodge, Rose clasps Louise to her bosom as her new project (it looks as if she is being both squashed and suffocated at that moment). Then Louise watches the fabulous number “You Gotta Get a Gimmick” by the strippers—Mazeppa, Electra, and Tessie Tura (Lili Thomas, Mylinda Hull, and Leslie Margherita; all hilarious and outstanding)—in the club she ends up singing in. (Hull does scene-stealing double duty as Mrs. Cratchitt, the stern secretary to the unseen theater honcho Mr. Grantziger.)

The structure of Gypsy means McDonald gets a production-halting standing ovation with only around five minutes left to play after “Rose’s Turn,” with the hurried reconciliation between her and Louise happening—too fast, and not emphatically enough—in its slipstream. Indeed, Louise’s own journey—to sudden stardom, away from her mother—is itself sketched too quickly, and not enough to make its culmination land with the kind of emotional punch Gypsy ideally packs.

What is bubbling within Louise that will grow into Gypsy Rose Lee? A late encounter with a glove proves the fastest gateway drug to a life of glitz and glamor. Louise goes from apathetic church mouse to mink-clad siren in a blink.

The production’s staging is curious. A thrust stage brings the characters out into the audience for big performance moments, but the sets look haphazard and cheap—too artificial and insubstantial. The putting-on-a-show theme of the show itself helps give this make-do-and-mend vibe a cover—a kind of aesthetic echo to the no-filter desperation of Rose.

One’s mind returns to the banner names—AUDRA GYPSY. McDonald’s commanding performance certainly delivers, but the structure and look of the show are significant negative distractions. Gypsy remains magnificent, but this production—with its excellent singing and cast—requires a stronger conceptual execution to make it truly great.