Everything came up roses for Broadway Bombshell Bernadette Peters on Opening Night of the Stein/Sondheim/Laurents musical masterpiece, Gypsy!
This reprised production spun musical circles around the story of a dysfunctional family (which was nothing new to director Sam Mendes, creator of American Beauty) headed by overbearing stage mother (“Mama Rose,” played by Peters), whose two daughters (“Louise”/Tammy Blanchard and “June”/Kate Reinders) suffer all the way to the top of their respective professions, eventually becoming actress June Havoc and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.
Standing before the power-packed house at the Shubert Theatre, Mayor Bloomberg declared, “Today is Gypsy Rose Lee Day!” During intermission, when The Sheet asked Hizzoner what he thought of some of the characters smoking on stage as part of the performance, he quipped, “I’m not going to take that one on now!”
After the smashing performance, looking buff in Donna Karan, the super-talented Peters attracted an endless list of high-powered celebs to the party at Guastavino’s. They included Neil Simon, Sigourney Weaver, Harvey Weinstein, Gloria and Emilio Estefan, Nathan Lane, Rosie O’Donnell, Susan Lucci, Matthew Broderick, Lauren Bacall, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, Kate Winslet, and Ivana Trump.
Tony Roberts (who opens in August in the Hamptons’ Bay Street Theatre in The Boyfriend, directed by Julie Andrews) and his lady friend hopped in a rickshaw to the after-party. Later on, The Sheet caught up with Tom Hanks and asked which of his movie roles he loved playing the most. “Jim Lovell in Apollo 13 was one of my all-time favorite experiences.”
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