By MICHAEL MARKHAM

Patti LuPone, who graduated from Juilliard's Drama Division in 1972 as a member of Group 1, hardly needs an introduction. She has performed across the country and the world, and was the first American actress to win the Olivier Award for her role as Fantine in Les Miserables. She won a Tony for the title role in Evita, played Libby on ABC's Life Goes On (from 1989-1993), and is currently starring as Mrs. Lovett in John Doyle's acclaimed production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. It is with all this experience that she came to talk with Group 35 on December 2 as part of the Lunch With an Alum series. She was brash, brazen, and blunt, qualities for which she has been both criticized and celebrated since she first auditioned for Juilliard. She shared with us her passion, some regrets, and her wishes and desires for our futures and for the world of theater.

Patti LuPone and Michael Cerveris in the current Broadway production of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. (Photo by Paul Kolnik)

President Polisi introduced us to Patti with what we soon learned was a typical story of Patti and the way she lives her life. The last time she formally spoke to students was back in the late '80s. The Drama Theater was packed with students, teachers, trustees, and donors. She was asked what she thought of a dorm at Juilliard, for which the School had begun the process of raising funds. She promptly responded that "your acting program will go to hell in a handbasket." She thought it was a terrible idea, explaining that students learned so much from life and the survival techniques required to navigate New York City, the characters they encountered on the subway, in Central Park, and on the street late at night. That is the fodder for artists' creativity, the well from which they pull. This was not the answer President Polisi was looking for as he was gearing up to raise $150 million dollars.

Patti, however, jumped right in and defended her original answer, turning to us, hoping we had not lived there for long. We soon found she did not spare people her opinions. And she has always been like that. We asked questions about her time at Juilliard, hoping she would dish on teachers who were still teaching us today. She said she was always getting into trouble with teachers. "They tried to throw me out of the School, but they couldn't throw me out just because of my personality. So they threw in my direction every single role, hoping I would fail as an actor—and what they did is, they trained one actor in versatility, and the rest they pigeon-holed as 'the leading lady,' 'character man,' bada-bing, bada-boom, bada-bum. If there was a recalcitrant student after me, Michel Saint-Denis would go, 'Remember Patti LuPone.'"

Another striking run-in occurred with Edith Skinner, a legend for her demeanor, whose text we still use as a guide for the majority of our speech training. "Edith Skinner actually took me by the throat and started choking me and said, 'I'll make a lady out of you yet,' and I looked at her and I said, 'The bet's on.'"

Aside from the dirt on teachers, we spent much of the time discussing the current state of theater in America. We grasped for advice or experience we could apply to ourselves. She kept using the phrase "ply the trade." She told us to work in the Acting Company, which had been started by John Houseman out of a desire to use the ensemble that had been created in Group I. She told us to go into the trenches and dig those experiences out, perform on the road. "There's nothing I can't do, as a result of that training here and that training there," she said of Juilliard and her four years with the Acting Company after graduation. "There's not an experience I have not gone through; I've gone through it all, and most of it took place in the Acting Company."

She was at a loss (almost) concerning the new dangers with corporate America taking over Broadway. "I think we've lost a lot of integrity in the country, a lot of integrity in our arts, if they even still exist. I think it actually'd behoove these big corporations to open up a big black box, and give all the young playwrights, composers, and lyricists a chance to show us their work so that we can mature and grow as an audience with these creators. That's what I think, but we're all about money." At the same time she feels visionaries like director John Doyle might be able to change things. "Now this show [Sweeney Todd], we still have mikes on. But we're minimally miked … Maybe there is a God, maybe everything is going to change. Who knows, but the audience is coming to the stage again." About John Doyle, she says, "This is not new theater he's creating. This is a theater lost. This is a theater that involves an audience, makes an audience work. And they are screaming … We don't spend a hundred bucks to walk into a theater to not have an experience. We expect to have an experience … and when we don't have it, it's maddening."

In the end, Patti's advice to a group of young, budding actors is this: Continue to ply your trade and don't settle for what is being offered to you by the status quo. Create your own, find ways, network, get the money, and make theater that engages an audience. We are not lost, we are not dead, until something that engages no longer has an audience.

Michael Markham is a fourth-year drama student.