Quad City Music Guild is wrapping up its 2025 summer season with Gypsy, which is a classic and celebrated American musical based on the 1957 brassy memoir of famed burlesque performer, Gypsy Rose Lee. It focuses on her ambitious stage mother, Mama Rose, and her daughters’ – June and Louise – as they journey through the dying world of vaudeville and the emerging world of burlesque in the early 20th century. The show features an iconic score with hits like "Everything's Coming Up Roses," “Together Wherever We Go,” and "Let Me Entertain You". It’s considered by many to be one of the finest musicals ever created and is known for its exploration of family dynamics, showbiz, and the ultimate "stage mother" archetype.
It debuted on Broadway in 1959 and has had six Broadway revivals since then, the most recent in 2024 starring Audra McDonald. It won the Tony Award in 1989 for Best Revival. It debuted in London’s West End in 1973 and won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Revival in its 2016 run.
The character of Rose has been variously described as “bossy, demanding and horrid” to “a driven woman who loves her kids and is a survivor who may do monstrous things but is not a monster” to “a woman who is traumatized by her own mother’s leaving her at an early age” who is “longing for acceptance” which “fuels all her ambition…In the end, when she confronts herself in [the number] 'Rose's Turn', she realizes she has failed her daughter just as her own mother failed her...and that destroys Rose.”
The role of Mama Rose was originated on Broadway by superstar Ethel Merman whose legendary voice defied the need for amplification. Not to be intimidated, taking on the demanding larger-than- life role of Mama Rose is Julie Wilson Funk whose dynamite performance culminated with all the pent up years of frustration exploding in the number “Rose’s Turn.”
As Louise, who morphs into Gypsy Rose Lee, is Jordyn Mitchell who seamlessly mutates from the shy, overlooked daughter to the most celebrated strip tease artist of the era. Her touching scene with Aaron Deneckere as Tulsa in “All I Need is the Girl” was one of the highlights of the show for me. Honorable mention goes out to Amy Singleton, Emilene Leone, and Stevee Baker as Tessie Turan, Mazzeppa and Electra for their zany number of “You Gotta Get a Gimmick.”
This show is a huge technical challenge because the troupe is on tour, so it changes location more often than some people change their socks. That challenge is handled by having no permanent set. Instead, the curtains are used more and multiple rolling set pieces are moved in and out that merely suggest the setting. Adding to the backstage hustle are numerous, sometimes what appear to be complicated costume changes. Both challenges are met with alacrity but do tend to lengthen the show a bit which runs just short of three hours.
All in all this is a fun show chocked full of familiar songs which, in all honesty, I didn’t know were from this show. I just heard them often as I was growing up. They’ll stick in your head, too, and may become your new ear worm.
Gypsy continues at Quad City Music Guild in Moline’s Prospect Park, Friday and Saturday, August 15 and 16 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, August 17 at 2:00 p.m. If you’re new to Music Guild, be advised that parking at the theatre is limited to the handicapped and to volunteers only. All others can catch a shuttle from the Southpark Mall’s parking lot east of Dick’s Sporting Goods.
I’m Chris Hicks…break a leg.