Bob LuPone, who as an actor earned a Tony nomination within the unique run of A Refrain Line and went on to assist discovered and lead the influential off-Broadway theater firm MCC Theater for nearly 40 years, has died. He was 76.
LuPone, brother of Broadway icon Patti LuPone, died Saturday (Aug. 27) following a three-year battle with pancreatic most cancers, in keeping with Matt Ross Public Relations.
“The MCC Theater neighborhood mourns the lack of our a lot liked and uniquely inspiring accomplice, colleague and expensive buddy, Bob LuPone, who lived fearlessly and with nice curiosity, good humor, a boundless ardour for connection, and an entire lot of coronary heart. We’ll miss him deeply and all the time,” the theater firm stated in an announcement.
LuPone’s first skilled job was in 1966, within the ensemble of the Westbury Music Honest’s manufacturing of The Pajama Sport starring Liza Minnelli. He made his Broadway debut within the 1968 manufacturing of Noel Coward’s Candy Potato and later appeared in Minnie’s Boys, The Rothschilds and The Magic Present.
LuPone was initially solid as Al in A Refrain Line, however satisfied creator and director Michael Bennett to let him play Zach after the unique actor left. LuPone would earn a finest featured actor Tony nomination for the function.
Born in 1946 in Brooklyn, New York, LuPone graduated from the Juilliard College with a bachelor’s diploma in dance in 1968.
He was instructing an appearing class at New York College when one among his college students was Bernie Telsey.
Collectively they’d assist type Manhattan Class Firm in 1986 — identified as we speak as MCC Theater.
LuPone and Telsey, together with third co-artistic director Will Cantler, formed MCC right into a theatrical powerhouse, producing such Broadway-bound works as Frozen, Causes to be Fairly, Hand to God, College Women; or the African Imply Women Play, The Snow Geese, The Different Place and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Wit.
Whereas serving as co-artistic director of MCC, LuPone additionally labored as an actor, showing in A View From the Bridge, True West and A Thousand Clowns, all on Broadway. He was within the Chicago premiere of Sam Shepard’s The Tooth of Crime and on TV was in The Sopranos, Intercourse and the Metropolis, Guiding Gentle and All My Kids, for which he obtained a Daytime Emmy nomination.
He additionally served as director of the MFA drama program on the New College for Drama from 2005 by means of 2011 and served as president of the board of administrators of A.R.T/ New York.
LuPone is survived by his spouse, Virginia; his son, Orlando; sister, Patti; and brother, William
