Drama League to Honor Patti LuPone at Black-Tie Benefit

Two-time Tony Award winner Patti LuPone will be honored at the Drama League’s 27th annual black-tie benefit gala on February 7, 2011. Dubbed “A Musical Celebration of Broadway,” the event will be held in the Grand Ballroom of the Pierre Hotel, co-directed by Roger T. Danforth and Tony Award winner Cady Huffman.

The gala will include a post-dinner show highlighting LuPone’s career and featuring performances from Laura Benanti, Liz Callaway, Howard McGillin, Donna Murphy, Anika Noni Rose and Michael Urie, with additional stars to be announced in the coming weeks. Murphy, a Drama League board member, praised LuPone as “a true force of nature; a fierce survivor who has willed things to happen in her life and career when things didn't easily fall into place. Personally, she inspired me early on with her undeniable soaring talent; and still inspires me on that level, but that is now compounded by my coming to know her incredible strength of character.”

LuPone is currently starring in the Broadway musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and the author of an acclaimed new autobiography, Patti LuPone: A Memoir. She won Tonys for her performances in Gypsy and Evita and was nominated for a Tony for Sweeney Todd, Anything Goes and The Robber Bridegroom.

All proceeds from this “Musical Celebration of Broadway” support the Drama League Directors Project, the nation’s premier training program for theater directors.