Here she is boys...here she is world...

Photos by Dan Lax

I had the honor of interviewing the legendary Patti LuPone onstage this afternoon at Agnes Scott College's Presser Hall. Patti's new memoir is out tomorrow and she's only doing four readings around the country to promote it, since she's in rehearsal for two shows in New York, including the musical version of Pedro Almodóvar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Atlanta got her first and it was the only event where she agreed to talk about her career and the book at length.

I'm not gonna lie – I was scared shitless about interviewing Patti. She does have a "reputation," but after reading her memoir and then meeting her today, I found her to be warm, generous and hilarious. And she swears like a sailor, so she's my kinda gal. And, yeah, it's a gay man's wet dream to actually meet Evita, Fantine, Norma Desmond and Mama Rose – just some of the iconic roles she's played on Broadway and in the West End.

My goal with the interview was to ask questions that would give her room to tell stories, because she has some funny and harrowing stories to tell (Andrew Lloyd Webber firing her from Sunset Boulevard takes up two chapters and is a gripping read). She got emotional after one of my questions, talking about her high school music teacher, Mrs. Esther Scott, and had the audience rolling with her very direct answers about Webber (we all swore her comments wouldn't leave Presser Hall, and I'm keeping the promise). She even got up and sang a few bars. The audience was small, but when they stood up to give her a standing ovation, it sounded like the place was packed to the rafters. We were actually going to do some of Pivot/Proust questionnaire (like James Lipton does on Inside the Actors Studio) but we ran out of time, because the audience had some great questions of their own.

If you missed the event (you have my pity), but Outwrite Books has some signed copies, so drop by and pick up one this week!

Many, many thanks to Georgia Center for the Book for asking me to do the interview. It was an absolute thrill to meet you, Patti LuPone.

P.S. You can see what AtlantaBoy.com had to say about the evcnt at this link.