In rehearsal for "Gypsy" are Julie Funk, Amy Singleton, and Jordyn Mitchell (photo by Dan Pepper).
Julie Funk is both excited and terrified to take on one of the most iconic roles in musical theatre.
The passionate 50-year-old Davenport mom is playing the monstrous Mama Rose in Quad City Music Guild's Gypsy, running August 8 through 17 at Moline's Prospect Park Auditorium (1584 34th Avenue).
“It’s intimidating and exciting all at once, and I can’t believe I get a chance to do this,” Funk said recently. “It’s a dream come true, especially at a time when it’s currently on Broadway. To know that I want to make it my own.
“As much as I love Patti LuPone,” she said, referencing her favorite Rose, “I don’t want to be mimicking her. I want to take some ideas from (all of) them.”
Mama Rose was immortalized in the 1959 original by Ethel Merman, and Gypsy has been revived many times on Broadway. The first revival, in 1974, starred Angela Lansbury, and subsequent productions found the role played by Tyne Daly (1989), Bernadette Peters (2003), Patti LuPone (2008), and six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald in the latest Broadway version, which is set to close this August 17.
Often referred to as the greatest American musical, Gypsy: A Musical Fable has music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. It's loosely based on the 1957 memoirs of striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee, and focuses on her mother, Rose, whose name has become synonymous with "the ultimate show business mother." The musical follows the dreams and efforts of Rose to raise two daughters to perform onstage and casts an affectionate eye on the hardships of show business life.
Its score is one of Broadway’s best, featuring the classics “Let Me Entertain You,” “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” “Together, Wherever We Go,” “All I Need is the Girl,” and “If Momma Was Married.”
Music Guild last produced Gypsy in 1997, and it’s often considered America's greatest musical, as Music Guild's director Troy Stark said, “due to Arthur Laurents' sharp script, which balances humor with heartbreak, while Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim created an unforgettable score. The show is set against the backdrop of a dying vaudeville, capturing both the glamour and desperation of American entertainment. Its brutal honesty about fame, family, and failure continues to resonate in revival after revival.”
“Sondheim is a master lyricist; there’s no one who does it better,” Funk said, noting that any parent can relate to this story, though Rose is an example of what not to do. “I hope not a lot of people who see this show go, 'Yup that’s my mom.'”
Mame is a musical also made famous by Angela Lansbury, and Funk embodied that title role in Music Guild's 2018 Guild production. Funk calls her “everybody’s favorite aunt,” and both Mame and Rose are larger-than-life, dominating characters.
“Rose is flawed and doesn’t want to accept or acknowledge those flaws,” Funk said. “In the end, Mame accepts what she’s done; she rights the wrong.”
Rose, said Funk, is a more complex character than others she’s done, even though she is “fun, and she's funny. Her determination is something to be admired, but she just takes it too far.
“It’s getting into these characters and bringing them to life,” she said of her love for theatre. “You can be somebody else. My gosh, the world is on fire, and it’s such a wonderful escape – to be with other humans who just want to create art and put something positive out into the world. It really just makes the rest of life bearable.
“We go to theatre to escape and be reminded that it’s not all terrible. The theatre community is all about acceptance. You find the most beautiful humans.”
Traveling the World, Then Back to the QC
Funk was raised in Austin, Texas, where she met her future husband Eric, and they were engaged after six months. They’ve now been married for 25 years.
The first time they moved to the QC was in 2015. The first Music Guild show they saw was Little Shop of Horrors, and Funk went on to play Miss Hannigan in Music Guild’s 2017 Annie, followed by the iconic title role in Mame.
Eric’s job with 3M (since 2007) led them to move to Shanghai, China, for three years. Then Funk and her family moved to Muncie, Indiana for 14 months, then the Twin Cities for a year, and then back to the QC last August, with Funk playing a comic role in Irving Berlin's White Christmas in December. Their daughter Sydney, meanwhile, graduated high school (in Shanghai) in 2021, and just graduated from Texas' Baylor University this past spring.
“I’ve always loved the Quad Cities,’’ Julie said. “We’ve moved so much, and the Quad Cities always felt like home. I found my people.
“It’s just astounding to me that in a city this small,” she said, “we have theatre and the arts that we have here, the opportunities we have. I tell people all the time, 'You have no idea.' In a city this size, no way would you (ordinarily) have this kind of opportunity for people, to pursue their passion. People don’t realize how lucky and fortunate we are.”
Rose is, as she said, a “bucket list role” for her, and she has watched many past productions of Gypsy.
In the climactic solo “Rose’s Turn” at the end of the show, which McDonald hammered home in a starkly emotional Tony Awards performance, Rose has lost it. “She's angry, she’s bitter, she's manic,” Funk said. “But it has to expand and contract.”
At that point in the story, Rose's older daughter has run away and left her; vaudeville is dying and burlesque is what’s left. But Louise becomes famous and doesn’t need her mother anymore, and in Louise's dressing room, Rose argues with her daughter, now known as the sophisticated Gypsy Rose Lee. Embittered, Rose reveals that the true motivation for all her actions has been to live vicariously through her daughters so she could chase the stardom she wanted for herself, not for her children.
“Rose is one of theater's most complex characters,” director Stark said. “Rose is both compelling and terrifying, making the role the ultimate challenge for leading actresses. Gypsy explores the dark side of show biz, revealing how dreams can destroy relationships and twist love into manipulation.”
Stark called Funk “absolutely electric as Rose. She brings this incredible mix of raw emotion, perfect comic timing, and powerhouse vocals that just floors you. What's really impressive is her stamina – this role is a marathon, and she never lets up.”
By the end of the demanding show, he said, “instead of running out of steam, she somehow finds even more intensity for those brutal final numbers. It's honestly breathtaking to watch.”
In Gypsy, Rose says she was born too soon and started too late. “She always felt she could have done it,” Funk said. “She’s trying to live vicariously through her children. But aren’t we all?
“Rose is human. She was a monster. She did some horrible things. But Rose is trying to break generational trauma, and she created a whole different trauma for her daughters. It’s an age-old story, right? We’re always trying to do better for our kids than what was done for us.
“Louise basically says, ‘You’re selfish and I don’t want you in my life anymore,’” Funk said of the plot point that leads to “Rose’s Turn.” “She loses it and goes to a very dark place. The audience shouldn’t love Rose in the end. And that’s hard for me as a performer, because you want people to like you.”
Although Rose believes she does what she does for the good of the people she loves, she doesn’t change, and ends up making everything all about herself.
“In the end,” said Funk, “it’s a tragedy – a story about loss and the pain we inflict on the ones we love. It's all manipulative. She’s never really learned her lesson.”
Quad City Music Guild's Gypsy runs at the Prospect Park Auditorium (1584 34th Avenue, Moline IL) August 8 through 17, and more information and tickets are available by calling (309)762-6610 and visiting QCMusicGuild.com.
