Broadway and Sondheim
Early in her career, (when she was still known as Merle Letowt), she played "Thelma" in the original cast of Gypsy (1959). Eventually, she moved up to the fourth lead rôle of "Dainty June", playing it for much of the Broadway run and on the first national tour.
Louise returned to Broadway in Company (1970) as "Susan". Her biggest success was as "the Beggar Woman" in Sweeney Todd (1979), for which she won the Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical. However, her "ravaging crazy" performance is not preserved in the video recording as she had left the cast at that time. In Into the Woods (1987), she played a trio of rôles: the ethereal "Cinderella's Mother", the practical "Granny" (of "Little Red Riding Hood" fame), and the unseen vengeful "Giantess".
Louise has originated rôles with other Broadway composers as well. She played "Mme. Dindon" in Jerry Herman's La Cage aux Folles (1983) and "Molina's Mother" in Kander and Ebb's Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993), a rôle she also played on London's West End, in Toronto and on the national tour.
Off-Broadway, she created the rôle of Cecily MacIntosh in Charlotte Sweet (1982). Regionally, she is an acclaimed actress in classics by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Molière, Pinter, Ibsen, and Shaw.
The cast of the Broadway show, title of show (along with some of their theatrical friends), created a game based around Merle Louise, entitled "Six Degrees of Merle Louise", which is based on Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon except that it generally uses Broadway musicals in place of movies to link two performers.
Read more about this topic: Merle Louise
Famous quotes containing the word broadway:
“... here hundreds sit and play Bingo; here the bright lights of Broadway burn through a sea haze; here Somebodies tumble over other Somebodies and over Nobodies as well.”
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)