Bob LuPone, who helped lead MCC Theater, has died at 76 | Leisure

NEW YORK (AP) — 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 following a three-year battle with pancreatic most cancers, based on Matt Ross Public Relations.

“The MCC Theater group mourns the lack of our a lot liked and uniquely inspiring companion, colleague and expensive buddy, Bob LuPone, who lived fearlessly and with nice curiosity, good humor, a boundless ardour for connection, and a complete lot of coronary heart. We are going to miss him deeply and at all times,” the theater firm stated in a press release.

LuPone’s first skilled job was in 1966, within the ensemble of the Westbury Music Truthful’s manufacturing of “The Pajama Recreation” 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 forged 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 position.

Born in 1946 in Brooklyn, New York, LuPone graduated from The Juilliard Faculty with a bachelor’s diploma in dance in 1968.

He was instructing an appearing class at New York College when one in every of his college students was Bernie Telsey. Collectively they’d assist kind Manhattan Class Firm in 1986 — recognized right this moment as MCC Theater.

LuPone, 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,” “Faculty Ladies; or the African Imply Ladies Play,” “The Snow Geese,” “The Different Place” and the Pulitzer Prize- profitable “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 acquired a Daytime Emmy nomination.

He additionally served as director of the MFA drama program on the New Faculty for Drama from 2005 by way 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.

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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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