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Who's Your Mama? Montego Glover Talks All Things GYPSY
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Jul 25, 2025
Ready or not, here comes Montego! In fact, she has already arrived. The Tony nominee stepped into Audra McDonald's shoes earlier this month as 'Rose' in Gypsy. Now she is continuing her work onstage at the Majestic Theatre for the acclaimed revival's remaining Sunday matinees. Watch in this video as she chats more about finding her version of the character and why stepping into this role is such an honor.
View Video Transcript
0:00
If someone had come to me and said, I can read Fortunes and tell the future, and this is going to happen, I would have said, absolutely not
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And yet, there I was. There you are. Mm-hmm. Welcome to Backstage with Richard Ridge
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We're here at the legendary Sardis, and my guest is one of Broadway's favorite award-winning leading ladies
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You know her from such musicals as Les Mis, Memphis, Into the Woods, and Hamilton
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and she has recently stepped into the iconic role of Mama Rose in Gypsy
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filling in for Audra McDonald during her vacation, and she'll play the role on Sundays
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Please welcome Montego Glover. I got a call. I got a call. It was a very good phone call
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And the word was, listen, Audra needs to be away, and we would love to have a conversation
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And I said, let's please. And then the rest is history. The rest is history
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Okay. So when you found out you were going to play Mama Rose, like what went through your head
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Did you know the show? Did you know the role? Of course I went to theater school. I'm a theater kid
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I know Gypsy. I know what it is, how it works, what it be, all the songs
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It's like in us, you know, it's part of our lives. And so in the beginning, I was like, this is a wonderful idea, a wonderful opportunity
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Of course, we were all so excited that Audra was playing this role and that George had put his lens like on it
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and given us such a new vision. Camille had given us this choreography. So I had seen the show in
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previews and was thrilled. And then the phone call came and suddenly I was coming from outside
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to the inside of this quite beautiful thing. So it was exciting and stunning at the same time
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Okay. Was it daunting at all? Because all of a sudden you're like, I'm going into rehearsal
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Yes. Yes. Because it's so much. She's such a heavy lift. There's so much to do. She's so
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It a big show which is wonderful but it a big piece a lot of moving parts and pieces It a grand responsibility Robby Barbaro Jr Yeah It a big role It a role you said you knew but the point is when you were sort of relearning it for Broadway did you go back to the songs first
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Did you do scene by scene? Like, how did you work on her and work on the show? Gosh, I always start with a text
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Always, always, always read the play. I always refer to pieces as the play
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whether it's a musical or a straight play. And I'm so lucky I get to do both. I always refer to it as the play
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So I go to the text, what is being said, what is not being said, what lives on the lines around them, under them, and I start from there
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Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. And then you fill in with the songs and everything else
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They get started on that music because, you know, it's part of the lifeblood of the show
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It's another means of expression. So it's very important to me to know what is being said in spoken word and then move
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very gently and naturally, actually, over to the song word. Yeah. Okay, so Gypsy has been running, and of course, the whole cast is there, and then all of a
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sudden you're thrown in. But you did that before with Into the Woods
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But I'm sure the company was so generous too at Gypsy. Oh my gosh, incredibly, incredibly generous and welcoming and excited
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I did not know there were one or two people in that company that knew me already that I didn't know
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They were familiar with my work or familiar with me. And then there were just souls that I've always admired and enjoyed and now I was getting my chance
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Enter Danny Burstein. You know, I've admired Danny for so long, admired his work
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So getting the opportunity to work with him was a thrill, is a thrill
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Yeah. So how long was the rehearsal process? Four and a half weeks. Oh, so you had like a real rehearsal process
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Yes. It seems like a lot of time. And it is, but it isn't
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You know, she's so big and it's so big. And this play has been running, you know, for a number of months now
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So they are quite oiled and ready to go. So I really concentrated on being solid in the scholarship of learning her so that I could join the company at a pace
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I was always going to need to like, you know, canter to run. But I really wanted to be sure I was ready to join them when the time came So the first time you saw yourself all done up like in Mama Rose that first with the coat and everything else and the hair and everything like tell me about that first day with makeup and outfit in front of the mirror when you saw yourself as Mama Rose
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What went through your mind? I thought Montego as a wee lass in acting school would never, ever have guessed. Yeah
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Never, ever. If someone had come to me and said, I can read fortunes and tell the future and this is going to happen, I would have said, absolutely not. And yet, there I was
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There you are. So what do you remember about that first performance in front of a live audience
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Oh, I remember hearing the first strains of the overture. I remember saying, sing out Louise
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I remember looking into Danny's eyes for Small World. I remember starting Rose's turn
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I remember finishing Rose's turn. And then Bows. And it was so high vibrational
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It was so definitely loud, definitely loud. I did not realize it, but I had so many more friends and colleagues and chosen family out in that audience, that first audience, more than I knew
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It was highly emotional. I was grateful. It's a physical role. It's an emotional role
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And I'm sure it took you because you were in for Audra's vacation first. so when did you it feel like i'm a little more comfortable with this or is it ever that way i
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don't think because audra said it's never that way right i don't think so i think you know i'm
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always working i'm you know i treat the theater like my office because it is my office it is what
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i you know do i'm an actress for a living i'm lucky i get to do theater and a lot of other things
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um but i come to the office no matter what the platform with a work list um so i come with a list of things that i want to work on that i reaching for I always digging and searching on a character trying to know her better know her deeper
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trying to know the world that she lives in, the other people and players in her world
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I'm always searching my scene partners for whatever they're offering or whatever I discover or she discovers about them
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So you get more comfortable because the repetition allows your body's mechanics to take over, to give you just a little bit more solid base
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But the exploration, the arty part of it, never stops. Now, I like that
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Okay. Singing Julie Stein and Stephen Sondheim. Gypsy, to me, is one of the most perfect musicals ever written from a theater
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And your role as everything, it's a perfect arc. Yeah. Yeah. Because everything
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Even by the time you do Everything's Coming Up Roses at the end of Act One, you blow the roof off the place, but then you have two seconds to sort of relax before you start Act Two again
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Yeah. But what's it like singing those beautiful songs, like Everything's Coming Up Roses and Roses Turn
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Yeah. I have said very often in conversations since I entered the world of Gypsy, I will never think of Roses Turn again the same way, and I will never think of Everything's Coming Up Roses again
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the way I did before. There's like the world before I worked on Gypsy
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those songs before I worked on Gypsy, and those songs now that I have picked up Mama Rose
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Do you know? They have such a different meaning to me. Where they land in the play is so specific
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and iconic in its own way and deeply emotional. Like there's a lot going on
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The lives of these people are real and robust. We've endeavored, George has endeavored
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to make this a play that happens to have music. Do you know what I mean
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It's the lives of these people being lived out honestly and in defiance of, he says all the time
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which I think is glorious. So it continues to be an exploration
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and it's muscular and messy and wonderful. I'll never think of those songs again the same way. Yeah
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