Speaking Up for LuPone

Please allow me to lend my voice to Glenn Wein’s in speaking up for Patti LuPone (“A ‘Sunset’ Without LuPone Is Dark Day for Theater,” March 14). Perhaps a lot of small voices will add up to one large one.

I count myself among the lucky who experienced LuPone’s brilliance in London. It is a theater experience I will have for a lifetime; her voice is so strong and moving. It was a performance that yanked the audience from their seats and brought tears to my eyes, as to those of many others in the audience that night. Fortunately, LuPone is immortalized on the “Sunset” London recording. It will stand the test of time.

I’ve seen Glenn Close in the role and she is good, but is that enough? It wasn’t for me. By replacing LuPone with Close in the Broadway production, Andrew Lloyd Webber is robbing the New York theater community of a great vocal performance. He may just discover, when his show reaches Broadway, that his musical is big but that his audience got small.

GARY JOHNS

West Hollywood