Patti LuPone is a three-time Tony Award winner for her performances as Joanne in Marianne Elliott’s award-winning production of the Stephen Sondheim George Furth musical Company, Madame Rose in the most recent Broadway revival of the Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim-Arthur Laurents classic Gypsy and the title role in the original Broadway production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita.

Her previous Broadway performances include starring roles in Jen Silverman's comedy The Roommate opposite Mia Farrow, directed by Jack O'Brien; the Scott Frankel-Michael Korie-Douglas Wright musical War Paint (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations), the David Yazbeck-Jeffrey Lane musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations) Mrs. Lovett in John Doyle's production of Sweeney Todd (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle nominations), Michael Frayn's Noises Off, Terrence McNally's Master Class, her own concert Patti LuPone On Broadway, Cole Porter's Anything Goes (Tony nomination, Drama Desk Award), Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock, Lionel Bart's Oliver!, Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist and the Alfred Uhry-Robert Waldman musical The Robber Bridegroom (Tony nomination).

She has enjoyed a long association with David Mamet, starring on Broadway in productions of his plays The Anarchist, The Old Neighborhood, and The Water Engine; off-Broadway in Edmond and The Woods; as well as in his films Heist and State and Main.

A graduate of the first class of the Drama Division of New York's Juilliard School and a founding member of John Houseman's The Acting Company in which she toured the country for four years, Ms. LuPone's additional NY appearances include the off-Broadway productions of Douglas Carter Beane's Shows For Days at LCT and Israel Horovitz's Stage Directions at the Public Theater, her debut with the New York City Ballet as Anna 1 in The Seven Deadly Sins, Passion at Lincoln Center which was also broadcast on PBS' Live From Lincoln Center, the City Center Encores! productions of Gypsy, Can-Can, and Pal Joey, and the NY Philharmonic's productions of Company, Candide, and Sweeney Todd (NY Phil debut).

Nationally, she has appeared with the Los Angeles Opera in their production of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles and Weill-Brecht's Mahagonny (debut), the world premiere of Jake Heggie's opera To Hell and Back with San Francisco's Baroque Philharmonia Orchestra, the title role in Marc Blitzstein's Regina, a musical version of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes at the Kennedy Center, and in a multi-city tour of her theatrical concert Matters of the Heart.

Beginning in 2000 she appeared regularly at the Ravinia Festival. First in its Sondheim series when she starred in Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, Passion, Anyone Can Whistle, Gypsy, Sunday in the Park with George, as well as in Heggie’s To Hell and Back, Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins, and Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun.

In London, where she most recently won her second Olivier Award for her performance as Joanne in Company, she recreated her Broadway performance of Maria Callas in Master Class, and created the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard (Olivier Award nomination). Ms. LuPone was the first American to win London's Olivier Award for her performances as Fantine in the original production of Les Miserables and in the Acting Company production of The Cradle Will Rock.

Film: Ari Aster's Beau is Afraid opposite Joaquin Phoenix; The School for Good and Evil (Netflix); Last Christmas; The Comedian; Union Square; Parker; City by the Sea; Just Looking; Summer of Sam; The 24 Hour Woman; Family Prayers; Driving Miss Daisy; Witness.

Television/Streaming: Hollywood (Netflix); Pose; Crazy Ex-Girlfriend; Penny Dreadful (Critics Choice nomination); Girls; American Horror Story: Coven & NYC; Law & Order: SVU; Glee; 30 Rock; PBS Great Performances The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (GRAMMY Award for the broadcast’s recording); Ugly Betty; Will & Grace (as herself); PBS Great Performances' Candide; Oz ; the TNT film Monday Night Mayhem; PBS' Evening At The Pops with John Williams and Yo Yo Ma; Falcone; Bonanno: A Godfather’s Story; Frasier (1998 Emmy nomination); Law & Order; An Evening with Patti LuPone (PBS), the NBC movie Her Last Chance, Showtime's The Song Spinner (Daytime Emmy nomination, Best Actress); The Water Engine; L.B.J.; AMC's Remember WENN; and ABC's Life Goes On.

Recordings include: A Life in Notes, Don’t Monkey with Broadway, Far Away Places, Patti LuPone at Les Mouches, The Lady with the Torch, and many original cast recordings including, most recently: the West End production of Company, War Paint, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Gypsy, and Sweeney Todd (both the 2006 Broadway revival cast recording and 2000 live performance recording on NY Philharmonic’s Special Editions Label).

She is the author of the NY Times bestselling memoir Patti LuPone: A Memoir.

Joseph Thalken is an award-winning composer, conductor, and pianist whose theater and concert works have been performed internationally. His music has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Somerled Charitable Foundation, and the Shen Family Foundation.

Thalken is the composer of the musicals Harold and Maude, Was, Borrowed Dust, Fall of ’94, and Inventions for Piano. His concert works encompass chamber, choral, orchestral, wind ensemble, and vocal music. His chamber orchestra ballet, Chasing Home, commissioned by Bruce Wood Dance, was recorded by the Dallas Chamber Symphony, conducted by Richard McKay, produced by Adam Abeshouse, and released on Albany Records.

He has served as music director and/or arranger for luminaries of Broadway and classical music, including Patti LuPone, Julie Andrews, Bernadette Peters, Renée Fleming, Rebecca Luker, Marin Mazzie, Kristin Chenoweth, Liza Minnelli, Polly Bergen, Faith Prince, Elizabeth Futral, Catherine Malfitano, Denyce Graves, B. J. Ward, Joshua Bell, Michael Crawford, Howard McGillin, Michael Winther, Jason Danieley, Nathan Gunn, Rodney Gilfry, and Brian Stokes Mitchell, among many others.

Starting in elementary school, he studied piano with Margaret Kohn and music theory with Karl Kohn, and then attended Northwestern University, studying with Robert Weirich. He worked at the Zurich Opera Studio and spent several years at the Stadttheater Aachen (Germany) as a conductor, pianist, and composer. A long-time New York City resident, he has taught music theater composition at Yale University, and is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild.