Three-time Tony winner Glenn Close, who recently made a triumphant return to Broadway in the revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard, was forced to miss the May 14 performance on Mother's Day due to vocal issues following a cold.
The Broadway veteran penned a note of apology, posted on her Facebook page, to those who had tickets for the performance. The note follows:
“I want to apologize to anyone who came to SUNSET BOULEVARD on Mother Day only to find that I wasn't performing. The fact that it was such a special day and that, I know, there were many mothers in the audience, with celebratory tickets, made my absence even worse. I wasn't there because I totally lost my voice. I'd been fighting a cough and cold all week. When I woke up on Sunday, my voice just wasn't there. I went to the theater and sat at a keyboard, with our wonderful conductor, Kristen Blodgette. It immediately became painfully evident that I was unable to perform. My fantastic understudy, Nancy Anderson, heard while she was waiting for the subway, that she was going on. She did a magnificent job.
After two days of complete vocal rest--plied with the appropriate meds, I was able to talk/sing my way through our matinee, today. Hopefully, my voice will come fully back during the course of this week. I'll have to be careful!
I make this pledge to all my theater fans. I will ALWAYS be there, if it's humanly possible. ALWAYS. But theater is live and very, very human, so there will be times when I just won't be able to make it. Hopefully, those times will be few and far between.
And thank you to all who stayed and saw the show on Mother's Day. Ours is a sublime company and I am lucky to have someone as talented as Nancy Anderson covering my back.
Best wishes to all,
Glenn”
More than 20 years after she won a Tony for her portrayal of deluded silent film star Norma Desmond, Close has returned to the role in a limited engagement at the Palace Theatre.
Sunset Boulevard features a score by Andrew Lloyd Webber and book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton.
In the video below, Blodgette—mentioned in Close's letter—discusses her work on the Broadway revival:
Check out footage from Sunset Boulevard below:
