Geraldine Turner's Gypsy Heartbreak

David Spicer reports.

Music Theatre star Geraldine Turner has been heartbroken by the cancellation of a forthcoming season of Gypsy - which is the fifth time in her career that she has been cast in the lead role, in a production of the Stephen Sondheim/Jule Styne/Arthur Laurents musical, that has been called off.

Late last week it was announced that the blockbuster pro-am production scheduled for the Q Theatre in Queanbeyan for April-May has been cancelled "with great regret."

The Q Theatre's cultural leader Stephen Pike said, "many theatre-goers were looking forward to and will be understandably disappointed - as are the staff and performers involved in the production."

Geraldine Turner described the decision to Stage Whispers as "unfathomable."

"People had booked from Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney etc. It is difficult to reconcile," she said.

The role of Rose in Gypsy is considered by many to be the Everest of music theatre roles. Turner was cast in the role for the first time in 1992. Despite strong ticket sales, an excellent cast and creative team it was suddenly cancelled at the end of the first week of rehearsals when the finances fell through.

Since then Turner has been cast in three other productions all of which for various reasons were cancelled prompting her to remark ruefully that Geraldine Turner and Gypsy don't belong in the same sentence.

Turner's passion for the role is fuelled in part by the fact that the stage mother relationship in the musical mirrors her own relationship with her mother.

The Geraldine Turner show is going on - even if everything has not come up roses.

A concert scheduled for today (Feb 17) with her husband Brian Castles Onion at the Art Gallery of NSW is a sell out.

"I am concentrating on the sold out concert tonight. Then I will reassess."

"In the meantime I have a free dance card if anyone has any work."

Stage Whispers would like to issue a challenge. Can someone stage Gypsy in 2020 to make it sixth time lucky for Geraldine?

Correction: The director Rodney Delaney has denied a report by Stage Whispers that he withdrew after being unable to cast the entire musical. 

According to a statement attributed ti Mr Delaney he was fired last Thursday.

"We had gotten together a supremely gifted company of local players to join Ms Turner in bringing “Gypsy” to life.  Now we all lose out due to the mishandling of the project by the local “steering team”.