You can hear the screams of Broadway fans for miles yelling out “Patti!!!!” over their excitement for this one. The legendary actress Patti LuPone is heading to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a move that is both shocking and the most exciting thing LuPone could choose to do after recently “retiring” from Broadway. News broke today from Deadline that LuPone is reportedly joining the already-stacked cast of Agatha: Coven of Chaos.
The cast includes Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness, Aubrey Plaza, Joe Locke, Maria Dizzia, Ali Ahn, Sasheer Zamata, and reportedly Emma Caulfield Ford. The series is based on the world established in WandaVision and while we don’t know much about who everyone is playing, there are plenty of characters in the Marvel canon that could connect to Agatha Harkness.
LuPone could be a witch, she could sing, she could be Agatha’s mother from all those years ago. Whoever she ends up playing, we’re going to finally get to see Patti LuPone in a major franchise and that’s fascinating for fans of the Broadway diva.
It’s disconcerting to me, a theatre kid, that there are people in this world who do not know who Patti LuPone is but those people do exist! So let’s go over who she is and why this is such an exciting addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The joy of Patti
Patti LuPone is what you would call a Broadway diva (not derogative). She has been a powerhouse throughout her career and has been a “muse” in a way for both Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber (who she very much does not like and will not work with again) as well as Stephen Sondheim (whom she loves). We’ve seen her as Mrs. Lovett, as Eva Perón, and most recently, in her reportedly last role as Joanne in Company on Broadway, singing the iconic “Ladies Who Lunch” song.
She is one of those performers that you know will always bring you her best performance, and while she very much gives a “Patti” rendition of it, you still love her for it. You might also know her as the person who once screamed at someone in an audience to put their phone away and who also said that the producer of Company is who signed her checks, not the audience. All this to say that she’s perfect, I love her.
Including her in the MCU goes up there with the casting of Harrison Ford as Thunderbolt Ross for me, meaning it is not something I ever thought I’d see. So there’s a lot about this casting we don’t know. She could be a witch, she could just be someone who is maybe living in Westview, if that’s where Agatha is. Or she could be a character from the Marvel comics canon that we haven’t met yet but the point is that I don’t care who she is, she could play a tree and I’d watch on the edge of my scene because it is Patti LuPone!!!!
(image: Netflix)
