Patti Lupone returns to off-Broadway in 'Full Gallop'

Northport native and Broadway legend Patti Lupone will play Diana Vreeland, the former editor of Vogue, in a new off-Broadway production of the one-woman play “Full Gallop” next year.

The 12-week engagement will begin previews Jan. 8 at New York City Center Stage II, where the play was first staged here in 1995. Opening night is set for Jan. 17.

“Full Gallop” tells the story of how Vreeland, self-exiled in Paris after being fired from Vogue, returned to Manhattan and reinvented herself as an innovative curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s costume collection. The original New York production, starring Mary Louise Wilson, was praised for its witty epigrams and feminist approach to a figure who helped place fashion at the center of global culture. Variety called the play “one of the most enjoyable little shows in town.”

Lupone, 77, is a three-time Tony winner, most recently for her turn as a vodka-chugging Joanne in the Stephen Sondheim musical “Company.” Though best known for her stage work, Lupone has acted in such movies as David Mamet’s “State and Main” and television series such as “American Horror Story: NYC.”

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com