LI's Patti LuPone welcomes fans back to Broadway in new video

Patti LuPone opens in "Company" on Broadway in January, and she's especially looking forward to having the company of an audience.

On Wednesday, the Northport native released a 79-second video that served as a love letter to Broadway and a welcome-back message to theater fans. She opens by recalling how Broadway shut down 10 days before "Company" was set to open in March 2020. "We were told, 'It'll be a couple of weeks and we'll be back.' Now, at long last, Broadway is preparing to raise her curtains and we are preparing to return. I'll be the first to admit that at various moments since March last year, my hope had significantly faded if not walked out the door completely," LuPone, 72, says in the video. "But if there's an upside to having to be away from my spiritual home for so long, it was that it made me realize just how much theater means to me. For those of us who love it, there's no substitute. And without an audience there's no show."

For the next part of the video, the two-time Tony Award winner belts a few notes of "Broadway" from her hit show "Gypsy." "So I speak on behalf of our entire community when I say, welcome back to 'Broadway, Broadway/We miss it so/We're leaving soon and taking June/To star her in a show."

LuPone concludes by telling fans: "We miss you. Welcome back to Broadway. And when we're together again, it'll be one helluva show."