Judie Sapperstein brings out the gypsy in me.
But I am not alone.
She seems to have that magical theatrical stardust effect on actors, producers, directors and audiences — anyone in the aural space of her aura of spirited excitement spackled and sprinkled with expertise. It is all a let-me-entertain-you yearlong Yuletide greeting that salutes any and all working at or attending shows delivered by her Doylestown-based Gypsy Stage Company.
Indeed, the indefatigable, industrious entrepreneur is a stagecoach on a smooth and riveting ride: The dickens you say? The Dickens she does: Iconic comic and Emmy Award winner Grover Silcox, a favorite fixture with Gypsy Stage, is conjuring up “The Other Side of Dickens’ Ghosts…The Ones You Never Knew,” through Dec. 17 at McCoole’s Arts and Events Place, a quiet riot of a cool residency for the troupe in Quakertown. And that fun facility is owned by Jan Hench, who also runs the Red Lion Inn, part of the party-like complex.
While Silcox deals with shadowy silhouettes on stage at McCoole’s, they’re making laughs magically appear and angst go poof at another Gypsy Stage outlet: the Smoke & Mirrors Magic Theater in Lower Moreland, where sassy sorcerers serve up slices of life that go beyond the seesaw staple of sawing volunteers in half.
Yet another partner in the proliferating parade of Gypsy gems often sweeps onlookers off their feet: The Bucks County School of the Performing Arts steps into the footlights with a corps of youthful Doylestown artists dancing their way into the hearts of audiences.
Sapperstein triumphs with a triptych of topical artistry, often with headliners of homegrown roots.
The company is named after the musical “Gypsy,” in which Sapperstein starred as Mama Rose, the mother of all stage mothers, in 1981 at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside.
Indeed, she was the legendary movie house-cum-theater’s executive director from 1980 to 1982, and was also ...
“No, that’s not right.”
And just like Mama Rose interrupting Dainty June’s rehearsal in the musical’s first scene, Sapperstein snaps me to attention.
“It had nothing to do with the show. I named it ‘Gypsy’ after the lifestyle of actors,” the carefree nomadic nonlinear paths so many take to make a living in the business.
I stand corrected while cracking a smile: This whirlwind of a woman doesn’t “gotta have a gimmick.” She got my attention being the real deal.
And here’s the line on Sapperstein, who truly knows the art of the deal: A Northeast Philly native who later moved to Doylestown, then Buckingham, she broke away from being a commercial real estate broker when she found a pitch-perfect business partner in Gary Murway, a music man with incredible industry credentials, and they formed J&G Unlimited to showcase the musicals they had been writing together for years. That was in 2007, some 20 years after they realized they could become a sensational song-and-dance duo — with others doing the songs and the dancing on stage, and Murway and Sapperstein supplying the original musicals they had written. (Sapperstein’s musical training: She had studied at the local Russ Faith School of Music for a number of years in the 1980s.)
“The first musical Gary and I did was ‘By George,’ about George Gershwin,” and it wasn’t as much a jukebox musical as a jukejazz hit.
And the hits kept coming.
“The shows just kept pouring out of the two of us,” she notes with pride.”
Pouring over their catalog of 17 shows — all available for licensing through yet another of the duo’s business branches, TLC — the eclectic collection echoes the team’s topnotch talents. But staging their own works is only one part of their show business: “It’s all about bringing it home,” says Sapperstein of providing Bucks venues for their vast repertoire of offerings.
“I’m a good cook,” she says, and she knows how to stir the pot of possibilities on stage. “I go looking for talented people to take part in our shows; it’s like building a recipe.”
And with the amuse-bouche comes the taste of amusement — and amity — at how this wonder woman has built an impressive empire bucking the bigger boys — and girls — in Bucks.
“Sometimes,” she says with a sense of success, “my company members refer to me as Mama Rose; I’m all-embracing. That’s my way. I love my people.”
Sapperstein is evolving and expanding into a major player. And she is her best self-advertisement: “If people have talent, they should contact me. And I’m looking for more tech people.”
Is that Broadway beckoning? She sighs while sizing up that challenge. “I just don’t have the kishkas (gumption) for that anymore.”
“We have found our niche.”
Nice niche if you can get it. It takes quite an effort to push her off the stage, she laughs.
And then she stops, the sudden silence an eerie bridge to the booming cyclone to come. “You know, I am Mama Rose after all,” and she lets out a lingering laugh, stripped of seriousness, rollicking in a wonderful self-awareness. “Oh, God! I really am!”
Michael Elkin is a playwright, theater critic and novelist who lives in Abington. He writes columns about theater and the arts.
For information, go to https://GypsyStageCompany.com.
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