Gypsy [Rose Lee ] was a masterful storyteller, and her memoir and by extension, the musical weren't only Gypsy's monument; they were also her chance for monumental revisionism.

One of the biggest questions to me was whether or not Gypsy the person was capable of loving anyone or anything beyond Gypsy Rose Lee the creation, and even that was a conflicted, tortured relationship.

I greatly admired Gypsy [Rose Lee] for being able to rise above her circumstances; I was terrified of her; I thought she was generous; I thought she was brilliant; I thought she was cruel.

A half-century before Madonna, Gypsy [Rose Lee] understood how to make performance out of desire, how to exploit the very human and eternal instinct to always want most what we'll never have.