{"id":93968,"date":"2025-06-22T20:05:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T03:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=93968"},"modified":"2025-06-22T20:05:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T03:05:00","slug":"a-rose-of-many-colors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2025\/06\/22\/a-rose-of-many-colors\/","title":{"rendered":"A Rose of Many Colors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our <strong><em>Ask Billy<\/em><\/strong> question come from <strong>Linda <\/strong>in Maine: \u201c<em>I remember a while ago you wrote about seeing a production of <\/em><strong>Gypsy <\/strong><em>with a Mama Rose who wasn\u2019t white.&nbsp; But everyone says <strong>Audra <\/strong>is the first.&nbsp; Am I crazy?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>You may be \u2013 I\u2019m no doctor.&nbsp; But you are also correct.&nbsp; Audra is not the first woman of color to play Mama Rose.&nbsp; She is, however, the first to do so on <em>Broadway<\/em>.&nbsp; You\u2019re obviously a longtime reader because <strong>Leslie Uggams <\/strong>played the role at the <em>Connecticut Repertory Theatre <\/em>in 2014.&nbsp; Uggams has also been the lead in <strong><em>Hello, Dolly!<\/em><\/strong>, <strong><em>Anything Goes<\/em><\/strong>, <strong><em>Cabaret<\/em><\/strong>, <strong><em>Mame<\/em><\/strong>, and even <strong><em>Master Class<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 a play also based on a real-life Caucasian woman (<strong>Maria Callas<\/strong>).&nbsp; Should you be curious, footage of Uggams in <em>Gypsy<\/em> can be found on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.BillyMasters.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><u>BillyMasters.com<\/u><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-568\" src=\"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/colorbar1.gif\" alt=\"colorbar1\" width=\"500\" height=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>When the <strong>Big Bad Wolf<\/strong> is staying put in the pokey, it\u2019s definitely time to end yet another column.&nbsp; It\u2019s also a good time to let Tyler Perry know that this writer is not only available, but loves pizza and biscuits!&nbsp; That said, I\u2019m not what one would call discreet, as you\u2019ll see on <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/\">www.BillyMasters.com<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 the site that makes for good bedtime reading!&nbsp; If you have a question for me, send it to <strong><a href=\"mailto:Billy@BillyMasters.com\">Billy@BillyMasters.com<\/a><\/strong> (along with roses of assorted colors) and I promise to get back to you before I give anyone a refund.&nbsp; Until next time, remember, one man\u2019s filth is another man\u2019s bible.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our Ask Billy question come from Linda in Maine: \u201cI remember a while ago you wrote about seeing a production of Gypsy with a Mama Rose who wasn\u2019t white.&nbsp; But everyone says Audra is the first.&nbsp; Am I crazy?\u201d You may be \u2013 I\u2019m no doctor.&nbsp; But you are also correct.&nbsp; Audra is not the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93969,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93968\/revisions\/93969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}