Patti LuPone Returning to 'Company' After Missing Performances Due to Non-COVID-Related Illness

Patti LuPone Returning to 'Company' After Missing Performances Due to Non-COVID-Related Illness The actress will return for Saturday evening's performance of Broadway's Company, PEOPLE

confirms

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December 4, 2021 02:40PM EST Patti LuPone.Credit : Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Patti LuPone is back on the Great White Way after a brief hiatus.

PEOPLE confirms that the two-time Tony Award-winning actress, 72, will return for Saturday evening's performance of Broadway's Company.

Deadline previously reported that the actress would miss this weekend's performances due to a non-COVID-related illness.

The outlet also noted that the Broadway vet previously missed performances on Thursday and Friday evenings. Chris Harper, a producer on the show, tells PEOPLE that LuPone did not perform

during the matinee on Saturday afternoon.

Broadway's Biggest Stars Remember Stephen Sondheim: 'Who Now Will Make Me Better?' Asks Patti LuPone Opening night for the revival of the Stephen Sondheim and George Furth musical is still

set for Thursday, Dec. 9.

Company's revival on Broadway comes about shortly after creator Sondheim died late last month. He was 91.

From L to R: Etai Benson, Patti LuPone, Katrina Lenk, Matt Doyle, Christopher Sieber and Terence Archie in Company.Bruce Glikas/Getty LuPone previously told PEOPLE that she lost a friend

when the world lost Sondheim. "I've sung seven Sondheim roles," she said. "He was a taskmaster, and his notes could be delivered harshly, but his approval was the ultimate affirmation of

legitimacy in interpreting his work, which is peerless."

"There were times when I had to swallow my pride, harness my ego, endeavor to hear the note and apply it," LuPone continued. "He came backstage after one performance where he had given me an

admonishing note the evening before. 'Night and day,' he said. The highest compliment."

Stephen Sondheim, Legend of Musical Theater on Broadway, Dead at 91 "We both live in a small county in Connecticut, and we were sometimes in the same social situations. One summer night Mia

Farrow gave a Full Moon party, and I tipsily invited Steve to go for a paddle boat ride on her lake. Shocked that he accepted, I became so nervous that my conversation would bore or annoy

him, but I found, impossibly, that we communicated in a way that made me understand we could have a sweet connection independent of our work together," she added. "We paddled the lake, or we

sat floating in silence and we both saw the moon chattering away. At least that's how we described it. It was so lovely to see Steve in these moments. Away from work."

"But being in a rehearsal room with Steve, trying to achieve the complexities that he was striving for in his lyrics and music was a Master Class in technique, focus, discipline, accuracy.

One must stand taller," LuPone concluded. "I've lost a friend, but I've lost a great teacher as well. Who now will make me better?"

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