No nonsense; tell it like it is; Diva, with a capital ‘D’. Just a few of the epithets you hear regularly bandied about when conversations turn to Patti LuPone, one of Broadway’s genuine legends and an ornament to a profession she’s dominated for many years now. For a woman who apparently needed an urgent hip replacement late last year, the two-time Tony Award-winner doesn’t appear to be taking it any easier. Right now, she’s preparing for an Australia-wide tour of her acclaimed one-woman show, Don’t Monkey With Broadway. Yes, the show’s title throws out a challenge, and LuPone – a woman with attitude, in the best sense of the word – is concerned for what the Great White Way has become in these commercially-driven $300-a-ticket times. But it’s also a chance to take a stroll down memory lane as a real authentic takes a long, hard look at the highs, the lows, and the ones that got away over the course of a career that is now sailing comfortably into its fifth decade.

Patti LuponePatti Lupone performing Woulda , Coulda, Shoulda. Photo © Rahav iggy Segev 

“I’m also a flop – right now...