Everything's Coming Up Roses at Broadway's Majestic: A Painting for a Gypsy Debut

Everything's coming up roses... at least it was earlier this summer when I had the honor of painting the Majestic Theatre in New York City. The illustration was commissioned as a birthday gift for an actor making his Broadway debut in Gypsy—alongside the legendary Audra McDonald, no less. It came as a rush order from another actor you might recognize from TV, who wanted something truly special for a July 4th birthday. The marquee even got a cheeky twist: instead of the famous Gypsy line “Here she is, Broadway,” it proudly declared, “Here he is, Broadway. Here he is!”

The recipient also happens to be a fellow University of Michigan grad (Go Blue!), which made it even more fun to paint. And in a full-circle surprise, I later learned the Majestic was where my late grandparents had their first date—my grandfather even worked for the Shubert Organization, which still owns the theater today.

Architecturally, the Majestic is a beauty—gold ornamentation, Spanish-style flourishes and the kind of glowing signage that demands the attention of Times Square. To capture it in an 8×10 size, I used a variety of mixed media: watercolor, colored pencil textures for the brickwork, acrylic paint marker and gouache for the lit-up signs. It’s a little bit of everything—just like Broadway itself.

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