Playwright Terrence McNally (Master Class, Mothers and Sons) and actress Tyne Daly (Mothers and Sons, Gypsy) introduced LuPone.
View photos from the event here.
"I haven't done anything for the community except sing on gay cruises," LuPone joked, before turning serious. She remembered friends she lost to the AIDS crisis, including cast members from Evita and her late musical director Dick Gallagher. "Now, in this new century, we are moving from chaos and death to love and living, and commitment. Now when we hear 'gay,' we don't think right away of death and dying, we think of Marriage Equality and living."
She continued, "What marriage says is, 'I choose you.' That's it. We know. The state knows. Our friends and family know. It's you... Life has a chance of being steady, organized, integrated. To be able to say and have recorded for everyone to see, 'Til death do us part'; it does something. Settles the chaos, gives home a chance..."
The HRC has exclusively shared the video of the special evening with Playbill.com. View LuPone's entire speech below: