Mama Rose is determined to escape from a life of playing bingo and paying rent by pushing the vaudeville career of her younger daughter June. After June elopes with a playboy dancer, she focuses all her attention on her older, less talented daughter, Louise. Eventually, Louise becomes burlesque stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, and Rose suffers a nervous breakdown when she realizes she is no longer needed in her daughter's career. This famous musical score includes such showstoppers as "Let Me Entertain You," "Small World," "You Gotta Have a Gimmick," and the song that launched Ethel Merman's career "Everything's Coming Up Roses."