Twenty-five years in the past, on a heat summer season evening in Los Angeles, Broadway stars Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald closed a present on the Hollywood Bowl with back-to-back encores of “Get Happy”/ “Happy Days Are Here Again.”
As we speak, these glad days seem like over for the 2 Tony Award winners.
In a Could 26 interview with the New Yorker, LuPone ignited a firestorm when she referred to McDonald as “not a friend” and refused to touch upon McDonald’s celebrated efficiency in “Gypsy.” (McDonald is nominated for a 2025 Tony Award within the class greatest actress in a number one function in a musical — its her eleventh nomination.) LuPone additionally referred to Tony winner Kecia Lewis, who, like McDonald, is Black, as a “bitch.”
Talking with Gayle King in a “CBS Mornings” clip, McDonald sounded shocked by LuPone’s feedback. “If there’s a rift between us, I don’t know what it is,” she stated. “That’s something that you’d have to ask Patti about. I haven’t seen her in about 11 years, just because I’ve been busy, just with life and stuff. I don’t know what rift she’s talking about. You’d have to ask her.” (A full interview is about to air this week, in keeping with a “CBS Mornings” Instagram submit.)
Broadway star Audra McDonald arrives on the crimson carpet on the thirtieth Display screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles in 2024.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Occasions)
However that was not with out some stage route.
In an open letter from her colleagues within the theater neighborhood dated Could 30, greater than 500 actors, together with Tony-winning actors Wendell Pierce, James Monroe Iglehart and Maleah Joi Moon, known as LuPone’s language “racialized disrespect,” “bullying” and “harassment.” They requested the American Theatre Wing and Broadway League to discourage those that disparage fellow artists, together with LuPone, from attending business occasions “including the Tony Awards, fundraisers, and public programs.” (The 2025 Tony Awards are scheduled for June 8 in New York, and can air on CBS and stream on Paramount+.)
On Saturday, LuPone responded to the criticism in an announcement on her Instagram account: “I am deeply sorry for the words I used during The New Yorker interview, particularly about Kecia Lewis, which were demeaning and disrespectful. I regret my flippant and emotional responses during this interview, which were inappropriate, and I am devastated that my behavior has offended others …” She went on to write down that she hopes to talk to McDonald and Lewis in individual.
LuPone is well-versed in calling individuals out herself, significantly viewers members who textual content throughout her theater performances. Final yr, she even complained about noise from the Alicia Keys musical “Hell’s Kitchen” when she was performing in “The Roommate” with Mia Farrow subsequent door.
After LuPone requested the theater proprietor to repair the sound as a result of she discovered it to be too loud, Lewis took offense and posted a video on Instagram, describing LuPone’s actions as “bullying,” “racially microaggressive” and “rude and rooted in privilege.” She additionally famous that “calling a Black show loud dismisses it.”
Final yr, Lewis gained a Grammy for greatest musical theater album and a Tony within the class greatest efficiency by an actress in a featured function in a musical for “Hell’s Kitchen.”
Though flippant, LuPone’s phrases solely serve to harm everybody throughout a turbulent time for the humanities in America, the open letter from the theater neighborhood stated. “Our industry is under threat. The arts are being defunded, theater programs are disappearing, and artists are being pushed to the margins. We need each other now more than ever. We need community. We need leadership. And we need accountability.”
Humbled, LuPone agreed.
“I wholeheartedly agree with everything that was written in the open letter shared yesterday,” she wrote. “From middle school drama clubs to professional stages, theatre has always been about lifting each other up and welcoming those who feel they don’t belong anywhere else. I made a mistake, and I take full responsibility for it, and I am committed to making this right. Our entire theater community deserves better.”
