Patti LuPone receives scathing open letter for ‘degrading’ feedback about Kecia Lewis and Audra McDonald
Greater than 600 members of the Broadway group condemned Patti LuPone in an open letter Friday after the three-time Tony winner made controversial feedback about fellow stars Kecia Lewis and Audra McDonald.
The letter, addressed to The American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League, is available in response to a profile printed in The New Yorker this week during which LuPone referred to as Lewis a “b—-” and McDonald “not a good friend.”
“This language is just not solely degrading and misogynistic — it’s a blatant act of racialized disrespect. It constitutes bullying. It constitutes harassment,” the letter says.
Theater publication Playbill reported signatories to the letter embrace Tony winners James Monroe Iglehart, Maleah Joi Moon and Wendell Pierce.
Lewis at present stars in “Hell’s Kitchen” on Broadway, for which she gained a 2024 Tony Award. McDonald gained the 2014 Tony Award for greatest actress in a play (her sixth) and is the primary performer to win the award in all efficiency classes. She is nominated for the eleventh time this yr for her lead efficiency within the musical “Gypsy.”
As of Saturday, the letter had garnered 682 signatures, in keeping with a doc that enables individuals to request the addition of their names.
“People, together with Patti Lupone, who use their platform to publicly demean, harass, or disparage fellow artists — significantly with racial, gendered, or in any other case violent language — shouldn’t be welcomed at trade occasions, together with the Tony Awards, fundraisers, and public applications,” the letter stated.
The American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League — which current the Tony Awards, set to be held on June 8 — didn’t instantly reply to NBC Information’ requests for remark. LuPone additionally didn’t instantly reply.
Within the New Yorker interview, LuPone was requested a few controversy that circulated throughout her time co-starring in “The Roommate” with Mia Farrow final fall. The play, which has since closed, shared a wall with the Tony-winning musical “Hell’s Kitchen,” that includes Lewis.
LuPone reportedly requested for the sound design of “Hell’s Kitchen” to be adjusted as a result of the music would bleed by means of the shared partitions, and despatched the sound and stage administration workforce flowers and a thank-you notice as soon as it was mounted.
Lewis posted a video on Instagram in November in response, calling LuPone’s actions “racially microaggressive” and “rooted in privilege.”
Producers of “The Roommate” posted a press release the next day thanking the “Hell’s Kitchen” workers for the repair, saying, “These sorts of sound lodging from one present to a different usually are not uncommon and are all the time deeply appreciated.”
LuPone stated of the back-and-forth in The New Yorker interview: “Let’s learn the way many Broadway reveals Kecia Lewis has carried out, as a result of she doesn’t know what the f— she’s speaking about. … She’s carried out seven. I’ve carried out thirty-one. Don’t name your self a vet, b—-.”
The New Yorker famous that Lewis has really carried out 10 reveals and LuPone 28.
Michael Schulman, the interviewer, talked about to LuPone that McDonald — who holds the document because the Broadway performer with essentially the most Tony Awards and nominations — gave the video “supportive emojis.”
The 76-year-old actor responded: “And I believed, ‘It is best to know higher.’ That’s typical of Audra. She’s not a good friend.”
McDonald was requested about LuPone’s feedback in a “CBS Mornings” interview with Gayle King to debate her newest Tony-nominated function as Mama Rose in “Gypsy.”
“If there’s a rift between us, I don’t know what it’s,” McDonald stated in a clip CBS shared on social media forward of the complete interview, which airs subsequent week. “That’s one thing that you just’d need to ask Patti about.”
The open letter stated LuPone’s try and “discredit” McDonald’s legacy was not solely a private offense, however “a public affront to the values of collaboration, fairness, and mutual respect that our theater group claims to uphold.”