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Why is Scott Rudin coming back to Broadway? | The history of the cancelled producer and his comeback
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Christian Dropo
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Mickey Jo
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Acast.com well, as the ancient proverb goes, throw a baked potato at my head because I'm done. Somehow. Scott Rudin returned. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you are listening on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am a content creator here on social media as well as a professional theatre critic. Usually I review the shows that I get to see around the world, but sometimes I also share my own opinions about theatrical news happening globally, happening in the West End and on Broadway. And today is one of those days because we are going to be talking about the return of the once cancelled and since now apparently entirely self actualized producer Scott Rudin, who once threw a stapler at somebody's head in a fit of rage and is now producing a Broadway play starring Laurie Metcalfe at the booth. Now the reason that this conversation is bubbling up right now and that people, some people are talking about this is because the details of that play have just emerged and it's all definitely happening. But it's not necessari a huge surprise because earlier this year a piece was published suggesting that Scott Rudin may be looking to perpetrate a Broadway return with a couple of particular creatives, a couple of particular actors alongside him. That is one of many articles that we're going to be taking a look through as we recap the story of what exactly happened to Scott Rudin with his cancellation a few years ago and then the whole post cancellation era that we are now just beginning to live through. If you're one for conspiracy theories, I heard briefly and anecdotally that some people have suggested he might have been in a silent and secretive capacity, involved in a couple of shows between his last public Broadway project and now. But in any case, he is gearing up for a very public return and there is an awful lot to say about this. Of course everything that I am going to say herein is pulled from various different pieces as well as a handful of my own opinions from afar. I have no personal experience with Scott Rudin, can you imagine? But I also think that hopefully the conversation that we might find our way towards by the end of this will be one about the entire industry and you know, the certain climate of the industry of which this behavior is indicative that you know, could stand to shift and ideas and problems that are bigger than one individual and their cancellation and return. Of course I anticipate lots of strong opinions about this in the comments section down below. When we engage with topics like this, with stories like this, you have to remember that everyone we are talking about here is an individual human being and that as you engage with each other in the comment sections, you are also human beings as well. And we should all be respectful of each other's opinions. Let's talk about the story so far. So Scott Rudin is a stage and screen producer. He has won 17 Tony Awards on Broadway. He is a 66 year old man and he is one of 21 people who has an EGOT, an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and and a Tony. He stepped back from public work in 2021, following the publication of multiple allegations in the Hollywood Reporter, which we're going to talk about a little more of his background. First we're going to focus on the Broadway shows he was a producer on. The Lehman Trilogy, the Book of Mormon, To Kill a Mockingbird, the short lived production of who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf that was set to open in March 2020, of course was preempted and ultimately cancelled by Covid. Not the worst thing to happen to Scott Rudin's career in the months that. But pivotally that was set to star Laurie Metcalfe. I mean, in fact, it briefly did alongside, I believe, Rupert Everett. He was also a producer on the similarly abrupt west side Story revival directed by Ivo Van Hove, as well as the Inheritance, many prolific plays. The Ferryman, the Boys in the Band, the Iceman Cometh, the revival of Carousel in 2018, hello Dolly was one of his biggest successes as well as a couple of high profile play revivals. The Audience Skylight, lots of transfers from the West End in here. Interestingly enough, the curiousness of the Dog in the Nighttime being another. Also Jerusalem and One Man, Two Governors, who was a producer on the last major revival of Gypsy on Broadway, the one in 2008 starring Patti LuPone. Not going to be the last time that her name gets mentioned in this video. The 96 revival of a Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum starring Nathan Lane. That's going to become relevant as well. Hold that in your mind. The original Broadway production of Passion. That is his first credit on Broadway as a producer. He is credited for casting on Working and Stages in the late 1970s, as well as being a production assistant in 1974 on Equus. All of which is illustrative of a very successful theatrical career. And like I said, that's alongside all of his major screen work. And that serves to advance an individual to a very high successful position within the industry. And it affords them a tremendous amount of power within the industry. What they then choose to do with that power is up to them. Which brings us, I think, fairly neatly to the article that changed the entire trajectory of this man's career and life. Now, what's interesting is that this was sort of only explosive because it was finally written down down and the actual details were put into harsh black and white text. But the nature of Scott Rudin's personality and his presence within the industry had apparently been an open secret that was well known about for years. And how could it not be with the number of different people who have come forward who have worked for him. There was no keeping this kind of behavior under wraps. And there are other individuals in other industries that are sort of known for being similarly difficult to work with, perhaps even tyrannical, perhaps even aggress. April 7, 2021 Tatiana Siegel began with the headline everyone just knows he's an absolute monster. That's in quotation marks. Scott Rudin's ex Staffers speak out on abusive behavior and we start with an anecdote of one particular example of that behaviour. A brisk Halloween Day in 2012 at about 4:15pm More than 10 hours into a typical Rudin Day that began at 6 and never wrapped before 8, which is frankly already violent enough. The Oscar winning producer was enraged that one of his assistants fails to get him a seat on a sold out flight. Fit of fury, he allegedly smashed an Apple computer monitor on the assistant's hand. The screen shattered, leaving the young man bleeding and in need of immediate medical attention. This is not just problematic behavior. This is in fact violent, physically abusive and very possibly criminal behavior. The wounded assistant headed to the emergency room and Rudin called his lawyer. According to another staffer, there was a that Halloween afternoon, everyone else huddled in the conference room, shaken. Later in the article, Siegel goes on to say, for some four decades, Rudin's abusive behavior has been chronicled, even celebrated by the Press. In a 2010 profile, this publication dubbed him the most feared man in town and called him dazzlingly charming. One paragraph after describing acts of cruelty and intimidation in a 2005 Wall Street Journal profile with the headline Boss Zilla, Rudin himself pegged the number of assistants he burned through in the previous five years at 119. But in October 2017, Harvey Weinstein was toppled from power following twin investigative reports in the New York Times and the New Yorker detailing his sexual predation, ushering in the industry's MeToo era. That reckoning has expanded in scope to include toxic behavior, encompassing everything from racism to milder microaggressions. Still, there has been no reckoning for Rudin, 62, one of the industry's most decorated producer whose films have earned 151 Oscar nominations and 23 wins. He's even more successful on the theatre front, having nabbed 17 individual to awards, yada yada yada. During a single week that year, the drama earned more than $1.5 million at the box office. How times have changed. Breaking 118 year old record in the process. Don't get comfortable to Kill a mockingbird back in 2018 because everything's about to get crazy as far as prices for plays are concerned. And hey, Maybe that's why Mr. Riorden is so desperate to return to Broadway. Maybe he wants to recapture that title for himself and, you know, take back the record for the highest grossing play. Or maybe he's just caught wind of how much money you can make, right? How quickly some of these productions can recoup because you now get to charge hundreds upon hundreds of dollars per ticket. Now this piece is extensive and critically, it shares in explicit detail some of the violent behavior that Scott Rudin had become known for. He threw a laptop at the window in the conference room and then went into the kitchen and we could hear him beating on the napkin dispenser. Think of the napkin dispensers, people. Then another time he threw a glass bowl at a colleague. It's hard to say if he threw it in the general direction or specifically at the colleague, but the glass bowl hit the wall and smashed every the HR person left in an ambulance due to a panic attack. That was the environment. I shouldn't laugh. I do feel badly for that HR person. But that is a comedy sentence that writes itself. And one really telling line here shares that rude and tantrums have been well documented going back four decades and are said to have at least partly inspired the 1994 assistant revenge fantasy film Swimming With Sharks. It's later in this article that the story will be shared about Scott Rudin throwing a potato at somebody's head. I think the stapler incident is also in here as well and just a lot really embellishing around the climate of fear and hostility which Scott Rudin is said to have brought with him into the working environment. Now, in the wake of this article being published, there was a substantial backlash and there was also later that month a march on Broadway in which many people called for Scott Rudin to be removed from the Broadway League. He subsequently was. That wasn't the only issue that they were demonstrating around at the time. There was also a call to diversify representation on Broadway and offer more recognition for trans and non binary individuals and marginalized groups. Essentially, at the time of the pandemic era Broadway theatrical shutdown, there was an eagerness to build Broadway back better and that if Broadway was going to reopen, it should take this opportunity to reevaluate, you know, what Broadway ought to represent and what it ought to be and whether the ethos of the whole thing could be improved. Which made it a fantastic time to look back on decades of well documented and talked about violent abuse and terrible behavior from one of Broadway's biggest producers and agree that that was no longer acceptable. So Mr. Rudin was ousted from the industry with no indication as to what he was going to go on to do next. Well, we now have a little bit of an answer to that question because he has now given interviews about his return and shared some insights into what happened during that time. But before that, here is the piece that first shared the news that Scott Rudin was on the way back, which is interesting actually, because it sort of feels like the journalism equivalent of the stressed phone conversations in which colleagues warn each other that Mr. Rudin was on his way, allegedly. So. This was in the New York times in late March 2025, just under four years after he had left the industry amidst all of this backlash. And the title is thus Scott Rudin, Producer Exiled for Bad Behavior, Plans Return to Broadway. Rudin stepped away from show business four years ago amid reports that he had bullied assistants. He says he has a lot more self control now. The piece from Michael Paulson shares that Mr. Rudin has experienced what he calls a decent amount of therapy, apologized to many people and had a period of reading and reflection, holed up on Long island, which admittedly is a considerably nicer environment in which to spend your time than, you know, prison. And after this, Rudin said that he had decided that he wanted to make theater again. He is at peace, he said, with the reality that not everyone is likely to welcome him back. He called his previous behavior, particularly towards subordinates, boneheaded and narcissistic. He acknowledged that he had long yelled at his assistance, yes, of course. And that he had, on occasion, thrown things at people. He says very, very rarely. And not to question the contrition on display here, but I'm not sure that the adjectives boneheaded and narcissistic are really strong enough to describe the behavior that was noted in those allegations. But Rudin said he was confident that from now on he would be able to maintain his exacting standards without terrorizing others. I have a lot more self control than I had four years ago, he said. I learned I don't matter that much, and I think that's very healthy. And just like anyone who has realized that they don't matter that much, he wants to return to being a Broadway producer. Dear if you really don't think that you matter that much, go work as a stagehand. Go work as an assistant stage manager. Go work among the security team outside of the St. James Theatre for Sunset Boulevard. Rudin, 66 agreed to discuss his ambitious plans in response to requests to talk about indications that he was planning to return to producer. The result was his first detailed interview about his downfall, his time away from Broadway and his hopes to mount a comeback. His return is likely to be controversial, you think, given that reports of the ways in which he berated and mistreated assistants helped lead to a reconsideration of workplace culture in theatre. And he says, it wasn't that I felt passionately like anyone had missed me or that I had missed it, but I felt like I wasn't done and that if I still had more work I was able to make, that I should make it, that I had an obligation to something that I really care about, which is the theatre. Only men in powerful positions, only wealthy white men and, you know, wealthy white men in Western countries will feel so centered in their own existence to be like, I'm, I'm not done. The theatre needs me. I owe it to the art form to continue making work. How you could look at Broadway over the last few years and be like, something's missing here and it is me, it is I, Scott Rudin is beyond me. Look at the quality of this year's Tony Award nominated plays and musicals, especially the new ones, and, you know, still say to yourself like this, this needs me. This is a crisis. All of this success, all of this artistic brilliance, all of, you know, all of these people not throwing pieces of office stationery at each other's faces. This can't go on. I must make the long, long journey back to midtown Manhattan from Long Island. The Broadway League at the time declined to comment on his planned return, as did several people who reported having bad experiences with rudin. Al Vincent Jr. The executive director of Actors Equity association, the union representing actors and stage managers, noted that union contracts hold employers responsible for ensuring a workplace free of bullying, discrimination and harassment. And if I may say, they've been doing a great job of that for some time now. But it's worth pointing out that the union has taken steps to limit the use of non disclosure agreements so they can't shield abusive employers, which, you know, is only so useful when all of this behavior was talked about, was turned into a feature film and it still didn't do anything to address the problematic behavior or shift the power balance. Now I will move on to where we are now. But he does speak a little about what happened in 2021. He says it was in some basic way inevitable. Very little was said that hadn't been said many times. So I Always frankly felt that once the culture started to change one day it was going to change. For me, the possibility that he might have changed alongside that obviously was alien. And I think that is a really telling thing to say. And I don't know. And I want to believe that people can change and I want to give people the benefit of the doubt and respect, the work and the rehabilitation. But to reflect on the time and say, well, me getting cancelled was always going to happen because, you know, the culture was always going to change at some point and my behavior was going to eventually be dead seemed too unacceptable to reflect on that and not in that sentence and in all of these sentences and at every turn throughout this interview, you know, lead with contrition and regret and remorse and express how, like, he missed the opportunity to change if he was aware, if he was perceiving an inevitable shift in the culture, but not saying, and obviously I should have seen, like, I should have seen that that was the opportunity to fix my behaviour. The fact that he was like, well, I'm keep being a tyrant and at some point I'm going to get pushed out of the industry because it's not going to be okay. Rather than saying, like, at some point I'm going to have to change my behavior. The fact that that was always going to be the issue. I just think. I'm not sure I'm explaining it well, but that seems abominable to me. He declined to enumerate his misdeeds, saying, I'm not attempting to create a menu of miscreant behavior. He added, a lot of what was said was true, some of what was said wasn't true, but I didn't feel there was any point in responding to all of it because what's the point of passing bad behavior it bad behavior, I own it. And yet you don't. Because if you owned it, then you could own it specifically and you could own it without having to curtail it, without this little PR maneuver in which you say some was true, some wasn't true. And so you don't own any single element of it because you're letting it all fall under the veil of, well, maybe that's one of the things that wasn't true. So I'm not acknowledging or accepting any of the things that were said about me. I'm saying that, you know, know some were true without having to face up to the harsh reality of the things that were explicitly said, of the terrible things that were explicitly said. And finally reflecting on that behavior, he says, I don't Think I was ever really in the dark about why I was rough on people. I knew why I was rough on people, and that's one way of putting it. For a long time, it seemed like a price I could live with. I wasn't really thinking about what price other people could live with, because producing at that level of volume that I was requires a level of narcissism. If you don't inherently believe you're doing better than other people, why are you doing it? There are better ways to make a living. This is horrible. This is an absolutely horrible reflection. This after the time that he spent away. This, after all of this. I. Oh, I was. You know what? I was sitting down here to make this today, and I was gonna try and find some sense of balance, but it's making it really difficult because there is no sense of. I mean, he's acknowledging the principle of empathy here. That's what's happening. And he's saying, you know, I wasn't thinking about the price that other people were paying for my behavior, for bullying them, for firing them, for screaming at them, for silencing them, for throwing things at them, for drawing blood from the hands of the people that worked for me in this culture of intimidation, harassment, and fear. And he says that's a price that he could live with, and he puts it down to narcissism. And I think there's a real false equivalency here where he is equating narcissism with violence and with aggression. I think there are plenty of narcissistic producers. I think there are plenty of producers who may be difficult to work for. And, you know, I've heard things anecdotally about a whole handful of them. I've heard other people being invoked in sentences alongside Score Rudin, like, oh, imagine having. Having worked for Scott Rudin and ex Other producer. Like, I have heard that said by people who have worked for a very long time in this industry, but I just don't feel like the perspective has shifted enough here. He does go on to say that he had made the profound mistake of believing that anything and anybody who got in the way of what he was trying to do could cause it to fail. But that isn't true. And being away from it for a while made him feel differently about it. And it's just. It's just not good enough. Because regardless, even if it was true. Here's the thing. Even if it was true, even if you can attribute every single error, every single delay, every single challenge brought to you by someone who is working beneath and for you. Even if that is causing tangible problems for the shows that you are working on, even if that was the case case, it's still not a good enough excuse.
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Tara
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Mickey Jo
It still doesn't justify the violent, the aggressive behavior. Nor does it suggest that that's necessarily a good management technique or beneficial for the shows that you are working on. Who's to say that that was to their benefit? And that's kind of what he's saying now as he's realizing that that's not the best way of doing things. But there's still no consideration for the human factor, that these are human beings. And my God, who's going to work for him now? Who's going to take that job? Who's going to take the HR job and all of it. Think of the HR people, really. And there's more of that piece that you can read, but here is the very recent news about the specific play that is going to be the focus of Scott Rudin's Broadway return as a producer. So I actually got the press release for this indicating that, you know, this is a PR company who are happy to work with and for Scott Rudin. So this was shared on Monday 7th July. Little Bear Ridge Road, a new play by Samuel D. Hunter, will premiere on Broadway this fall starring Laurie Metcalfe and Micah Stock, directed by Joe Mantello and this being a press release put together by a top notch PR company, Scott Rudin's name does not appear in any of the bold sections up the top. Instead, in the first paragraph off, it's revealed producers Scott Rudin and Barry Diller, who you may or may not know as the recently out gay husband of Diane von Furstenberg. That's a real sentence with its own backstory and we don't have nearly enough time to go into that one today. Announced today that Little Bear Ridge Road, the new play by Samuel D. Hunter marking his Broadway debut, will premiere on Broadway for a limited 18 week run this fall starring Laurie Metcalfe and Micah Stock reprising their acclaimed performances from the production, smash hit world premiere at the Steppenwolf Theater Company with direction by Joe Mantella, which is a whole collection of names that we may now have to feel a little disappointed in because they are all willingly, it seems, working with Scott Rudin. We have no reason to believe that anyone is doing this under duress or, you know, against their will. And it's difficult for an emerging playwright, a playwright being offered their Broadway debut, to refuse that opportunity. But somebody like Laurie Metcalfe, who has worked extensively on Broadway, you, you'd have to assume is only working for Scott Rudin here because she is choosing to. And like I said, she was attached to a previous Scott Rudin project. She was in that production of who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf that I wish the world could have seen more of back in 2020. I mentioned that he was a producer on A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the forum in the 1990s. In the piece earlier this year, it invoked some of the names that might be working with Scott Rudin on his upcoming projects. Laurie Metcalfe was mentioned then, so was Nathan Lane, so was director Joe Mantelli, who is attached to this now. This is going to the Booth. Performances will be beginning on Tuesday, October 7, ahead of an opening night later that month. That does mean that the current tenant at the Booth, John Proctor is the Villain by Kimberly Bellflower, will be concluding its limited run as currently scheduled. And you have to laugh because this is a play that from the adolescent female perspective, unpacks the MeToo movement and has a lot of powerful and important conversations centering the adolescent perspective. Men in positions of power choose to behave and there is something of a considerable irony that that brilliant play is going to be finishing, not closing earlier than you know it was planning to, but that the next Tenant at the Booth is going to be a Scott Rudin produced play. You just have to laugh at the irony of it all. And I'm a fan of Joe Mantello. I enjoy Joe Mantello's work. I've heard great things about the writer Samuel D. Hunter. I have wanted to see Laurie Metcalfe on stage again for the longest time. I saw her her in the Eugen o' Neill play Long Day's Journey into Night in the West End several years ago and she was phenomenal. I think she's a terrific actress. But I am disappointed, I will tell you that I am disappointed by the almost everyone who is associated with this. You know, it means different things for different people at different stages of their career. And people who have worked with and for Scott Rudin before may feel a sense of obligation and also this whole thing of, like, their experience of him being different because, you know, he's not throwing staplers at his Tony Award nominated stars, at actors, at creatives. He is picking on assistants. He's picking on the bottom of the food chain. But you kind of have to advocate for those people because when you decide to be an actor, to use your star power in a Scott Rudin production, then you are helping to create a Broadway show. You are a huge ingredient in that becoming a thing. And that means there are going to be assistants, there are going to be young early career people on the press team. There are going to be a lot of young members of staff working in this environment who may be the next target of this abuse. And Scott Riordan has suggested that he's now, like, done the work and spent time reading on Long island and therapy and whatever. But it does feel to a certain extent irresponsible to be one of the many people participating in bringing that man back into this industry with, you know, a surprisingly little remorse, I will say. And if I'm disappointed in anybody, it's the Shubert organization for permitting this at the highest level. They have said, yes, Mr. Rudin, you can have this theater. You can do this play. You can put this on a big reminder. I feel that, you know, money talks. And clearly he was able to line up investors. Clearly there are people still willing to throw money at a Scott Rudin production, even after all of this was said. And that, you know, reputation can endure. And these are the kind of things that men can still do years after cancellation. Which is something I want to talk about in just a moment. But I wanted to let you know that as of right now, I don't feel like I can go and see this production. I don't feel as though I can go and review it or talk about it. I have in the past boycotted other productions for dreadful behavior from the people who set to financially gain from those productions. So I do think it would be hypocritical of me to turn around and go and see whatever that Little Bear on the Prairie, whatever this play is called. Little Bear Ridge Road. That's hard to say. And some people may feel as though they can compartmentalize and they can go see it anyway. Some people may be entirely unaware of the implications of going to see the play. And it's not a J.K. rowling situation because you know, Scott Rudin has such considerable wealth. You would have to assume at this point that a. It doesn't really make a difference to him. It's more about the principle of the thing and what you're doing by going to see his big new return to Broadway play. And it's not the case of the money being the thing that empowers him and how he is utilizing the money, money being made from that piece to do bad things. Like it's. It's a slightly different situation. And there may be other people who feel as though as long as apologies have been made and as long as he has taken time to reflect and do the work, then he no longer needs to be crucified ongoingly in the court of public opinion. And that's something I really want to talk about. So let's talk about cancel culture. Now, I don't love the phrase cancel culture. I think it's more important to talk about accountability just because when you start saying cancel culture, people have strong opinions about it and it invokes a whole other thing. Whereas accountability as a concept is something that we can all understand and something that we all know is important in the idea of consequences and facing up to what you've done and saying you're sorry. That's something we're all taught as very small children. Hopefully some of us aren't. And the reality is, is that this just looks different for different people. And it has all to do with power. Because in the grand scheme of things, and in the grand scheme of a decades long career in the entertainment industry, four years to go and just lay low and wait for everything to blow over and then come back having faced relatively little consequences other than just putting your career on pause, is not that huge a punishment to experience. But also, who among us gets to decide what exactly the nature of this punishment should be? And it gets really difficult in the entertainment industry, I fear, because it's such a public facing job. And I think, you know, if someone was unkind, let's separate ourselves from like the physical assault of it all. If someone was unkind, if someone was a bully perhaps in their workplace to one of their colleagues, let's say they're working as a cashier at a supermarket, at one specific supermarket, if they're a bully to their colleague, someone who works beneath them, and this gets found out, and this gets talked about and reported and they find out that it's true, does that person get fired? Perhaps that's the correct consequence. Does this person, as a result of that behavior. Never get to work at another supermarket again. Perhaps because of, you know, references and because of reputations. Perhaps that's another consequence. And they have to find a different kind of work. Does that person. Ben hadn't had a decent night's sleep in a month. So during one of his restless nights, he booked a package trip abroad on Expedia. When he arrived at his beachside hotel, he discovered a miraculous bed slung between two trees and fell into their grave. Best sleep of his life. You were made to be rechargeable. We were made to package flights and hotels and hammocks for less. Expedia, made to travel as a result of this, never get to work in their field of work ever again. Do they have to take a lesser job? What do we mean by a lesser job? What's a lesser job? What's a lesser industry? And that feels a little comparable with some of the conversations that we have sometimes around the cancellation of actors and performers and presenters and, you know, really public facing individuals. I'm reminded, and I think these two allegations are worlds apart, for what it's worth. But I'm reminded of things that were said about Lea Michele's behavior on the set of Glee and people who then never want her to be employed again. And, you know, she's an actress and that's the job that she has and that is her career. But because that job is seen as a privilege, is seen as this exciting opportunity, people think it's a privilege for her to simply be employed and that she shouldn't get that privilege anymore, that she ought never to work again. Because some people, well, multiple people said that she was mean on a set of a TV show that she did. And the nature of those allegations that also spoke about microaggressions is an entirely different conversation that I don't mean to trivialize now. I just think it's interesting because what happens to Scott Rudin here and you know, is getting to be a producer at the top of this theatrical food chain, such an enormous and extraordinary product, privilege and a position of kind of unrivaled power where you're not really answerable to anyone other than yourself, a position that he ought not have the opportunity to return to ever. When something like this happens, does it mean he doesn't get to work on Broadway anymore? He doesn't get to be a producer at all anymore? He doesn't get to work in the theater industry anymore? What is the appropriate consequence here? And I'm not building towards any answer that I think that I Have. I'm genuinely asking, I don't know, know now. I could go on and on and on about this and there is certainly plenty more to say about it. I do want to raise that at the time of filming this, I've had a couple of content creators talking about this and a couple of people have written think pieces about it. It's not really getting reported on with condemnation by any of the major outlets because they can't afford to sour their relationships with Scott Rudin, with major Broadway producers, with everyone else who is linked to this. Like I said, there is a press company that are working on this show. They have been given a theater. And it's just interesting to me that people marched and people chanted less than five years ago to oust this man from his position. And now we're in a time where remarks from Patti LuPone in an interview prompt an open letter with, with hundreds of signatures and where a throwaway Instagram comment from Nicole Scherzinger is still getting talked about months down the line. And these are each incredibly different circumstances. But you know, what those two things have in common that doesn't apply in this instance is that they are actors and also that they are women. And I think the way that we treat them and their behavior and the drama that surrounds their choices and their public statements does start to feel like a little bit of a double standard. And when I think about the people, because I get a lot of comments on theatre news that I share and reviews that I share, when I think about the people who are invoked in comments, people say, well, I would never go and support this person. I would never go and see this production because of this person. It is almost always an actor and it's almost always a woman. People are saying this about Rachel Zegler for no good reason whatsoever. In Evita, people are saying this. Like I said about Lea Michele, I see a lot of these comments about Nicole Scherzinger. That was the whole Patti LuPone of it all. And this is the difficult conversation I feel like we need to have, because I just think that women are deemed by society to be unforgivable. Nothing is ever enough to correct or address or apologize for the transgressions of a woman. But a man can draw blood from his assistants, can do all of this for decades, and people can know about it and it can finally come out and he can spend. Spend a few short years away and then return with relatively little controversy. I mean, it's such a horrific double standard, is it not? And like I said, different situations. But Rudin stuff is worse. It's way worse. And that's also sort of why I'm reluctant to lay much blame at the feet of Laurie Metcalfe here, because I just think that for so many people, if they can find a way to make this a woman's fault, they will. And I want to finish all of this by sharing a small part of a much bigger thought that I've been having for a while now. And I want to talk about the words that are written on my T shirt for podcast listeners. I'm wearing a T shirt that was created for charity for the Theatre Support Fund in the wake of the 2020 theatrical shutdown. My T shirt says the show must go On. And I think this statement is framed and has been framed as the this historic, positive, joyous, celebratory, showbiz attitude thing. And in fact, it has come to represent something deeply toxic. And more to the point, so much bad behavior gets hidden behind the veil of the Show Must Go On. The show Must go on has become the red velvet curtain behind which we put all of the dreadful stuff, stuff that allows the show to go on. And this is even alluded to a little bit in some of those interview comments from Scott Rudin when he talks about his kind of motivator for all this bad behavior being the intensity of his working environment and all of these different huge plays happening simultaneously and having to center himself in this narcissistic sphere of uber personality and entitlement. And it goes back to the show must go on. And the show must go on is contorted to mean whatever I have to do to make the show happen, whoever I have to berate or punish or fire or demean or bully. If that's what it takes to make this show happen, if that's what it takes to get this tiny little cog in the machine that is this Broadway production to keep spinning, then that's what I'm going to do. And the show must go on can't continue to mean that it can't. This is, like I said, a much bigger thesis of an idea idea that I've been thinking about for a while now. And the way that, you know, this and the. The glorification of the theater and entertainment industry and how dazzling and wonderful and what a special opportunity it is distracts from the realities that for so many people it is a job, it is a career, and it requires the same realities and protections and that it is challenging and it comes with problems that need to be addressed. And need to be considered and the show must go on can't make mean what it's meant. The show must go on has to start to mean something different. I think now in the times that we're living in, with the awareness that we now have not to use the word woke and scare people on the Internet who can't handle that. But I think what the show must go on has to come to mean now is that the industry must move forward. The show of it all must go on and it must go on in a better way. That's what people were marching about in 2021. It is now 2025. The living through another Donald Trump presidency. A lot of things are shifting culturally in response to that, but there are certain standards and qualities that need to be upheld and uplifted and maintained when it comes to humanity and decency and safety and protection within the theater industry, an industry that can quickly slip back into the toxic mistakes of its past. And with Scott Rudin perpetrating what is going to a Broadway return that is not going to be limited to one play. It's going to be a whole slew of plays. It's going to be him building back towards the important work that he believes in his 60s he still must do. I think this new definition of how the show must go on is a really important thing for us to try and remember and I hope that that makes sense. It's also everything that I have to say about this for now, I dare say this is going to continue to generate news and it's something we may continue to talk about as the show approaches. Like I said, as of right, I don't see a way in which I can support the production by going to review it. Even if I went and I hated it and I told you as much, you know, I would still be covering it. I would still be part of a transactional relationship with the production that I fear would make me hypocritical because of, you know, what I've said about other shows and boycotting those. But about that and everything else discussed in this video, I would love to hear all of your thoughts thoughts in the comments section. Remembering to engage with politeness and decency and humanity. In any case, I hope that you have enjoyed this Broadway Theatre News update. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen and I hope that everyone is staying safe. Dodge those staplers and I hope that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day.
- [42:13]
Tara
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- [42:50]
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- [43:19]
Mickey Jo
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