Latest news with #Performers
Telegraph
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Evidence of UK anti-Semitism stunned us – this issue is urgent for the whole country
We are hard-nosed politicians. We are not shrinking violets who run around being easily offended and we are used to dealing with the extremes of human emotions and catastrophe through our parliamentary case work in the past. Even with decades of these experiences, we were still stunned into silence by the evidence that we received as independent chairs of the Board of Deputies Commission on Anti-Semitism, particularly from young people in the Jewish community. We spent months hearing evidence from the community, professionals and students about their experiences of anti-Semitism and were alarmed by the combination of the rawness of the impact of people's everyday experiences intertwined with the extraordinary routines and normality within which this is occurring. We are two non-Jews from opposite sides of the political spectrum and we have both come to realise that if our Jewish community is facing discrimination, this is a failure of our society. We must ensure that everyone enjoys the rights and protections that we have worked so hard to develop over many years. What are we meant to say as hardened politicians to a young Jewish female performer who told us that following October 7 venues and promoters, who the artist had worked with for years, no longer wanted to engage with her? Or to students who saw their research staff members coming from an encampment with a megaphone, and disabilities liaison staff members who Jewish student's trust with their health records shouting for an Intifada? We were told about the experience of a Jewish member of a professional body describe that body as taking years to investigate incidents of anti-Semitism, and heavily editing articles about anti-Semitism and the Jewish experience so as not to cause 'offence' to its to broader membership. We heard about the noisy demonstrations and how intimidating people find the current environment, but as we dug deeper what really scared us was the increasing normalisation of far more extreme, personalised and sometimes life changing impact directed at individuals purely and simply because they are Jewish. Worrying dilemmas of where Jewish professionals believed that their professional body was actively discriminating against them but where they required membership from this body to be able to work and acquire the necessary protections. One of our 10 recommendations is that anti-Semitism cannot simply be sidelined as an issue of religious difference, allowing organisations to pretend to themselves that they don't have to deal with the thornier issue of racism directed against individual human beings. This is an urgent issue not just for the Jewish community but for the United Kingdom as a whole. Jews have lived in this country for centuries and they have contributed greatly to our country. Any attempt to marginalise British Jews in our professions, cultural life, public services or any other arena harm us all. We are all harmed if we tolerate the abuse of some of our fellow citizens by those who hold warped or extreme views. All we are trying is achieve is to add value to what others are already doing. Typically with reports, we send a list of recommendations to government and this report certainly will be placed on the table of the Prime Minister and his Ministers and that of every political party leader. But there is a wider responsibility that we are concerned about. All our institutions, public sector and private sector have a responsibility to their Jewish employees, customers, neighbours and partners, to ensure that they are treated with equal respect and are able to get on with their lives with no negatives. Our recommendations are intended to help everybody to step up to the mark and play their small role in ensuring that we can each say to our Jewish friends, whoever they are and wherever they are, that you are not alone in our country. Lord Mann is the Government's independent adviser on anti-Semitism. Dame Penny Mordaunt is the former defence secretary
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
On Tonys night, Broadway divided over Patti LuPone's remarks about Audra McDonald
More than a few years ago now, my mom asked me why the UK's royal family seemed to be all over the news all the time. That's all I see when I turn on my computer, she said. I think that might be because you've been clicking on some stories about Meghan and Harry, I told her, leading to lots more stories about Meghan and Harry. Similarly, I've lately been treated to many variations on basically the same recycled story about the great offstage Broadway drama featuring Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald. Stop, I cry, though if they weren't my Meghan and Harry, I wouldn't keep seeing this stuff. In case they're not your Meghan and Harry, here's the deal: A recent New Yorker profile of LuPone made news, none of it good for her. In the piece, she's quoted saying disparaging things about two Black actresses, her fellow Tony winners Kecia Lewis and McDonald, Broadway's most decorated star. Some 700 Broadway performers signed a petition saying LuPone should be disinvited from Sunday night's Tony Awards for her bullying and racially insensitive remarks. She then profusely apologized, falling on her own knife like Liù in Puccini's 'Turandot,' and various stage actors have been weighing in on whether or not she should be forgiven. Now, Patti LuPone has always been unfiltered, in that one way like the Donald Trump she's said she hates; you do not want to be caught with your cell phone ringing when she's on stage. Only she comes off in this profile as generous and gigantic and human and hurt and self-sabotaging but also finally going too far in letting loose on others, and in general. Is she for real or putting on a show when shouting at New York Rangers, 'Take your clothes off, boys! Naked hockey! No cups — I want full frontal! HA!' She is in let-'em-have-it mode throughout, referring to Glenn Close, the actress who replaced her in 'Sunset Boulevard' 100 years ago as a 'bitch,' and telling the New Yorker writer Michael Schulman more than once that the now Trump-run Kennedy Center 'should get blown up.' Which, hello, is not in any way OK. Serious or not, and people who say these things always insist that they were not, it's wrong to complain about Trump's violent rhetoric and then go around talking like this. So LuPone should also walk those remarks way the heck back. And I do not love to see women tearing down women; are things really not hard enough? Kevin Kline got off easy in the profile; all LuPone said about him is that he was a terrible boyfriend back in the day. Despite all of the many posts I have read about the explosions that followed the publication of the profile, I would never have understood the genesis of the contretemps without the guidance of New York Times theater reporter Michael Paulson. He reported on what happened after LuPone complained last year that noise from the Black-led Alicia Keys musical 'Hell's Kitchen' could be heard in the theater next door, where LuPone and Mia Farrow were performing in 'The Roommate.' LuPone took her gripe to the Shubert Organization, which runs both theaters. So far, perfectly normal, and something that happens all the time. Shubert fixed the problem. But then, Paulson wrote, after LuPone sent flowers to the 'Hell's Kitchen' sound crew, she was videotaped describing the musical as 'loud,' and refusing to sign a 'Hell's Kitchen' playbill. That's when Kecia Lewis, who is in 'Hell's Kitchen,' responded with a video calling LuPone's behavior 'racially microaggressive' by reinforcing stereotypes. McDonald weighed in by posting some supportive emojis on the video. In the New Yorker interview, LuPone said of Lewis, 'Don't call yourself a vet, bitch.' Which was way over the line. She said McDonald was 'not a friend,' and then declared that she needed a nap. Of course she did; setting yourself on fire can be very draining. McDonald wisely said she didn't know about any rift between herself and LuPone. Lewis has wisely not made any public statement. 'For as long as I have worked in the theater,' LuPone said in her own statement, 'I have spoken my mind and never apologized. That is changing today. … From middle school drama clubs to professional stages, theater has always been about lifting each other up and welcoming those who feel they don't belong anywhere else. I made a mistake, I take full responsibility for it, and I am committed to making this right.' Both McDonald and LuPone have given me so much joy, not just over the years but this year, that this is drama I could have done without. McDonald ripped my heart out and then handed it back to me with her 'this-isn't-your-Momma's-Momma-Rose' performance in 'Gypsy.' I spent a lot more than I could afford to be on the front row with our Aunt Mimi Turque, who was cast by composer Jule Styne to play June in an early national touring company of the show. LuPone also showed me a wonderful time recently with her show at the Kauffman Center, where she received five standing ovations, one before she sang a note. It's the only time in my experience — Can you say 'gay icon'? — that there hasn't been a line outside a ladies' room at the Kauffman at intermission, and I went home so energized from her performance, which these days in particular is worth a lot. So what I want to say is that with everything going on in the world that the arts stand squarely against, energy spent on fury at someone who has groveled from here to Argentina is energy wasted. I still love both of you 'Ladies Who Lunch,' the Sondheim anthem to female rage that I've seen both of you crush. I'd like to think that LuPone learned something from this whole episode — though again, those comments about the Kennedy Center still do need clearing up asap. We could all of us, of course, be less eager to pounce and readier to forgive. The many ageist comments about Patti, who is 76, by those Audra fans who aren't ready to let this go, and say they never will be, aren't OK, either. Unfortunately, art doesn't always bring even the relatively like-minded together. As always, that's up to us. UPDATE: I thought McDonald would win her 7th Tony tonight for the same role that LuPone won for in 2008, but no, the award for leading actress in a musical went to Nicole Scherzinger for her Broadway debut in a revival of 'Sunset Boulevard.' Pretty sure LuPone would not have wanted to be at the awards show, since it was Glenn Close who introduced Scherzinger singing, 'It's As If We Never Said Goodbye.' And Oprah Winfrey, who presented the award to Scherzinger, made some interesting faces as she made the show's only veiled reference to the controversy, but she did not mention LuPone by name.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Jonathan Groff Thanks His Parents for His Love of Theater and Broadway
Jonathan Groff chats with THR on the Tony Awards red carpet talks about how his parents encouraged him to follow his passion for theater and helped him get here today. Plus, he reveals how he prepares for eight shows a week.
CNN
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Patti LuPone's drama is dividing the Broadway community ahead of the Tony Awards
Patti LuPone may have apologized for some recent controversial remarks, but that doesn't mean the curtain has dropped on the drama. The actress sparked a major backlash after disparaging comments she made about fellow Broadway stars Kecia Lewis and Audra McDonald in a recent interview with the New Yorker. LuPone referred to Lewis as a 'b**ch' and said McDonald was 'not a friend.' Hundreds of performers from Broadway and other theater communities then wrote a letter in which they characterized LuPone's comments as 'degrading and misogynistic—it is a blatant act of racialized disrespect.' 'It constitutes bullying. It constitutes harassment,' they wrote. 'It is emblematic of the microaggressions and abuse that people in this industry have endured for far too long, too often without consequence.' The group called for LuPone to be disinvited from industry events, including Sunday's Tony Awards. LuPone apologized last weekend on social media, posting a statement in which she said she hoped to be able to speak with the pair to make 'sincere apologies.' 'I am deeply sorry for the words I used during The New Yorker interview, particularly about Kecia Lewis, which were demeaning and disrespectful,' Lupone wrote. 'I regret my flippant and emotional responses during this interview, which were inappropriate, and I am devastated that my behavior has offended others and has run counter to what we hold dear in this community.' The controversy ahead of the Tony Awards has raised interest in the event, sparking conversation about whether LuPone, who has long reigned as Broadway star, will make an appearance. But not everyone feels harshly towards her. Actress Mia Farrow has garned a Tony nomination for the Broadway play 'The Roommate' in which she costars with LuPone. In a recently published interview with Deadline, Farrow talked about her 30-year friendship with the woman she dubbed the 'goddess of Broadway.' 'We live near each other. Always have. Two of our kids were in the same class at school, at the same school, her son and my son, and I met her on New Year's Eve, actually,' Farrow told the publication. 'She and her husband gave a New Year's Eve party, and Steve Sondheim, who was one of my oldest friends, 50 years, he invited me to come to the party at Patti's 30 years ago, and that's how I met Patti.' Farrow, who mentioned the New Yorker interview in her conversation with Deadline without addressing the controversy, said working with her neighbor and friend was a positive experience. 'Patti and I never had a negative moment, by the way,' Farrow said. 'Working together didn't change our friendship. I think our friendship is deeper now.' 'Abbott Elementary' star Sheryl Lee Ralph, who is also a decorated Broadway performer, most notably playing the role of Deena Jones in the original 1981 production of 'Dreamgirls,' weighed in as well. 'Why not be nice?' Ralph said of LuPone. And while Ralph said she was 'not going to judge' LuPone, she did have some words of wisdom for the 'Evita' star. 'It was a moment where maybe you want to zip it,' she said. 'Inner thoughts don't always have to be outer thoughts, that might have been one of those moments.' British weekly conservative magazine writer Ella Whelan penned a piece with the headline, 'Patti LuPone is a diva – not a racist.' 'LuPone is notorious for putting the broad in Broadway – her loud mouth is infamous,' Whelan wrote, noting some of her other outspoken comments. 'Forget white privilege, this is diva privilege – when you're that good an entertainer, you can pretty much say what you want,' Whelan added. The 78th Annual Tony Awards, hosted by 'Wicked' film star and Tony, Grammy and Emmy award-winner Cynthia Erivo, will be broadcast live on Sunday, June 8 at 8 p.m. ET on the CBS Television Network and streaming on Paramount+ in the US.
CTV News
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
The Gladstone theatre unveils lineup for next season
The Gladstone has unveiled the lineup for next season. See what shows are hitting the stage!
