While some have been acting like the pandemic is over, it isn’t. Cases are again on the rise. New variants are still cropping up. Prominent figures, such as Stephen Colbert, are still catching it. So when Broadway legend Patti LuPone blew up on a theatergoer for not properly wearing a mask, she got cheers, not jeers.
without further ado… ms. patti lupone pic.twitter.com/rEBB7nfXQ2
— hen (@themascsinger) May 11, 2022
The multi-Tony winner was taking part in a post-show Q&A session following the latest revival of Company, the game-changing musical by the recently late Stephen Sondheim (and recipient of a top shelf parody on Documentary Now!). While New York City has gone lax about mask and vaccine mandates, both are still required to see Broadway shows. So when LuPone spotted someone in the orchestra section being sloppy about mask-wearing, she let them have it.
“Put your mask on over your nose, that is the rule,” LuPone declared, in a video that went viral. “That’s why you are in the theater, that is the rule. If you don’t want to follow the rule, get the f*ck out!”
After LuPone — who was just nominated for a Tony for her work in the show, where she does a predictably stirring rendition of “Ladies Who Lunch” — reamed out the violator or violators, she earned a round of applause. Perhaps that inspired her to keep going, shouting, “I’m serious. Who do you think you are, if you do not respect the people that are sitting around you?”
A woman in the audience, likely the offending party, then had the nerve to tell Patti LuPone, “I pay your salary.” Patti LuPone did not like that either.
“You pay my salary? Bulls*it. Chris Harper pays my salary,” she said referring to the production’s producer.” “Who do you think you are? Just put your mask over your nose.”
LuPone has a history of not putting up with theatergoers’ nonsense. In 2009, during a production of Gypsy, she stopped the show dead in its tracks when she noticed people were taking pictures — a Broadway no-no. Six years later, she made headlines for snatching a phone out of a patron who was texting during the show. You can listen to a recording of the former incident in the video below.
In any case, if you somehow have the stones to talk back to Patti LuPone, you get what’s comin’ to ya.
(Via Variety)