Cat on a Hot Tin Homophobe

[PalJoey]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 2:24pm

WWPD? (What would Patti do?)
THE WRAP: Actor Fired After Tossing Anti-Gay Heckler From ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ Performance (Updated)

[Kad]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 2:32pm

Where were the house staff?

Good on the actor and his castmate who resigned in solidarity.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 2:39pm

What a terrible story.

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 2:47pm

Jeeze, what cluster-thing is this fresh hell? You heckle at a comedy club, not in the ligitimate theater. But I must say about that photo, I'm not sure I'm down with Big Daddy's costume and facial hair. Ditto Brick (I presume) with those blue satin cuffs. All of which is beside the point. It is not the actor's job to police an unruly crowd, and it's unfortunate that Mr. Lacy had to enter the fray.

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 3:01pm

The house staff should have been on that immediately, it's such bu*l**** they fired the actor when they just should have thrown that loser patron out.

[Steve721]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 3:03pm

This is the strangest thing. In more than 40 years of theater going, I've never heard of someone heckling a legitimate play, much less Cat on a Hot Roof. Yet some members of the cast seem to think hecklers just come with the territory. (One wonders where the hell they have been working.)

However, I don't think one of the actors should have directly confronted the heckler. The actors should have just stopped the show and taken a pause while the theater staff (if there was any) removed him.

[finebydesign]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 3:09pm

Scary ****.

[Steve721]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 3:10pm

This also reminds of the much funnier story (told by Elaine Stritch) in which Merman herself broke off in mid song and threw a drunk out of the house . . . .

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 3:15pm

I think this is the most depressing part.

Low added that Troy's character, Brick, is gay, suggesting that the heckler's anti-gay slurs may have been appropriate.

“And, the truth is, Brick is, after all, a gay man,” she wrote. “The material is strong, and it elicits strong responses from an audience, different every night.”

Seriously, wtf?

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 3:20pm

Why is the Maggie doing damage control like this? Maybe it IS one of her guests.

I'd probably never get into a physical altercation with an audience member, but if the front of house is doing nothing, then somebody better put a stop to it.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 3:41pm

Fellow actress Emily E. Low, who plays the female lead, agreed that violence should not have been the answer, adding that part of acting is accepting criticism from the audience.

“As actors we must take the positive audience responses with the negative. It's not always about cheers and standing ovations,” she wrote in the same Facebook thread before deleting the post.

A really bad actress with no brains or integrity would say something like that.

[Joviedamian]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 3:45pm

"The actors who left are better off now; it's not like they were getting paid anyway.."

If the actors were not getting paid, then he was not really fired. He just voluntarily quit.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 3:52pm

Not if it wasn't his decision to leave the show.

[PJPan]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 3:52pm

As someone who has worked front of house, it's ridiculous that the patron was allowed to continue for as long as he did. House management should have escorted him out much sooner - I have had my share of drunk audience members and hecklers and the house will usually be on your side when you have to kick them out.

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 4:11pm

"Fired" is definitely the wrong word. "Removed" is probably better, since he wasn't even being paid. Ridiculous nonetheless.

[brdway411]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 4:14pm

didn't something like this happen last year????

[AC126748]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 4:16pm

In situations like this, you don't know how you're going to react until it happens. That said, whatever constituted the front house staff here should have done something. It is their job, after all.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 4:56pm

I believe the actress acknowledges that the heckler did indeed come at her invitation. She disavows the rumor that it was her boyfriend.

Her comment about Brick being gay "after all" so strong responses are to be expected is maybe the stupidest things ever uttered by an actor ever.

[karen24]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 4:58pm

I wonder, based on what tobiasragg has said, if there really was any "front of house" staff to speak of, or if maybe it was (as is the case at many community theaters)just volunteer older ladies & gentlemen (the ladies carrying their purses with them, which always throws me off because I think they're part of the audience), who are in no way equipped to deal with a loud and possibly violent heckler. I can just see them all cowering in the back wondering what to do.

That said, I think that had I been the actors, I would have stopped the performance, signaled for the curtain to go down, then had someone come out and speak to the audience and the (hopefully present) staff, explaining that the play could not continue until the disturbance was taken care of. But I'm saying all this now - who knows if anyone was able to think that clearly at the time. I am sorry that the actors lost their jobs/felt they had to resign; even if they were being paid little or nothing, a job is a job and something that can go on the resume.

[cknick]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 5:32pm

YES, Phyllis Rogers Stone!! I flipped at that part...I also don't think Brick is gay, but that's another discussion.

Updated On: 6/3/14 at 05:32 PM

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 8:53pm

i've seen heckling and drunken hooting in broadway theatres. i've seen audience members falling down drunk at broadway plays stumble back to the bar at intermission and down even more booze and spend a second act even more obnoxious. it happens. it's live theatre.

in a small house it's difficult to manage. from the article on playbill it's pretty clear the producers were well aware how loaded this audience was and how obnoxious. that nothing was done at intermission is indicative of how they value their show.

good for big daddy. i hope someone offers him a better job as a result.

[rjm516]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 9:58pm

OH man so many serious idiots involved in this, and none the person who was punished.

[MauriceMullins]

Posted: 6/4/14 at 1:29am

Miss Low (or are we to use her stage name Jolee Blon?)says she must accept criticisms along with the ovations? I don't know how many ovations she has gotten but since when is a hate heckling a criticism? Is she for real? So if we happen to see her in a show we can just yell out at her if the mood strikes us? But we can't really take her seriously because after seeing her facebook I realize that she must be from a new Christopher Durang play. She is (or rather was) playing Maggie the Cat as played by Marilyn Monroe. That had to be worth a boat load of laughs. Someone might want to tell her that developing her own persona might be more beneficial to channeling Marilyn unless she is auditioning for Bus Stop, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Sugar or maybe Playboy.

[Joviedamian]

Posted: 6/4/14 at 2:21am

I would hate to read in a few days or weeks that was all stage for publicity! It seems most stuff like this is for attention. And they got it!

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/4/14 at 3:23am

Nah, Anton Troy/Brick seems pretty legit in his comments on FB. (Of course he also seemedhappy that The Advocate's coverage of the story had a picture of him shirtless in the play that got many complements on his abs.)

And man that Cat poster is so wrong...