Laura Osnes Didn’t Get the Covid Shot. It Ended Her Broadway Career

[macbeth]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 2:53pm

https://www.thefp.com/p/laura-osnes-didnt-get-the-covid-shot

[ER765]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 2:55pm

……so anyway….

[ClumsyDude15]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 3:01pm

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 3:06pm

‘The most hurtful thing,’ said the former Broadway star, ‘was that people found out this one thing about me—and nothing else in my character or my work mattered anymore. And no one defended me.’

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 3:09pm

Keep that fabulous career you've established down South going, babe!

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 3:14pm

Her career was damaged because it became painfully clear that her values didn't align with the community because she supports repugnant racists, misogynists and anti-LGBTQ politicians.

 

cope and seethe, cupcakkke.

[Kad]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 3:20pm

Laura Osnes looked at the state of the country of right now and really said, “Yes, now is the time to open old wounds, act like a martyr, and try for a comeback. Get Bari Weiss on the phone.” 

Updated On: 11/18/25 at 03:20 PM

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 3:30pm

I don't really find myself that sympathetic for Laura Osnes (especially when there are people we should be way more sympathetic for, i.e. Nick Cordero's family). However, I do feel kind of bad that the private professional matter of her dropping out of the show got plastered all over the front page of the New York Post, especially when the claims of drama with her castmates was untrue.

Vaccine mandates aren't required for anything anymore. If she had just denied the story and called it a "scheduling issue", she'd be back on Broadway today.

[quizking101]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 3:43pm

It’s very much a “woe is me/seeking redemption” piece, and I understand that this choice she made was the death knell for her career.

However, more pointedly, the theatre community lost SO many people during and due to the pandemic, including Nick Cordero, Mark Blum, Adam Schlesinger and Terrence McNally - and so the optics of it, personal choice or not, were that Laura did not care to get something that could protect her and her costars when many people didn’t even have a chance before it killed them. THAT’S what rankles me.

[WldKingdomHM]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 3:45pm

She pops up with the same story every two years. A beautiful performer but be gone already !!

[KevinKlawitter]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 4:05pm

BrodyFosse123 said: "‘The most hurtful thing,’ said the former Broadway star, ‘was that people found out this one thing about me—and nothing else in my character or my work mattered anymore. And no one defended me.’
 

Well, now we also know you're a petulant whiner with a victim complex, so good luck finding more work that way. Maybe you could do a movie for the Daily Wire.
 

[BoringBoredBoard40]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 4:42pm

get this Bari Weiss bs off the message board

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 5:06pm

Is it too late to move The 2026 Tony Awards off of CBS? I don’t want to see Bari Weiss handing Laura Osnes a lifetime achievement award.

[EmceeHammer]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 5:14pm

Beyond the self-aggrandizing victim mentality of her story, this is an interesting thought exercise. What roles would Osnes be playing if her career had not "ended." Would she be replacing Hilty in Death Becomes Her? Opening Romy & Michelle? Mother in Ragtime? Alternate for Norma Desmond or Jackie Siegel? Replacement for Mrs. Lovett? I doubt it. 

She aged out of the ingenue role and arguably doesn't have the comedic or dramatic chops to be a leading lady. Revivals of the kind of golden-age R&H material she shines at are few and far between. I can't believe she has enough public appeal to open a show or enough charisma to excite investors/influencers. Her last Broadway show was years before the pandemic (and was a commercial and critical failure). Broadway is a business. If she could get the job done and sell tickets, she'd still be working. 

Updated On: 11/18/25 at 05:14 PM

[AC126748]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 5:23pm

Is there any way to read the full article without signing up or giving the site any money?

[Timon3]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 5:27pm

Why would her career be ended?

There could be work opening for Trump in Orlando at CPAC.

[Kad]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 5:42pm

That’s the thing- her career hasn’t ended. It’s just no longer at the pinnacle of the industry. She has joined the ranks of the thousands of actors who live and work in smaller markets all over the country who will likely never set foot on a Broadway stage, or whose Broadway days are now behind them.

I’ve always thought she was a good but not necessarily singular or irreplaceable performer, something that her absence from the scene has only reinforced. She was, it turns out, pretty replaceable, which I imagine is a stinging realization to have. 

[AC126748]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 5:56pm

Yeah, in the space between Bandstand and COVID, there were a number of roles she was in the running for that she didn’t book. The industry had already moved on from her before she became problematic in this way. 

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 6:08pm

According to the article, she got married when she was only 21. She’s gotta be a conservative Christian. And for some reason, that demographic was generally pretty against the COVID vaccine. 

[AC126748]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 6:14pm

The Distinctive Baritone said: "According to the article, she got married when she was only 21. She’s gotta be a conservative Christian. And for some reason, that demographic was generally pretty against the COVID vaccine."

I don’t think she ever hid the fact that’s she’s extremely religious. There were definitely rumblings that she was on the far right of the political spectrum before COVID, but she tended to keep her politics close to the chest back then. The mask came off — no pun intended — when she realized that her Broadway career was over. 

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 6:39pm

It seems like a million years ago but wasn’t it also about putting Tony Yazbeck at risk of getting sick when he had a newborn baby at home?

[Islander_fan]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 8:36pm

Jordan Catalano said: "It seems like a million years ago but wasn’t it also about putting Tony Yazbeck at risk of getting sick when he had a newborn baby at home?"

Yes, and I believe (though I may be mistaken) that Santino Fontana spoke with her for the same reason as Yazbeck. She offered to get constant testing in lieu of getting the vaccine but that didn’t sit well with the rest of the cast. Her idiotic reason for not getting it was that she believed that the vaccine could cause fertility issues and she wanted to start a family. 

[Diana Greenhouse]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 9:02pm

The science has proven that young healthy people don’t need the vaccine.  I don’t blame a healthy person for saying, I feel like this is too early and came together too quickly.  She definitely should not have been canceled for that.  That was such a horrible horrible time.  
 

I think Yazbeck has worried about his newborn?  Also nonsense given the fact that they are virtually unaffected by Covid.  In fact, scientists now broadly believe that we shouldn’t vaccinate newborns with hepatitis b shot anymore unless they’re born to hep b positive mothers.  Babies get this shot within 24 hours of birth and It is still recommended by the cdc that all babies get the hep b shot but something that pretty much everyone agrees is guidance that is outdated and the science has evolved.  

Updated On: 11/18/25 at 09:02 PM

[MysteriousLady]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 9:09pm

Diana Greenhouse said: "The science has proven that young healthy people don’t need the vaccine. I don’t blame a healthy person for saying, I feel like this is too early and came together too quickly. She definitely should not have been canceled for that. That was such a horrible horrible time.


I think Yazbeck has worried about his newborn? Also nonsense given the fact that they arevirtually unaffected by Covid. In fact, scientists now broadly believethat we shouldn’t vaccinate newborns with hepatitis b anymore unless they’re born to hep b positive mothers. Babies get this vaccine within 24 hours of birth andIt is still recommended by the cdc that all babies get the hep b shot but something that pretty much everyone agrees is guidance that is outdated and the science has evolved. "

I wonder which one of our resident reactionary idiots "Diana Greenhouse " (joined today) is.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 11/18/25 at 9:33pm

There's no such "science" that determined that a younger demographic is invulnerable, sans vaccine. The vaccine saved lives. We all have anecdotal evidence in our own lives of the vaccine's success. And the tragic loss of life when it was avoided. People begged for the shots in ERs across the nation when it was too late. Let us not now rewrite history and pretend that COVID was a cold and that younger, "stronger" people who took vitamins or worm medication earn a new appraisal. 

Osnes made a series of calculated decisions. She could've stayed in Manhattan, weathered the blowback, and likely found a foot hole in the industry again - a tour, a replacement without fanfare. For all the sturm and drang (see LuPone, see Chenoweth see Scherzinger), it's a pretty forgiving industry.. But Osnes moved to a red state, left book shows entirely, performed solely in quasi-religious concerts and venues that support her ideological POV, made recordings, opting to reinvent herself outside of the center of the theater. And then blamed NYC and its ideological rigidity for oppressing and canceling her. We live in a culture that makes room for talent when said talent aims to make adjustments and accommodations. Osnes made the vaccine the hill her career would die on, and then stuck to her guns. She brought it on herself. 

Updated On: 11/18/25 at 09:33 PM