LuPone on McDonald — Page 16

I'm reading the New Yorker article while drunk imagining it being read by Patti LuPone's Joanne in the 2021 Company revival and I'm having the best time.

"To this day, if I express myself in a way that somebody doesn’t like, they will say, ‘Oh, that’s Patti.’ ” She lowered her voice and narrowed her eyes, like a tigress ready to pounce. “What the **** are you talking about? What do you know about me, that you can say, ‘Well, that’s Patti’?"

“I know what I’m worth to a production,” she said, her lips skewing diagonally in agitation. “I know that I’m box-office. Don’t nickel-and-dime me before you put me onstage. Don’t treat me like a piece of ****. Because, at this point, if you don’t value me, why am I there?”

And then the plot twist is Joanne looks over the table at Bobbi, played by Audra McDonald in her red dress from the 2010 Sondheim Birthday concert.

Patti: "You're a terribly attractive Woman".

Audra: "Patti, how can the same person who wrote Anyone Can Whistle be the same person that wrote Gypsy?"

Patti: "Everything that eats, ****s."

Audra: "With you it was heaven."

Patti: "Audra, we've discussed this."

Audra: "BUT-"

SUDDENLY THE ORCHESTRATIONS FOR EVE WAS WEAK FROM CARRIE TAKE OVER

Patti: "BOW YOUR HEAD AND PRAY WOMAN"

Audra: "MOMMA-IT WASN"T MY FAULT"

Patti: Thank you call me it again

Audra: "Oh Momma"

Patti: "GOD HAS SEEN YOUR SINNING, JUST BEGINNING, PRAY FOR YOUR SALVATION. FROM TONY DAMNATION, PLEASe...<eve was weak melody>IT'S STILL MYYY TURN YOU</eve was weak melody>, IT'S STILL MY TURN YOU

Audra: Momma don't you care I'm ready to succeed

Patti: "HAVE YOU NO SENSE OF SHAME"

Audra: "MOMMA STOP"

Patti: <IT'S STILL MY TURNNNN YOUUUUUUUUUU>

<IT'S STILLLLL MYYYYY TURNNNNN YOUUUUU>

Audra: Let's see whose turn it is when I'm on the cover of time magazine and you're getting washed up and cancelled because you couldn't keep your loud, mouth shut

Patti: You're no friend to me

Bernadette Peters appears from the corners with what looks like a very drunk Sam Mendes and the Company night club electronic music playing in the background "F*CK Laurents we should have had the makeup running down your face, then you would have won that Tony"

Bernadette - quietly to herself: Come on Audra, baby, let's go. Get away from Patti, she may have won the Tony for Gypsy but I originated Dot in Sunday. Audra baby, you're going in Gypsy I've organised everything. You're going to humiliate Patti and take the Tony for Gypsy.

Bernadette then turns to Patti with her fake high voice where she kind of coughs lightly as if she is clearing her thoughts - also strangely War Paint score is now playing in the background fittingly "Patti, it was SO nice to see you. To thank you for our years of friendship my publicist is going to get you into the New Yorker next year. Full page photographed spread. All yours"

Patti: "I'll drink to that."

TotallyEffed said: "Jordan, is that really AI? Because if so, we are in danger. That is quite good."

Yeah that was ChatGPT with just a simple prompt. Crazy, right?

Jordan I love this, cause Chat GPT is scary good at tone and cadence.... I did one from Audra, cause I don't think she will ever say anything publicly...ever really about all this.

Sure. Here's a fictional open letter written in the imagined voice of Audra McDonald, with her characteristic grace, eloquence, and integrity. It acknowledges the tensions involving Patti LuPone and Kecia Lewis (drawing from the energy of a public conversation or controversy), and seeks to clarify, center truth, and offer perspective — much as Audra might do if speaking directly and earnestly to the Broadway community.

An Open Letter to the Broadway World Community
from Audra McDonald

Dear Broadway World Readers, Colleagues, Friends,

I write this not to pour gasoline on any fire — God knows this community has seen enough flames — but because I believe in clarity, I believe in accountability, and I believe in holding space for nuance, especially when that space has been historically denied to so many.

There’s been a lot of noise around the recent tension involving my colleagues Patti LuPone and Kecia Lewis. I want to start by saying: I have deep respect for both women. Patti is a force of nature — unapologetically bold, fiercely talented, and someone who has fought her way through an industry that often punishes women for doing exactly that. And Kecia, my sister in this craft and in this world, is a vessel of truth, grace, and strength — someone who, like so many Black women in this industry, has often had to be twice as good for half the credit.

But here's where I stand: Intent does not erase impact.

Patti may not have meant harm. But harm was done.

We must name that. We must name it in a space that has for too long refused to call a thing what it is. There is a difference between disagreement and erasure. There is a difference between passion and domination. And there is a deep, painful legacy of Black women — especially in American theatre — being silenced, sidelined, or rendered invisible when they raise their voice, claim their space, or speak their truth.

When Kecia spoke, she did not speak only for herself. She gave voice to something so many of us have felt — in rehearsal rooms, in backstage hallways, in auditions where we’re praised for our power but punished the moment we use it.

And when we center the conversation on ego or personal rivalry, we miss the point. This is not about diva vs. diva. This is about the architecture of the stage itself — who gets to build it, who gets to stand on it, and who gets believed when they say, “This isn’t right.”

So to my fellow artists: I’m asking us to listen more closely.

To my white colleagues: I am asking you to hear us when we say that your power — even when used with good intention — can still cast a shadow.
To my Black sisters and siblings: I see you. I honor your voices. Keep speaking.
To the next generation: May we leave you a better room than the one we inherited.

This industry is built on voices. Let’s not be afraid to hear them all — even when they make us uncomfortable. Especially then.

With love, with hope, and with the fire of truth,
Audra

Midnight Radio said: "OharaFosseWolfe888 said: "Jordan I love this, cause Chat GPT is scary good at tone and cadence.... I did one from Audra, cause I don't think she will ever say anything publicly...ever really about all this.

Sure. Here's a fictional open letter written in the imagined voice of Audra McDonald, with her characteristic grace, eloquence, and integrity. It acknowledges the tensions involving Patti LuPone and Kecia Lewis (drawing from the energy of a public conversation or controversy), and seeks to clarify, center truth, and offer perspective — much as Audra might do if speaking directly and earnestly to the Broadway community."

I suggest having AI Audra McDonald write your posts from now on.

"

Certainly. Here's a heartfelt and forthright letter written in your voice in your identity as a Black artist, director, and truth-teller working to shift the culture.

Dear Broadway World Members,

I wasn’t planning to write this. Honestly, I was hoping someone else would say it — loudly, clearly, and without fear. But the silence is louder than I expected, and the gaslighting of Black pain is once again crawling across the stage, demanding an encore. So here we are.

Let me say this plainly: What Patti LuPone said in her recent New Yorker profile about Kecia Lewis and Audra McDonald was racist. Not just “rude.” Not just “old-school diva behavior.” Racist. And the refusal of this community to call it what it is — to stand in truth rather than shrink into nostalgia — is why Black people in this industry are exhausted beyond measure.

Let’s talk about what was said.

To diminish Kecia Lewis — a veteran of the American stage, a Black woman who has survived and transcended decades of erasure — as “someone I didn’t know and didn’t want to know” is not just flippant. It’s violent. To reduce her to a “body” in the room while she was stepping into a major role under emotionally and professionally fraught circumstances is an old, familiar narrative. We know what it means when a Black woman walks into a room, speaks her truth, and is met with disdain, dismissal, or contempt. That is not “tension.” That is the legacy of white supremacy dressed in the costume of artistic temperament.

And Audra? A once-in-a-generation artist. A woman who has shattered ceilings and carried this industry on her back. To suggest — as Patti did — that her influence, her integrity, her insight is somehow complicit in some imagined betrayal is not only inaccurate; it reeks of the same old fear: fear of Black collaboration, fear of Black solidarity, fear of Black leadership.

This isn’t about one comment. It’s about a pattern — the way white power gets to be messy, mercurial, even cruel, and still be crowned as genius. Meanwhile, Black grace is interrogated. Black confidence is threatening. Black truth-telling is called “divisive.” I’m tired of it. We are tired of it.

Let me be clear: this is not about “canceling” Patti LuPone. This is about consequence and accountability. If someone with her platform, stature, and legacy cannot be asked to reflect on the impact of her words — especially when they harm Black women — then what does that say about the kind of theater community we claim to be?

It’s easy to say, “Oh, that’s just Patti.” But what you're really saying is: “Black pain doesn’t matter here.”

And that is unacceptable.

The theater — at its best — is a place of truth. Of reckoning. Of transformation. If we cannot practice those values offstage as well as on it, then what are we even doing?

We cannot build an equitable, liberated theater while protecting the egos of those who refuse to see the full humanity of their colleagues. It’s time to stop excusing abuse as eccentricity. It’s time to start believing Black women. And it’s time for people like Patti — and those who support her without question — to sit with the discomfort of being called in.

This is a moment of reckoning. Choose courage. Choose accountability. Choose community. But don’t ask us to keep quiet so that white legends can remain comfortable.

Not anymore.

In love, truth, and fire,
OFW



Audra just reposted, Leslie Uggams post of Kecia opening her Grammy Award. That is Black Queen Legend Solidarity! I love us for real!

Updated On: 5/28/25 at 06:47 PM

Just a quick note .. Audra has not carried this industry on her back . Honey , please . As a hot black lesbian.. YOU EXHAUST ME!

Sally Durant Plummer said: "On Monday morning, who could have imagined that in 60 hours and 16 pages, we'd be at "hot black lesbians?""

There are many of us.

Murphy Responds

I don't think this has already been posted.