Oak Speaks out on great comet controversy — Page 10

Cross Bones off the list.

Agents used to be better at managing their clients' PR!

Mandy Patinkin's professionalism:

http://nypost.com/2000/04/14/wild-behavior-at-party/

THAT is unprofessional! Comet cast may have ended up begging for Oak to come back.

Tapping23 said: "Speed said: "Okay. Different people in this thread are saying different things."

The producers saw Oaks talent and figured the Hamilton tie in would sell tickets. It was not Oaks fault. Also when the other girl was leaving the advance was nothing. Mandy saw the show wnd said to the producers I would loce to do it one day. The producers could only get Mandy for 3 weeks before Homeland started. That happened to be the last 3 weeks for Oak. It was all supposedly understoof why they were bringing mandy in and an open offer to Oak to come back and they would start negotiating with his team. That is why the producers came out and said they hoped to have him back in the fall and winter. They were to start rehearsing with mandy and then oak posted that day or the next day he woild not be coming back without telling the producers first. So the producers looked like they were doing something underhanded when everyone knew exactly what was going on. The show was not strong enough to withstand a “name” to get people in the door. Once people saw the show they loved it. The producers failed but they were not screwing oak. Even with the stuff they pulled with Malloy talking about it in the Times article they STILL wanted him back because in the end he is freaking talented.

"

Do we know for sure that they really wanted Oak to return? Or were they just saying that to be "nice" to Oak? That happens a lot. Jason Pebworth was put on "3 months vocal rest" from 2000 JCS revival but he never returned. He was never coming back. He was fired. If it was something similar with Oak, I could see how he was annoyed.

>Speed: He IS entitled to the part. He signed a contract! And unless it said he must sell X amount of tickets to keep his job, then they should keep their end of the deal. No they cannot fire actors whenever they like.

I'm jumping backward to the mid point of the this thread because OH MY GOD YES YOU CAN! 1996, Cameron McIntosh sees the production Les Miz on Broadway was appalled by what he saw and fired almost the entire cast effective a couple months later.

If Oak's contract says he can't be fired then he'd be having a law suit right now. Do you see a law suit? The contractual obligations the producers had to him was to pay him, which they were happily going to continue doing. His contractual obligations to them would be to perform. They can choose to bench him at any time. I offer up as an example 2006, The Wedding Singer, Matthew Saldivar was benched with full pay so that Constantine Maroulis could come into help bring up the grosses.

Broadway is a business. Do you continue to do as much as you can help keep the entire cast employed and the show open or do you let the show close with an actor who came into the show disrespecting it while you had a star waiting in the wings to get you through the dry weeks of Broadway before the holiday season?

I guess someone is still bitter:





https://twitter.com/OakSmash/status/1242455316203274240

SouthernCakes said: "His twitter name is “the incredible oak?” ??"

Hardly surprising.

He used to have a Ted Talk he'd given about empathy at the top of his page, just before he put 200 people out of work...

Dancingthrulife2 said: "Was he ever hired again after controversy?"

It looks like he's been a series regular on a show called Station 19 since 2018.

Love him, he has Hamilton and Shonda money, he is doing pretty damn great.

That was in 2017???? How time flies

ladypresent said: "Evreyone calm down...his point is this:

there is a difference of putting a black man into a white role and making a show about black or minorities.
ie: carousel is using a "gimmick" (oak's words) by casting a black man in the role of billy bigelow. That is the gimmick and selling point of the show. There is almost no other reason to cast a black man in this role than the gimmick and the selling of tix and Scott Rudin knows this. Josh Henry is incredibly talented, im not saying he isn't and will perform the hell out of this (probably), but the GIMMICK of him being black in a role that has ALWAYS been played by a white man will sell tix and as such ...GImmick.

Right now black actors and minorities are being used primarily as Gimmicks to get press or sell tx. Norm Lewis as the "first black man to play the phantom!! come see it!!" (eh..)

Ali Ewoldt is the first phillipinoperson to play christine come see it!! (she is the best christine i have ever seen. They should have hired her years ago)

until the actor who is hired is not seen as a gimmick to sell tix, we are deluding ourselves that race is still not an issue. So what oak is saying is that until we are done with the gimmick of this...we won't be able to move on and just cast racially blind casting or create art for just art.

(watch....in 8..12..20 years when Hamiltion starts to slow down they will re cast the whole thing white and have king george be black and people will ooh and ahh about the amazing artistic choice)

its like doing a 1776 with all women. gimmick
its like doing hamlet with a woman as hamlet...gimmick.

although i don't know if the "gimmick" works inversely.

Like if you had an all white once on this island i bet people would lose their minds and protest. Or if there was a white Lion King. I think it only works if the minority takes over the presumed constant majority's job. You wouldn't see it flipped because the PC police would go nuts"

I was reading about the controversy and this quote certainly aged well :)

This is all very interesting, and I'm just hearing about it... I saw Oak on what I now realize was his final performance, and thought he was great. For the people who are complaining about his Pierre, what did you think he lacked?