Oak Speaks out on great comet controversy- Page 13

[BorisTomashevsky]

Posted: 8/5/25 at 5:59pm

“This is what trolls do = resurrect a five year old dead thread in a totally lame attempt to add fuel to the fire of your constant trolling of the Maybe Happy Ending thread. Didn’t work. Sorry.”

If I’m the biggest problem you’ve got, I want your life. 

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 8/5/25 at 6:11pm

So I did some research and there was exactly one reference to Justin in this show and it originated from here back in 2017. Google didnt even return any results from Data Lounge so... 

[BorisTomashevsky]

Posted: 8/5/25 at 6:20pm

TheatreFan4 said: "So I did some research and there was exactly one reference to Justin in this show and it originated from here back in 2017. Google didnt even return any results from Data Lounge so..."

Here’s Timberlake mentioned on DL in 2024. Possibly written by the same person as whoever wrote today’s Great Comet post on DL, but the order is a bit different (Timberlake asked to take over before Oak was engaged vs Timberlake asked to take over from Oak when sales were low) so maybe it’s written by someone else.

https://imgur.com/a/KpjLK5c

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 8/5/25 at 7:17pm

I have no doubt Timberlake was asked to take over the role. He probably gets multiple Broadway offers a year.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Posted: 8/5/25 at 7:35pm

BorisTomashevsky said: "Here’s Timberlake mentioned on DL in 2024. Possibly written by the same person as whoever wrote today’s Great Comet post on DL, but the order is a bit different (Timberlake asked to take over before Oak was engagedvs Timberlake asked to take over from Oak when sales were low) so maybe it’s written by someone else.

https://imgur.com/a/KpjLK5c"

This anonymous post is provably inaccurate. It seems to be suggesting Great Comet was in talks with Timberlake, but Ervivo complained on Twitter about Timberlake replacing Oak. So Timberlake dropped out of talks and then producers called Patinkin, who didn't want to get involved, so Patinkin didn't accept the role.

Except it's public knowledge that Patinkin did accept the role before changing his mind, after public criticism of him replacing Oak. And Ervivo was for sure not complaining about Timberlake getting cast. The announcement Patinkin was joining The Great Comet occurred on July 26, 2017. Ervivo on the exact same day posted on Twitter "What I know for a fact is that Oak worked extremely hard for this. Which makes this occurrence distasteful and uncouth"

She's obviously talking about Patinkin getting cast, not Timberlake. 

I don't know why you're so fixated on finding a new narrative about why the Great Comet closed, but real journalists covered this story extensively at the time. You're not uncovering anything other than people either misremembering or flat out making rumors up.

[BorisTomashevsky]

Posted: 8/5/25 at 8:00pm

FFS! I was just posting it to demonstrate that there had been talk of Timberlake on DataLounge before today. I was not asserting any veracity of the contents of the post. 

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 8/5/25 at 9:03pm

Any time the oak-Mandy-great comet situation comes up Cynthia Erivo almost always gets unfairly dragged. Like, where is the Rafael Casal hate. That man started the whole #makeroomforoak. I guess his career suffered, because what has he done outside of that horrible flick where Hugh Jackman played the Principal who stole a whole bunch of money?

[Huss417]

Posted: 8/5/25 at 9:11pm

I'm still trying to figure out what I find sadder. Bringing up a long dead thread or actually reading/believing what is on DataLounge?

I didnt' even know the site still existed.

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 8/5/25 at 9:14pm

At first I thought DL was shorthand for Disneyland…

[Broadway61004]

Posted: 8/5/25 at 9:43pm

Call_me_jorge said: "Any time the oak-Mandy-great comet situation comes up Cynthia Erivo almost always gets unfairly dragged. Like, where is the Rafael Casal hate. That man started the whole #makeroomforoak. I guess his career suffered, because what has he done outside of that horrible flick where Hugh Jackman played the Principal who stole a whole bunch of money?"

Because fair or unfair, she had by far the biggest following of all parties involved at the time, which makes it much more likely that she did in fact have the biggest influence on the show closing. It's like me blasting a show over and over again and Taylor Swift saying something bad about it once--if the sales subsequently tank and the show closes, think it would be safe to say that I'm not the one who caused it.

[TheQuibbler]

Posted: 8/5/25 at 11:02pm

Broadway61004 said: “Because fair or unfair, she had by far the biggest following of all parties involved at the time, which makes it much more likely that she did in fact have the biggest influence on the show closing.”

No, bad producing closed the show. Going from multi-platinum selling artist Josh Groban to the 9th billed actor in Hamilton thinking that would keep up the grosses needed to run the show was a cosmic mistake. Patinkin was not going to save the show in 3 weeks, as good as he would have been. Why are we still debating this?

 

[Broadway61004]

Posted: 8/5/25 at 11:12pm

TheQuibbler said: "No, bad producing closed the show. Going from multi-platinum selling artist Josh Groban to the 9th billed actor in Hamilton thinking that would keep up the grosses needed to run the show was a cosmic mistake. Patinkin was not going to save the show in 3 weeks, as good as he would have been. Why are we still debating this?

No kidding. But we were clearly talking about "why does Cynthia get backlash and the others who bad mouthed the show don't?" hence my response. This is the topic we're discussing, not other factors as to why the show closed.

 

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 8/5/25 at 11:20pm

Broadway61004 said: "Call_me_jorge said: "Any time the oak-Mandy-great comet situation comes up Cynthia Erivo almost always gets unfairly dragged. Like, where is the Rafael Casal hate. That man started the whole #makeroomforoak. I guess his career suffered, because what has he done outside of that horrible flick where Hugh Jackman played the Principal who stole a whole bunch of money?"

Because fair or unfair, she had by far the biggest following of all parties involved at the time, which makes it much more likely that she did in fact have the biggest influence on the show closing. It's like me blasting a show over and over again and Taylor Swift saying something bad about it once--if the sales subsequently tank and the show closes, think it would be safe to say that I'm not the one who caused it."

You say the biggest following, but she was still essentially an unknown outside of winning a Tony. Nobody was listening to her for guidance. Her first film role wasn't even for another a year after that. She in no way closed the show, nor did she even push it towards closing. The producers had no clue what they were doing and were caught holding the bag. If Oak was doing all of the things they alleged he was doing during rehearsal, they could have fired on the spot there. There was absolutely no reason at all to put that man on stage knowing full well that he was going to fail. They knew when Josh Groban was going to be leaving well in advance and if the show was being carried so much on his shoulders then its on them for not actually getting someone who could carry that weight in such a demanding role. What Cynthia is guilty of is having a loud mouth which never would have been a factor if the producing team actually knew what they were doing. 

And let's be clear, there are plenty of people here who have, for years, blamed her for the show's closure. That is the "backlash". She commented on a situation that she didn't have all of the details on. Boo hoo. 

Updated On: 8/5/25 at 11:20 PM

[Jonathan Cohen]

Posted: 8/5/25 at 11:45pm

Broadway61004 said: "Because fair or unfair, she had by far the biggest following of all parties involved at the time, which makes it much more likely that she did in fact have the biggest influence on the show closing. It's like me blasting a show over and over again and Taylor Swift saying something bad about it once--if the sales subsequently tank and the show closes, think it would be safe to say that I'm not the one who caused it."

The show was in financial trouble the second Josh Groban left and never cleared a million dollar week again until the week it closed. Cynthia Erivo's Tweet happen in week 4 of the sales stump. She very clearly didn't tank sales. 

Here's the box office performance of NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 for the key dates around the end of their run: 

$1.4M - Week Ending 7-2-2017 (Josh Groban's last week)

$891K - Week Ending 7-9-2017 (Dave Malloy playing Pierre)

$940K - Week Ending 7-16-2017 (Okieriete Onaodowan starts playing Pierre)

$924K - Week Ending 7-23-2017 (Okieriete Onaodowan playing Pierre)

$906K - Week Ending 7-30-2017 (Mandy Patinkin announced as upcoming Pierre, Cynthia Erivo Tweets in support of Oak, Patinkin withdraws from the show on July 28)

$876K - Week Ending 8-06-2017 (post implosion week)

$981K - Week Ending 8-13-2017 (week the show announce they're closing, the last week of Onaodowan)

$888K - Week Ending 8-20-2017 (Scott Stangland played Pierre)

$974K - Week Ending 8-27-2017 (Malloy back as Pierre)

$1.2M - Week Ending 9-03-2017 (show's final week, Malloy playing Pierre)

[MezzoDiva47]

Posted: 8/5/25 at 11:59pm

 

when in doubt go straight to the sources

according to colleagues over at the imperial who would know

oak was on a standard principal contract not a placeholder or temp fill-in

the producers foolishly thought that oak could replace josh groban as the star

it quickly became apparent for two reasons that oak was a complete failure

advance ticket sales went off a cliff

oaks unprofessionalism as detailed in previous posts is all true

including egregiously substandard preparation and arguing with rachel chavkins direction

oak was bought out and still received his salary even though he was not performing so he was not technically fired but in all practical respects yes he was

justin timberlake was never seriously approached and was never a viable prospect

that may have been the producers scrambling and basically offering the role outright to anyone famous who might be interested

rainn wilson was approached but it was a very brief maybe and soon rainn turned them down

mandy patinkin did agree to the role and was rehearsed privately and was due to start rehearsals on stage when the whole racism issue exploded

he started getting harassed by the woke mob and so he quickly bailed

the show announced its closing within 24 hours of mandys departure

cynthia erivo gets blamed because she was one of the very first ppl with a decent social media following who dropped the race card on the entire affair despite not knowing any of the facts

that then ignited the whole #makeroomforoak nightmare

based on reading this thread the person who you can trust the most with the truth is the user JoeyC3

he says he was a part of the music team and was in those rehearsals

or as they say

the room where it happened

 

MezzoDiva47 has spoken

bow down accordingly

 

Updated On: 8/6/25 at 11:59 PM

[kdogg36]

Posted: 8/6/25 at 12:06am

Jonathan Cohen said: "The show was in financial trouble the second Josh Groban left and never cleared a million dollar week again until the week it closed.Cynthia Erivo's Tweet happen in week 4 of the sales stump. She very clearly didn't tank sales."

I agree with you regarding Erivo, but did the show ever actually have a money-losing week? Its lowest-grossing week, I think, was about $876,000; was that really below its nut at the time?

[kdogg36]

Posted: 8/6/25 at 12:08am

MezzoDiva47 said: "bow down accordingly"

Why don't you bow down in front of me? I'll give you further instructions after that.

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 8/6/25 at 12:11am

kdogg36 said: "Jonathan Cohen said: "The show was in financial trouble the second Josh Groban left and never cleared a million dollar week again until the week it closed.Cynthia Erivo's Tweet happen in week 4 of the sales stump. She very clearly didn't tank sales."

I agree with you regarding Erivo, but did the show ever actually have a money-losing week? Its lowest-grossing week, I think, was about $876,000; was that really below its nut at the time?"

The show included an extensive theatre renovation that I imagine paying off was factored into their weekly running costs.

[BorisTomashevsky]

Posted: 8/6/25 at 12:18am

Well for all the b!tching about me doing a Lazarus on this thread, people sure do seem to be having a wonderful time. 

[Jonathan Cohen]

Posted: 8/6/25 at 12:59am

kdogg36 said: "Jonathan Cohen said: "The show was in financial trouble the second Josh Groban left and never cleared a million dollar week again until the week it closed.Cynthia Erivo's Tweet happen in week 4 of the sales stump. She very clearly didn't tank sales."

I agree with you regarding Erivo, but did the show ever actually have a money-losing week? Its lowest-grossing week, I think, was about $876,000; was that really below its nut at the time?"

A NY Times article by Michael Paulson at the time, had some really interesting things to say on this front. By the end, lead producer Howard Kagan said the weekly operating cost averaged a little over $700,000 a week. I'm assuming it was higher when they were paying Groban, you have weird costs like paying Onaodowan for three weeks not to show up, and I have no idea how Kagan was factoring the theater renovations. 

Possibly people involved with the show didn't know either. The article also said Kagan had been unusually reluctant to share financial information with co-producers and investors, and that group was planning an audit of the show. 

At the time they decided to go after Mandy, projected sales for late summer and early fall were below the running costs. Based on that article, the plan was to lock in Patinkin for three weeks then convince him to do Broadway and Homeland at the same time, which is completely nuts. 

Updated On: 8/6/25 at 12:59 AM

[bear88]

Posted: 8/6/25 at 1:10am

Regardless of how things ended, and who is to blame, I am just glad Great Comet happened on Broadway when I was in town to see it.

I have the cast recording. I saw the ‘West Coast premiere’ at Shotgun Players in Berkeley (twice), where I got to see the show in the sort of intimate venue where it started. I occasionally run across a YouTube clip of the musical, which I enjoy (and makes me feel just a little ambivalent about people filming shows).

It’s one of my favorite musicals.

[binau]

Posted: 8/6/25 at 3:00am

This was one of the important events/experiences that started to make me realise in addition to dangerous 'right-wing' ideological thinking (that I think we could all accept was real and existed, and continues to exist today) there is also such thing as dangerous 'left-wing' ideological thinking too demonstrating that the progressive movement can go too far and it's not ok. For all the good intentions that went into the criticism around Mandy's casting, it simply reflected a reasoning failure and low quality thinking that this issue became racialised and it had devastating consequences. I heard one of the producers comment on this issue publicly at BroadwayCon during a Q&A and they were very upset at the situation, explicitly calling out the diversity and POC they employed in the show.

History began to repeat itself with the Kecia Lewis/Patti drama where again, dangerous 'left-wing' ideological thinking led to a reasoning failure that caused people to misunderstand reality and causality. 

Rachel Zegler is the victim of dangerous 'right-wing' ideological thinking, whose every move is being unfairly criticised or false narratives being peddled all because she seemed to offend the wrong crowd with comments that are typical for people her age and was involved in the Snow White movie. 

We must never accept low quality ideological thinking regardless of the source. 
 

Updated On: 8/6/25 at 03:00 AM

[QueenTwinnied]

Posted: 8/6/25 at 3:09am

You and Boris are both ****ing dumbasses

[binau]

Posted: 8/6/25 at 3:14am

Very low quality response too. lol. Is that all you have to say? Cool man. "youreee a dumbbbasss" LOLOLOLOL. 

Updated On: 8/6/25 at 03:14 AM

[spicemonkey]

Posted: 8/6/25 at 7:05am

binau said: "This was one of the important events/experiences that started to make me realise in addition to dangerous 'right-wing' ideological thinking (that I think we could all accept was real and existed, and continues to exist today)there is also such thingas dangerous 'left-wing' ideological thinking too demonstrating that the progressive movement can go too farand it's not ok. For all the good intentions that went into the criticism around Mandy's casting, it simply reflected a reasoning failure and low quality thinkingthat this issue became racialised and it had devastating consequences. I heard one of the producers comment on this issue publicly at BroadwayCon during a Q&A and they were very upset at the situation, explicitly calling out the diversity and POC they employed in the show.

History began to repeat itself with the Kecia Lewis/Patti drama where again, dangerous 'left-wing' ideological thinking led to a reasoning failure that caused people to misunderstand reality and causality.

Rachel Zegler is the victim of dangerous 'right-wing' ideological thinking, whose every move is being unfairly criticised or false narratives being peddled all because she seemed to offend the wrong crowd with comments that are typical for people her age and was involved in the Snow White movie.

We must never accept low quality ideological thinking regardless of the source.
"

Well said.

I would add: 
Some of the people you mentioned, regardless of their political alignment, engaged in identity politics for personal gain. They were not simply victims; they used their identity as a strategic tool when they saw an opportunity to benefit.

 

Updated On: 8/6/25 at 07:05 AM