Posted: 9/11/23 at 9:34am
…James Barbour is a Scientologist? Okay then.
Posted: 9/11/23 at 9:35am
The situation with Barbour isn’t great. But Peterson poorly summarizing documents and then saying he’d like to know what people in the industry knew and when just proves he is incredibly out of his depth when it comes to any sort of journalism.
Posted: 9/11/23 at 9:38am
Peterson’s awful writing and self-aggrandizement aside, this report is very upsetting. I knew of course about the one Barbour went to jail for, but the fact that he allegedly did this with at least two other girls is horrifying (although perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised). Granted, these events were all over twenty years ago, and he is perhaps a changed man, but I personally would not want to work with such a person.
Posted: 9/11/23 at 9:46am
ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "Wait til OnStage Blog finds out about 2x Tony nominee Charles S. Dutton’s life before turning to acting! Is he going to call for August Wilson’s posthumous cancelation and removal of his name from his theatre???
The Barbour situation is messy. The simple thing is of course not to hire him. A TALE OF TWO CITIES was produced by amateurs and it’s unlikely that many other producers would have hired him back so quickly. But we are taught that the US prison system is supposed to be a place for rehabilitation, and that the formerly incarcerated deserve a second chance. But some believe that’s only true for certain crimes — and certain races.
Some also believe that pleading guilty is the only way to atone for a crime…but that’s what Barbour did here, and it resulted in a shorter sentence."
Isn't the point of the article that there were additional victims beyond the one Barbour plead guilty and was sentenced for? That does seem to be new information.
Posted: 9/11/23 at 9:54am
The way this annoys me/pisses me off to no end is right up there with people who claim to know all about casting information coming out. If you can't immediately say anything, why tease? It's obnoxious, ridiculous and just should not be done. Do better.
Posted: 9/11/23 at 10:10am
Kad said: "The situation with Barbour isn’t great. But Peterson poorly summarizing documents and then saying he’d like to know what people in the industry knew and when just proves he is incredibly out of his depth when it comes to any sort of journalism."
I read the article, which is 5 mins of my life I’ll never get back. It’s so amateurish - you can’t just read and transcribe some newly surfaced Scientology documents and call that journalism, without any attempt at speaking to the people involved - not if you’re going for some sort of expose of rampant abuse in the theater industry, which he seems to be!
And this is in no way me understating James Barbour’s actions and crimes (it seems like he got off pretty lightly for sexually abusing minors) but you’ve got to do better than this attempt at shedding a light on abuse within the industry!
Posted: 9/11/23 at 10:59am
Probably the biggest news from this story is that Scientology considers Broadway a big enough pond to swim in, considering Peterson all but states that they might have put a finger on the scale in facilitating Barbour's re-entry to the business, hedge his bets though he might in trying to frame this in abuse culture in tweets associated with the story. Infiltration of various industries aside, I would think that they would consider Hollywood the much bigger prize plum, with more value in terms of publicity alone than Broadway performers who are only "names" within a few blocks of their theater.
Despite my distaste for this type of clickbait journalism, I honestly feel sorry for Chris. He has risked pissing off people who will make his life a living hell in the interests of driving views to his site. More to the point, it won't even take that much effort on their part to discredit him because most of us already regard him as the boy who cried wolf. One needs only to point to the coverage of Tyce Green (where his website broke the story and then choked the story for reasons that remain very unclear considering Tyce may still be a problem) to ask where he draws the line of journalistic standards, as, in that case, he engaged in the very activity he all but accuses Scientology of doing.
Updated On: 9/11/23 at 10:59 AM
Posted: 9/11/23 at 11:46am
Voter said: "It was literally about just James Barbour. Talk about crying wolf?"
It's also at least the 3rd or 4th time this guy has "resurrected" the Barbour incident. It's an unfortunate obsession of his.
P.S. He's also a regular reader (and sometime poster) on BWW.
Updated On: 9/11/23 at 11:46 AM
Posted: 9/11/23 at 11:50am
This is a blogger who clearly was not accepted into the industry for one reason or another and has made it his life's goal to destroy it. Nothing but a keyboard warrior.
That said, what he's co-opted from Leah Remini and relabeled as his own journalism re: Barbour is really disturbing. But when it comes from the keys of someone known for outrage for outrage sake, things like this tend to be even further overlooked.
He's actually doing disservice to victims which is what's really infuriating.
Posted: 9/11/23 at 1:37pm
I mean, I always thought it was gross that he was ever hired on Broadway again. This article doesn't change anything about my opinion.
Posted: 9/11/23 at 4:30pm
Does this guy have any legitimacy in the industry, as in is he an official invited critic to shows or is he a voting member of any of the critic awards, or is he purely an outsider? His writing is very child like and I have a hard time giving him any credibility.
Posted: 9/11/23 at 4:59pm
Call_me_jorge said: "Does this guy have any legitimacy in the industry, as in is he an official invited critic to shows or is he a voting member of any of the critic awards, or is he purely an outsider? His writing is very child like and I have a hard time giving him any credibility."
I would hope not because I hope any credible reporter would know better than to post in such a teasing manner
Posted: 9/11/23 at 5:14pm
Voter said: "It was literally about just James Barbour. Talk about crying wolf?"
Funny that you mentioned Barbour. Leah Remini and Mike Rinder were just discussing him on youtube this past weekend. Was discussing how Scientology Covers up Crimes. Starts at about 26 minutes in for anyone who might be interested.
Leaked Documents: How Scientology Covers Up Crimes - New Episode With Leah Remini and Mike Rinder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2D70ddKnFc
Updated On: 9/11/23 at 05:14 PM
Posted: 9/11/23 at 5:15pm
Is someone being a serial predator "complicated"? God you people are spineless
Posted: 9/11/23 at 5:17pm
Call_me_jorge said: "Does this guy have any legitimacy in the industry, as in is he an official invited critic to shows or is he a voting member of any of the critic awards, or is he purely an outsider? His writing is very child like and I have a hard time giving him any credibility."
None.
Posted: 9/12/23 at 10:08am
Watching this guy quote his article and continually beat a dead horse... only solidifies for me that this guy does this for attention.
I remember months ago he was saying Phantom deserves to close because the phantom is a predator so the story is problematic? And everyone deserves to lose their jobs? Glad everyone has realized then the idiocracy.
Posted: 9/13/23 at 2:16am
Interesting that Chris leaves his name off the "article." How come? Unless I missed it or it's so tiny I didn't see it, but I looked three times.
Posted: 9/13/23 at 5:39am
They aren't tweets anymore. What are they now? Actually, I do not care, as I departed that particular cesspool of hate some time ago. I recommend any decent person do the same!
Posted: 9/14/23 at 3:42pm
Voter said: "I remember months ago he was saying Phantom deserves to close because the phantom is a predator so the story is problematic? And everyone deserves to lose their jobs?"
Yeah, he threw that big moral fit and then said his most-wanted revival is Passion. By his standards, that's worse than Phantom. Think about it -- in its broad strokes, the difference between that and Phantom is the gender roles and that she is successful. Plenty of moral scruples for an ugly man unsuccessfully trying to force a young woman to marry him, but none for an ugly woman successfully coercing a young man into bed by emotionally terrorizing him for months. (To be clear, I have no moral objection to either show, just judging by his standards.)
Don't point it out to him, though. He'll just block you before you even have a chance to ask if it really boils down to ALW vs. Sondheim snobbery.
Updated On: 9/14/23 at 03:42 PM
Posted: 9/14/23 at 4:16pm
There are actual journalists out there exposing the horrible cancerous people in the industry and doing good work.
This person is not one of those people.
Updated On: 9/14/23 at 04:16 PM
Posted: 9/14/23 at 4:19pm
I stopped following them. So cryptic and annoying
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