Patti LuPone called a privileged, racially microaggressive bully by Hell's Kitchen cast member

You know who Kecia reminds me of here? Patti Lupone.

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I can see where Lewis may have felt put out when she got to work and found a sound cue had changed and then found out it was because of an actor who is in a completely different show! 

But to call it a racial micro aggression just seems silly. And if cameras weren't everywhere no one would even know Patti called Hell's Kitchen too loud. And we all know she would have complained about a white show as well. 

It seemed like Patti tried to handle this discretely as best she knew how. Lewis seems to want to blow this up and she seems quite pleased with herself as well. 

mshalo18 said: "Good luck to Maleah Joi Moon after she shared Kecia’s video. She’s far too early in her career to get involved in any controversy."

Maybe Lewis should have kept her mouth shut and seen The Roommate before making this about race.  Patti’s point was a reasonable one, based on some performances I have seen, where volume and bass from an adjoining theatre really were distractions to the show I was at.  Seems to me that, in this era of higher volumes — think Tommy, American Idiot, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Moulin Rouge, and others (coupled with theatre prices), more should be done to better soundproof theatres.  Ironically, most of the top-of-my-head examples were not of shows with adjoining theatres, but I do remember being next to BBAJ and having that volume / bass filter into the Golden, and there have definitely been other times.

This is a theatre-owner and maybe theatre production issue (Tommy hurt my ears), not an issue about race.

Words like “bullying” and “microaggression” have been so embraced by people on social media that they have become unmoored from their meanings. Bullying is defined as repeated, intentionally injurious acts of aggressive intimidation or harassment against an individual that usually cannot adequately defend themselves. People freely use “bullying” on social media (and here on BWW) to describe behavior that they perceive as being disrespectful or unkind. It’s not the same thing- and when something like bullying is a real world problem that has led to  dire circumstances for vulnerable people, I wish people would stop freely tossing it around to justify their grievances like Lewis has done here. 

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Updated On: 11/3/24 at 09:10 AM

"Race card" is never a good phrase to use, no matter the context.

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Many Broadway shows are excessively loud today. Patti should know since her Lincoln Center production of "Anything Goes" in the 1980's was one of the first Broadway musicals to use mics because they put the ship's band on stage and she had to sing over them. Musicals have been mic'ed up ever since. Many of the legends in musicals never used mics. Heck, opera singers can still hit the back row of a 3000 seat hall. But sound levels are getting out of hand. I thought "Six" was so loud that I had to use ear plugs. It's like the subway busker who thinks louder equals better. But more specifically, as an artist, Kecia should be more aware of her surroundings. Not only does it make it more difficult to focus in a two person play for the actors, but does she think it's fair for the paying audience to be equally as distracted? I doubt if the circumstances were reversed that she'd be okay with the interruptions. For her to play the race card on top of everything else is a woefully poor decision. Volume doesn't have anything to do with race. Loud is loud, and I'd be perfectly okay with new rules limiting how loud a show can be for the safety of actors and audience members too.