It was an unusual request. The cast member, Jeff Loeffelholz, an understudy who in recent years rarely performed, hadn’t met with the director in a long time.
Thursday, August 02, 2018
A Rough Rehearsal, a Suicide and a Broadway Show in Turmoil
It was an unusual request. The cast member, Jeff Loeffelholz, an understudy who in recent years rarely performed, hadn’t met with the director in a long time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Overall, I feel like this enlightened in what goes on backstage in professional theatre. This culture of harassment and bullying that exists in middle and high school theatre really extends to professional theatre which is upsetting. Professional theatre members ought to be just that, professional and not let their personal issues get in the way of how they treat a fellow member of the theatre. The theatre goes through hard enough times on its own with people questioning its relevance now that we have television but it should never lead to bullying between directors and subordinates. This man followed his dream until it lead to his death which is something truly tragic. This man, a theatre nerd with an unusual voice, found a role that perfectly suited him and continued to perform in that role until he was bullied into suicide and this truly shows the fact that every aspect of our society is falling apart even if theatre is meant to be a safe place for artists to express themselves and speak for those without a voice behind the scenes people go through hell to participate. You can't say one thing and maintain another. Theatre needs to be responsible to its members by representing a safe workplace for every individual and take steps to fix contemporary issues rather than adding to them.
People say that bullying gets better as you grow up, but this is a perfect example showing this is untrue. Like the above comment states, you would think and hope in a professional setting, people would be more mature. When you are in a professional setting and especially when you are in a position of power, this comes with a level of responsibility. There is a line between constructive criticism and outright being unfair and mean. Theatre is an inherently cut-throat environment, where survival of the fittest unfortunately and truly is the culture. A competitive environment although, should not lead or cause one to feel so underappreciated or like such a failure they want to take their own life. Theatre is supposed to be a positive, inclusive, and open environment. How do we advertise ourselves as such when situations like this happen? What can we do as a community to stop this?
Post a Comment