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More than 500 Broadway artists signed a May 30, 2025, open letter criticizing Patti LuPone’s remarks about fellow performers Kecia Lewis and Audra McDonald. The signatories called on the American Theatre Wing to hold LuPone accountable and asked that she be disinvited from the next Tony Awards, according to TheWrap and CBS News. LuPone apologized the following day. The request to disinvite her was the letter’s demand; the sources cited here do not establish how Tony organizers responded.
Why did Broadway artists sign a letter about Patti LuPone?
The letter followed a public dispute involving LuPone, who starred in The Roommate, and Lewis, who appeared in Hell’s Kitchen. The productions played next door to each other. In CBS News’s account of Lewis’s video, Lewis said complaints about noise led to sound-design changes that negatively affected the musical and its performers. Lewis also drew attention to a video in which LuPone declined a fan’s request to sign a Hell’s Kitchen playbill, saying the show was “too loud.” These are details reported from Lewis’s account, not independent findings about the production’s sound or its effects.
Lewis criticized LuPone’s conduct publicly and asked for an apology. LuPone later discussed the dispute in a New Yorker interview, where she disparaged Lewis and questioned whether Lewis was a Broadway veteran, CBS reported. The letter’s signatories treated the comments as part of a wider issue of accountability in the theatre community. They described LuPone’s language toward Lewis as “a blatant act of racialized disrespect”; that phrase is the signatories’ characterization, not an adjudicated finding.
What did Patti LuPone say about Kecia Lewis and Audra McDonald?
In the same interview, LuPone said of McDonald, “She’s not a friend,” and referred to past issues without detailing them, according to CBS. McDonald told Gayle King that she did not know what rift LuPone meant and had not seen her in about 11 years. “If there’s a rift between us, I don’t know what it is. That’s something you’d have to ask Patti about,” McDonald said, as quoted by CBS.
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What did the open letter ask the Tony Awards to do?
Dated May 30, 2025, the letter was addressed to the American Theatre Wing. TheWrap and CBS reported that more than 500 artists signed it. The signatories called for accountability and asked that LuPone be disinvited from the next Tony Awards. The letter also said its purpose was not to shame or isolate her, CBS reported. The available reporting cited here does not confirm whether the American Theatre Wing or Tony Awards organizers acted on the request.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Did Patti LuPone apologize?
Yes. On May 31, 2025, LuPone apologized publicly for her interview responses, said she hoped to apologize to Lewis and McDonald personally, and accepted responsibility, CBS reported. “I made a mistake, I take full responsibility for it, and I am committed to making this right,” she said in the apology quoted by CBS.
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