Patti LuPone gives up Actors’ Equity card, quits ‘circus’ Broadway

nypost.com:

tweeted Monday that she has quit the union representing actors on the Great White Way — a move that would prevent the three-time Tony Award winner from appearing in most major US theater productions. “Quite a week on Broadway, seeing my name being bandied about.

Gave up my Equity card; no longer part of that circus. Figure it out,” she wrote. Turning in her Actors’ Equity Association card would mean LuPone is still able to perform onstage in one-woman shows and cabarets and in most productions outside of the US.The association, which represents both actors and stage managers and negotiates wages and benefits, could not immediately be reached for comment on LuPone’s announcement.When reached by The Post, LuPone would not specify why she was deciding to call it quits on Broadway. “When the run of ‘Company’ ended this past July, I knew I wouldn’t be onstage for a very long time,” LuPone said in a statement of her most recent Broadway turn. “And at that point I made the decision to resign from Equity.”The declaration by LuPone — who won her third Tony just this year for her role in “Company” — comes after the stage star laid into a maskless theatergoer during a performance of her hit musical “Company” in May.

The exchange was caught on video and went viral on Twitter as some users deemed it “rude,” “vulgar” and “disrespectful.”However, both “Company’s” official Twitter page and the show’s musical’s lead producer, Chris Harper, said the entire production “stands with” the veteran.

That wasn’t the first time LuPone lost her cool mid-performance. The first instance happened in 2009 when an audience member snapped a photo during Stephen Sondheim’s “Gypsy.”In 2015, LuPone approached a texting theatergoer during “Shows for Days,”.