Patti LuPone Isn‘t Retiring but Broadway Has ‘Dumbed Down the Audience’ by Turning Into ‘Disneyland, a Circus and Las Vegas’

variety.com:

Katie Reul editor Three-time Tony winner Patti LuPone isn’t leaving Broadway. Despite her recent move to give up her Actor’s Equity card, which fans took as a sign of her impending retirement, she says she’s just taking a break. “I just gave up my equity card, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t perform on-stage,” LuPone told Variety at Netflix’s “The School for Good and Evil” premiere Tuesday. “It’s 50 years that I’ve been a member of Actors Equity, and I think I need a break from the stage.” LuPone clarified that provisions in her former membership allow her to still make guest appearances on stage in the meantime, but without being a part of the labor union, she won’t be taking any major roles on Broadway any time soon.

LuPone knew she needed a break after “Company” wrapped its theatrical run in July. But another part of the reason for her resignation from Actor’s Equity, Lupone said, was that she felt Broadway had underwent drastic changes since she began her storied career in 1973 that have led to the theater industry becoming commercialized and filled with fewer original stories. “Broadway has also changed considerably,” LuPone said. “I think we’ve spent — not we, but whoever’s in charge of, whatever — has actively dumbed down the audience.

And so the attention span of the majority of the audience, I think, is much less than it was in the past, and I don’t think plays are going to have long lives on Broadway — I feel as though it’s turning into Disneyland, a circus and Las Vegas.” “There’s still very intelligent audiences that support the theater, but the ticket price is outrageous,” LuPone continued. “There’s so many obstacles that prevent theater from being the tool it should be in society, which is an