Bullying on Broadway

[samhexum]

Broadway musical “Chicago” has launched an investigation after friends of a cast member claimed he killed himself because he was “bullied” by the show’s directors.

 

Pals of Jeff Loeffelholz — who had been a member of the cast for 22 years — started a campaign called Justice for Jeff after Loeffelholz committed suicide, claiming that the production’s director Walter Bobbie and musical director Leslie Stifelman wanted Loeffelholz out of the long-running production but that his contract wouldn’t allow them to fire him.

 

The group claims that the pair put Loeffelholz, a standby member of the cast, through a tortuous rehearsal on June 22 in an attempt to get him to quit the show, forcing him to sing the same song over and over and telling him, “You always do it wrong.”

 

The campaign’s blog, Justice For Jeffrey, claims that the account was based on notes that Loeffelholz made after the incident. Loeffelholz died a week later, on June 29. Now Page Six has learned that the producers of the show have hired attorney Judd Burstein to look into Loeffelholz’s situation.

 

In a statement, Burstein told us, “The producers of ‘Chicago’ are devastated by Jeff Loeffelholz’s death. The producers are taking this matter very seriously, and are fully committed to finding out exactly what transpired. To that end, I have been retained to conduct an exhaustive investigation on an expedited basis.”

 

Bobbie added: “I am saddened by Jeff’s tragic passing, for him and for his family.” Stifelman didn’t get back to us.

 

A Broadway insider told us it’s behavior that is known too well on the Great White Way.

 

“No one can directly blame anyone for something like suicide, but this treatment is kind of like an old-school Broadway scenario where there seems to be a disposable amount of talent that allows people to treat people like this,” said a source. “When you’re loyal to a show like that, it’s not celebrated. It can actually make you unhireable. It’s a strange thing.”

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

Very sad story.

 

It was only a matter of time before the Broadway community faced a version of the #MeToo movement.

[bostonman]

Awful that this happens at all, but yes, I can be sure that bullying like that does go on in the biz more than we are aware. It's a power play thing, just like sexual harassment, what we all know goes on. (I'm still waiting for the current zeitgeist to catch up to someone on Broadway who was the male casting couch for a very successful long-running show.)

 

Last summer, Tom Wopat was arrested at a local regional theatre for groping women in the cast, along with drunkenness and other untoward behavior. Years ago, when I was working at the same theatre company, a lead actor recreating a major role he had played on Broadway (I won't reveal the name, though he's not a big "star," more a name that just theatre people would know) slept his way through the chorus (female AND male, from what I understand), leaving a distraught young actress in tears on closing night (he had promised her the world, of course, and then - well, of course she was really just another notch in his belt), and, if the story is really true, a room full of used condoms where he was boarding. Creep. Talented, but what a fucking creep.

 

I don't know if the Wopat situation has ever gone anywhere - he might have settled, etc. But the positive thing of it all was that one of the women he had harassed was the one to call him out. And this was a few months before #MeToo came to be.

 

Looking back, I think I can actually say that I've been in a bullying situation twice - once by an actor who thought he was god's gift to everything, and once by a director who was similar. But as I look back, neither situation was much more than annoying and detrimental to the work - I was never actually physically threatened, etc. But both were extreme power plays by people who were ultimately very insecure, and in both cases, I just ignored things as best I could and did my job. Nothing ever got anywhere close to the extent that Jeff Loeffelholz suffered. The situation with the actor did make me ponder leaving the biz (something I quickly talked myself out of), but nothing was pushing me towards anything like suicide.

 

My heart goes out to Jeff's family and friends. We do have to find a way to make sure he did not take his life in vain.

[+ quoththeraven]

Very sad story.

 

It was only a matter of time before the Broadway community faced a version of the #MeToo movement.

Kevin Spacey was ostracized in part because of behavior while he was starring in a Broadway role, but it's true his fame isn't due to Broadway.

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

Kevin Spacey was ostracized in part because of behavior while he was starring in a Broadway role, but it's true his fame isn't due to Broadway.

 

And his troubles seem to keep on coming...

 

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Kevin-Spacey-Back-Under-Fire-with-Three-New-Sexual-Assault-Allegations-20180703

[+ quoththeraven]

And his troubles seem to keep on coming...

 

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Kevin-Spacey-Back-Under-Fire-with-Three-New-Sexual-Assault-Allegations-20180703

Predators predate. It's what they do.