After the 'A Chorus Line' scandal, Bradley Playhouse leadership must resign
by Chris Peterson, OnStage Blog Founder
This past week, I reported that the Bradley Playhouse had its licensing rights to ‘A Chorus Line’ revoked because they had removed the only Black character, “Richie”, from the show when they couldn’t cast him.
As a result of Concord Theatricals stepping in, the Bradley had to cancel the entire show run - just four days before it opened. The news has spread far and wide, and the theatre is rightfully getting dragged on social media. Their next show is ‘The Addams Family’, which opens this Oct, that is, if they don’t do anything to make Theatrical Rights Worldwide revoke the licensing rights too.
But while those at the Putnam, CT playhouse think that they can turn the page from this scandal and just move on to their next show, it’s not that easy. It’s never that easy. And if the playhouse truly wants to wash themselves of this and start anew, they need to do it with new leadership.
When the announcement that ‘A Chorus Line’ had been canceled, Bradley Playhouse president Tonya Hopcroft Brock added a statement that read the following:
“Heartfelt thanks for the outpouring of support.
For those of you who have taken issue with the word choice, I ask you to trust that the intention was to show support for this person, not place blame. I can also assure you that, as President of the Board, I take full responsibility for anything that happens on my watch. The leadership here recognizes that this was an honest mistake, and seek to learn from this unfortunate situation. We would be most grateful for your understanding and support, as we are all capable of making mistakes, and nobody deserves to be judged solely by their worst moments.
I sincerely thank you for your feedback, so I can also learn how to best manage difficult communications in the future.”
Her statement elicited support and sympathy from those in the community. It’s important to know this was before I reported on why the show closed. Once I hit “publish”, the narrative changed completely.
And while her statement does raise questions (for instance, was the mistake by the “volunteer” that they asked Concord Theatricals if they could erase a role from the show?), she makes it very clear that she takes “full responsibility for anything that happens on my watch”. She adds that “leadership here recognizes that this was an honest mistake and seeks to learn from this unfortunate situation.”
Okay, I’ll hold her to her word. You all need to resign.
Executive Board members, President Tonya Hopcroft Brock, Vice President Michael Gallo, Secretary Jeanne Foley, and Treasurer Barbara Rasmussen. Along with anyone else on their board or other positions that had a hand in making this terrible decision(like director Aidan Horrigan) or weren’t doing their roles responsibly enough to stop it.
Because one of three things likely happened here:
The leadership was in full knowledge and approved the decision to remove a Black role from a show simply because they couldn’t find a Black actor to portray him. Keep in mind this action, with approval from the rights holder, would absolutely violate the licensing agreement.
The leadership approved the decision, knew it was wrong, and tried to sneak it past Concord Theatricals, only to have a “volunteer” blow the whistle on them with an ”unfortunate miscommunication”, as they would call it.
The leadership was completely unaware that a decision like this was made, which shows a stunning lack of oversight and responsibility that put their theatre's future at tremendous risk.
All three are bad. Everyone needs to go.
While this one incident would be enough for an entire executive board to resign, this is just the latest example of poor decision-making that puts the Bradley Playhouse in a terrible spotlight.
For instance, in their 2016 production of ‘Avenue Q’, it looks like they had the same issue of being unable to find a Black performer to play the role of Gary Coleman. So rather than scour the earth to cast the role correctly, they cast a non-Black performer and made a “Gary Coleman” puppet. I can only imagine what that sounded like, but you don’t have to imagine it because the Bradley proudly displays that photo on their website.
Yikes. Also, it should be noted that president Tonya Hopcroft Brock was also in the cast as Christmas Eve. This means Brock had a front-row seat to a very bad creative decision with that production and perhaps represented one herself.
And if that weren’t strike one and two, strike three would have to be their upcoming adult production of ‘Cabaret’ where, on the audition notice, they listed available roles for teenagers as young as fifteen years old. I would really like to know what roles they would have in mind for a minor in an adult production of ‘Cabaret’.
Oh wait. I don’t have to. They put it on their audition notice. They were looking for minors to portray the Kit Kat Klub girls.
Yes, they were apparently all fine with having teenage girls perform as Kit Kat Klub dancers along with an adult male Emcee who they wanted to make sure was “comfortable with being close to both men and women.”
Unless this is a completely different musical than the one we all know, there is no appropriate way and it’s downright dangerous.
UPDATE: According to sources, no minors ended up being cast in the production and the Bradley is a co-producer of the show with another organization. However, that doesn’t take away the fact that minors could have been cast, and as listed co-producer, Bradley leadership had a hand in approving how the show would be cast. Another example of poor leadership and decision-making.
Folks, the leadership at the Bradley Playhouse has to go. They made one wrong decision with ‘A Chorus Line’ but have a history of other disastrous decisions that put people at risk. It is some of the worst leadership I have ever seen at a community theatre.
I hope by the time the sun sets today, the entire executive board resigns or is replaced. I’m sure there are good, decent people within the Bradley Playhouse community. They deserve much better.