Footage has emerged of Patti Lupone shouting at an audience member for breaking Covid rules after last night’s (10 May) performance of Company.
The veteran stage actor is starring as Joanne – a boozy, sharp-tongued force to be reckoned with – in the gender-flipped revival of Stephen Sondheim’s concept musical now playing on Broadway.
After Tuesday’s show at the Bernard R Jacobs Theatre in New York, Lupone called out a woman in the audience for not wearing her mask properly.
“Put your mask over your nose,” she can be heard shouting in the video. “That’s why you’re in the theatre. That is the rule. If you don’t wanna follow the rule, get the f*** out!”
Lupone’s words were met with cheers and claps from some audience members.
The star then asked the woman: “Who do you think you are if you do not respect the people that are sitting around you?”
The woman replied “I pay your salary”, to which Lupone responded with: “Bulls***. Chris Harper pays my salary.” Harper is the play’s producer.
Read The Independent’s four-star review of Company, starring Lupone, from when it played in London in 2018, here.
