Being a Diva While White

500 drama queens demand Broadway legend Patti LuPone's cancellation for bitchery toward two rival divas who are black

I’ve been pointing out that in 2025 wokeness is by no means dead in big, institutional culture, such as art museums. And, now, here’s a throwback on Broadway to the not so good old days of 2018, where 500 theater kids want to cancel living legend Patti LuPone for being a diva while white.

The 76-year-old Italian-American LuPone originated the starring role in Evita on Broadway way back in 1979.

She’s never had a big movie career, but I can recall while watching probably the best movie she’s been in, Witness, some people in the theater nudging each other and saying “That’s Patti LuPone!” In her own not huge but hardly insignificant world of Broadway, she’s legitimately a big deal.

Like many divas, LuPone is highly competitive with her rival divas, and like many old people, she has a sharp tongue. In a recent interview with The New Yorker, she kvetched about at least six people she doesn’t like. For instance, she called stage and screen diva Glenn Close a “bitch.” LuPone originated the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard in London in the 1990s, but then Andrew Lloyd cast Close in the first American production, and LuPone has never forgiven her:

LuPone also complained about her ex-boyfriend Kevin Kline, Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and Ron Duguay (LuPone’s ice hockey player ex-boyfriend who is now an item with Palin), along with Broadway actresses Kecia Lewis and Audra McDonald. The first four of LuPone’s targets are white, so nobody who isn’t a gay man who is really into Broadway musical theater gossip cares about LuPone’s white-on-white bitchery.

After all, anybody who has seen All About Eve knows that Broadway actresses are barracudas toward each other:

But the last two people Lupone insulted are black women. So a huge 2010s-style whoop-tee-doo has erupted with 500 drama queens demanding her cancellation.

Paywall here.