Mandy Patinkin great comet controversy!

I hate the way they treated Oak. No actor should ever be forced out of there role so someone else can take over. However, bringing race into this is a bit of a stretch. The only reason why they wanted Mandy instead of Oak is because he's a bankable name.

I'm really saddened by all of this.

First of all, what a shame that this show needs a celebrity in it to run. Whilst it is too weird and unconventional for me to ever expect it to be a huge hit, I would have thought that 9 months into its Broadway run (and 5 years after its first run off-Broadway) it would have garnered enough of a reputation and fanbase that it should be able to last for a while without. The most Tony nominations of the season, easily the best performance on the Tonys and then this? As much as Broadway may have patted themselves on the back last year for championing a revolutionary and groundbreaking show in Hamilton, this show is as much those things and yet it has been an afterthought to another show that is doing nothing we haven't seen before. And this is why we have to understand that as much as some people like to claim otherwise, awards do matter. If this show had won big at the Tonys, its grosses would be coasting along nicely, and so would the show that actually did win big at the Tonys, which has been a success from day one. I'm not suggesting that they should always vote for the shows that aren't doing as well, but not even giving it best director which anyone with a brain could see that it deserved just says it all. Despite the best efforts of the creators and cast, Broadway was never particularly open to giving this show a chance.

Aside from all that, the big mistake here as far as I can see is casting Oak in the first place. They must have seen how their grosses went down when Josh Groban was out and the fact that they thought Oak would be someone that could pack audiences in in the same way is pretty mindboggling. I can actually understand why the producers of Amelie thought Phillipa Soo would be a draw (and I'm surprised at how much she wasn't) but Oak had such a minor part to play in Hamilton and has absolutely zero name recognition. He's absolutely talented enough to play Pierre, but they should have had the foresight to see that they needed someone bigger. Once they had made the mistake of casting him, then if they needed to ask him to leave in order to keep the show open then yes that's what they needed to do. I certainly don't blame them for resorting to that in order to keep the show alive and keep jobs on the table, but they should have anticipated the backlash and handled it in a much more considerate manner. The way they have responded to the controversy has been pretty appalling.

Unfortunately the outrage culture on Twitter has led to Mandy pulling out which now means (as far as I can see) the show will close on Oak's last day. If this is the case, it means Brittain Ashford who has been playing Sonya since day one in 2012 has already played her last performance without even knowing it. It means this huge, diverse group of talented performers (60% of whom were making their Broadway debuts) will be out of work. It means that all the hard work that was done last year with Hamilton in encouraging diverse and groundbreaking pieces to make their way to Broadway will have been undone by how off-putting this example would be. It just pains me to see how much effort has been put into this show and for what? For it to end like this?

All I can do is wish the best for Dave Malloy, Rachel Chavkin and the cast (including Oak) and hope that this show has a future somewhere, whether that be on Broadway, off-Broadway, on tour, a London production, whatever. I really can't bear the thought of it just disappearing.

Seems like the last option would have been the best option by far.

Theatremadness captured it perfectly. It was just sh*tty PR. 

Their decision to abruptly replace Oak was fine, and completely justified. But it's clear that they are tone-deaf and have absolutely no coordination when it comes to their narrative or communication. Producers issued their own statement without considering how things would come across to the public. Oak issued his own "statement" on Instagram that TOTALLY contradicts with the statement of the producers. He says his exit is permanent, while they say he might be back in Winter. Get your story together people. Dave Malloy chimed in stupidly and in the process exposed the fact that they've done this to Brittain as well, and then the producers chime in again saying they had no idea Oak "felt this way" (what exactly to they mean? He was pretty passive for the most part..it seems patronizing), and then issued a statement saying that Mandy had no idea this was all happening? All of it is just mismanaged and completely reactive.  

All they needed to do was bring all the parties together behind closed doors. Oak should have been asked to step aside for Mandy, and they needed to agree THEN AND THERE if this was permanent or temporary. Based on this agreement, their statement should have indicated that he is stepping aside for Mandy until XYZ date. I believe in the original Ingrid Michelson release, they said that Brittain is taking leave for personal reasons. Use that excuse. In the meantime and while Oak is off, say we are so amazing that we managed to get a Broadway LEGEND to fill in. If Oak decided not to come back, then all they needed to say, for reasons beyond his control, Oak decided to leave. They issue a JOINT statement where everyone gives everyone a blessing. Mandy says he's got big shoes to fill, Oak says he's looking forward to coming back (or whatever). Dave says Mandy is a legend. Done. 

So, no, this isn't about race, but the fact that they were so blind sighted and dumb not to be able to foresee this is probably an indication of their little or no regard for race politics. Further to that, Brittain's departure was handled very sensitively and without causing any humiliation. It's not crazy for someone to make an assumption that their lack of empathy or sensitivity to Oak is due to their disregard with him being person of color. 

I'm not suggesting that it is, but given that this is a news story, as a producer you should be tuned in and be able to preempt how a public will make of this whatever they want to make of it. Most importantly, as a producer, you need to CONTROL the communication and the narrative. They did no such thing. It was a perfect situation for the case to be hijacked for a cause because there was such an information vacuum. 

Of course there's no coordination. They've just fired the guy. He's hardly going to be sticking to the exact same message as the people who just fired him.

Why apologies the producers were doing their job and that is to save a show that has tanked at the box office and their latest talent did nothing to improve on that - that is why ultimately he got replaced, don't think the motivation was racial. A show running will provides many jobs for actors, no matter the skin colour, that is the power of a running show, a closed show is good to no one, nothing more, nothing less.

I agree with what's been said previously, it was just a PR disaster that made The Great Comet look incompetent, racist and tone deaf.

I think people framing this as a racial issue "POC replaced by a white actor.... LIKE ALWAYS" are mistaken, I can see why you'd come to this conclusion, but TGC did the exact same thing barely a few months previously with Brittain and Ingrid and there was no fanfare at all. In this business, when shows aren't selling, sometimes high profile names need to be brought in. In this instance it was just unfortunate that it was a white actor replacing a person of colour.

I think it's misguided and a bit stupid to go "see, look, this is always happening! Broadway HATES non-white people!", there are definitely discussions to be had with regards to systemic racism, but to lay it at the door of a show that already has a very diverse cast is more likely to put people off attempting diverse casting in future than encourage them. I mean, are we going to have an argument every time a white actor replaces a person of colour in a role, ever? Because if we want to see truly colour blind casting, this will happen, and it's not racism, it's just the fact that when casting blindly, you can't just choose actors of one ethnicity forever just to appease those who speak before they think (if you want to openly say "no we aren't casting blindly" then fine, but casting the best person for the role will provide a mix).

The problem here was that The Great Comet didn't think to make sure everybody had the same story before they put out their press release, meaning that their cast and creative team were taking to social media with directly contradictory reports of what was going on. They forgot to decide if Oak was going to succeed Mandy after his run, meaning that some people were saying he was, and others were saying he wasn't, and others had no answer because they hadn't thought more than 3 weeks ahead. Mandy hadn't been informed that an actor was being asked to step aside for him, and Oak hadn't been pre-warned that he might be forced out of his contract at any moment if he didn't increase ticket sales (this was very wrong). When the sh*t hit the fan, they rushed to try and perform damage limitation, but they were still shifting the blame onto their cast, saying it was about how Oak FELT rather than what they DID, and lapping passive aggressive blame onto both him and Mandy for leaving them without a Pierre when it was their own fault.

I don't see what they can do in this situation. They can't ask Oak to stay on because they've been so vile to him that he can't wait to get out of there, they can't get another celebrity to replace Mandy because it'd make them still look insensitive, and also the role is heavily tainted, the only thing they can really do is put the understudy on and hope that this will all die down given time. Unfortunately once that time has elapsed, they may well find themselves running at a substantial loss every week. I think it'll close.

I kind of admire her for always standing up for what she believes in; I just think she often picks the wrong 'battles,' and ends up looking bad.

I agree with her that it's disrespectful to ask someone to step out of their role and allow a bigger celeb to come in, but at the same time the producers have an obligation to investors to make the show as successful as possible, and she knows that.

Anyway I have tickets to Oak's last show on August 13th (at a huge discount) which could also end up being closing night too. The atmosphere should be special, but I have no idea what to expect of the show itself.

I think there were ways where they could have controlled it. They were just so excited over getting Mandy, and lost sight of everything else.

I agree with you that the handling has been arrogant, but not ignorant and sloppy nor racist that has also been applied, it has been solely a business management decision that has spectacularly backfired, it also came across as heartless and crass. 

Actors get replaced all the time if they don't have box office clout, that is Broadway unfortunately, if a star BAM actor replaced a white actor because of stuttering box office, then nothing would have been said, the sole mistake the producers made was employ an actor who had no box office clout, stars sell shows and unfortunately Oak isn't one of them.

The most important issue is to keep the show on the road that employs many people of different skin colour.