Susan Egan Weighs in on HAMILTON Controversy in Response to Larry O'Connor

Following the curtain speech made by the Broadway cast of Hamilton to Vice President-elect Mike Pence that took over the Internet, the resultant aftermath included an article from Hot Air writer Larry O'Connor (formally known by the alias "Stage Right") titled "And this is why I was a closeted conservative when I worked on Broadway" (sic).

The article covers O'Connor's opinion that Broadway masquerades as a place of diversity and intersectionality, when in actuality (from O'Connor's point of view), "the 'theatrical community' is nothing more than a monolithic echo chamber that tries to fool itself into thinking they are open-minded and encouraging of all people from every walk of life."

According to O'Connor, the Hamilton cast not only sent a message to anyone who disagrees with them that "Divergent opinions are not welcome [on Broadway]," but moreover that the cast spoke from a place of privilege that most in the theatre industry will never experience, a sentiment O'Connor alleges was echoed by other 'closet conservative' theatre professionals who reached out to him in the days following Pence's visit to Hamilton.

O'Connor goes on to claim, "Indeed I can tell you from first hand experience that in the theatre industry diversity is only skin-deep and genital-high. It's the superficial and irrelevant differences of race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality that the members of the theatre community obsess over, not the more important and challenging intellectual diversity of opinions that they reject and ignore.

They expect all of their colleagues to believe the same thing or they will excise them from their lives and file them into a category of racist, sexist homophobic or just plain stupid."

As evidence for his central argument, O'Connor cited portions of a letter written in 2008 by Susan Egan, the original Belle in Beauty in the Beast on Broadway, in reaction to Scott Eckern (former Artistic Director of the California Music Theatre) donating in support of efforts to pass Proposition 8. According to O'Connor this letter was part of Egan's "crusade" that led to Eckern losing his job as Artistic Director at the California Music Theatre, a position from which Eckern resigned after several writers and theatrical organizations threatened to pull their works from the company, should Eckern remain involved.

O'Connor closes his article with the assertion that, "My former colleagues in the theatre industry claim they want to foster discussion and they hope for a dialogue about these issues, but they are being disingenuous, at best. They don't want a dialogue, they want a monologue."

Yesterday, Egan posted an official response to O'Connor's article on her Facebook page, acknowledging her role in Eckern's eventual resignation, making clear that she continues to consider O'Connor a friend, and expresses her regret that she did not exercise more awareness of her platform when she wrote the letter directed at Eckern, but she challenges O'Conner on his representation of her role and his claim about Broadway wanting a monologue. She points out that O'Conner has never reached out to her, so she is opening the dialogue here.

"I did not knowingly start a crusade and I resent that word for so many reasons, most especially the violence associated with it. I did not write more than one letter (you mention "in one of her impassioned letters") and I did not launch it to the theatre community as a whole. I wrote a post on my personal Facebook page, then people shared it. I cited a letter I received from composer of Hairspray, Marc Shaiman. I did not call for Scott's resignation. I remembered the theatre community's solidarity with the LGBT community during the early years of AIDS and cited that Scott's support of Prop 8 seemed hypocritical since his livelihood depended on those in the LGBT community. It was not particularly well-expressed. At the moment I wrote it, I actually felt like I was committing career suicide (that may surprise you); I was the little guy (an out-of-work actress) going against the "boss" (producer) who would likely never hire me again. I honestly thought, as I wrote, that I would bare the brunt of the aftermath, but that I was in a place in my life where if I never work again I'll survive, but many of my pals (most LGBT) were NOT in that position, so I decided to walk to the edge of the cliff. I was shocked by the speed at which that post went viral (wish I had expressed myself better and used alternate links), which may sound naive, but "viral" was still fairly new then and I was sitting in a Los Angeles apartment, miles away from Broadway, and honestly didn't know I was striking a chord to that degree. It was the day after an African American was elected to the White House and yet my LGBT pals were being sent to the "back of the bus." I wrote a post about those feelings."

Egan goes on to call for more understanding from both sides of the current social and political division in our country: "I wish all sides understood their platforms better. I completely misjudged my own platform 7 years ago (didn't know I had one), and it was minuscule in comparison. Hamilton is the greatest show ever (I'm sorry, there is no discussion on this point), and because EVERYONE knows about Hamilton, Dixon had an even larger opportunity, maybe even responsibility, though it was a lot to ask. He called for the postings and tweets, but he was too much the young, brash Alexander than the moment could digest. Perhaps we needed a Jefferson in this moment. Then there's Trump ... sigh ... he should know better by now that he won and now he can afford to be generous - allow some awkward steps by others, especially from those new to the world stage, and hear the message, not the delivery. Dude, c'mon, asking for an apology like some uptight school marm was cringe-worthy."

Egan writes with a breakdown of the ideal course of Hamilton-Pence-Trump events, from her point of view, including an acknowledgement from Trump that he has heard the concerns of the actors, and a promise to represent the communities from which the actors hail.

She concludes noting: "If you climb inside someone else's experience, you can stop hearing their tone and begin to hear the message. It will challenge your thinking; it will be incredibly uncomfortable for a time; it will cause a lump in your throat and make you cry, and feel anger, and relief, and shame. And if you're not feeling all that, you're not doing it right. It will be impossible to reconcile the experience with your narrative in its current form, because you will lose the stomach for being a contributor to the divisiveness. And THAT is the place where I want to meet everyone I encounter - downsizing our baggage to just a carry-on with rollers, please - where we can begin to move forward. There is a time for argument and a time to reconcile-with-differences. I say this to the (oh-so-young) liberal protestors who didn't bother to vote, the right-wing conspirators who don't know where to turn their anger now that their guy won, and everyone in between - the vast majority of great Americans who are not racist, or hateful, or ignorant, and who voted, in nearly equal numbers* for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump."

On November 19, 2016, Vice President-elect Mike Pence attended Hamilton on Broadway with members of his family, resulting in a mixed reception from fellow audience members, including boos from several of the other patrons. Following the performance, the cast, led by current Aaron Burr, Brandon Victor Dixon, read a statement directed at Pence and written by the show's composer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and the producers. Video of the statement swept across the Internet, prompting tweets from Donald Trump demanding an apology from the cast, and resulting in a flurry of support for the Hamilton cast from fellow artists and members of the entertainment industry.

For Larry O'Connor's original article, click here.
For Susan Egan's full response, click here.