Backstage drama
PERHAPS unsurprisingly, an inquest into a Broadway death has quickly become highly dramatic, with the heads of various investigations hurling public barbs at each other. After Actors’ Equity union exec Mary McColl suggested that Judd Burstein — who was hired to conduct a independent investigation into the suicide of “Chicago” cast member Jeff Loeffelholz — could be secretly working on behalf of the show’s producers, a furious Burstein shot back. In a statement to Page Six, Burstein claims that the lawyer McColl had hired to look into the suicide is covertly doing her bidding, “because she plainly cares only about protecting the reputation of the union, as opposed to the well-being of its members.” Burstein claims that Loeffelholz may have told the union shortly before his death that he was being bullied, but that the union did nothing. Therefore, he claims that hiring an attorney “to investigate whether Actors’ Equity breached its obligations to one of its members just before he apparently committed suicide is akin to hiring the fox to investigate the mysterious disappearance of chickens from the pen.” On Friday, after Burstein claimed that Actors’ Equity had “stymied” his investigation and told its members not to talk to him, McColl told Page Six that Burstein had been hired by NAMCO, the company behind “Chicago,” and that “NAMCO’s investigation is being conducted by an attorney [Burstein] who previously has represented it in other matters, which raises serious concerns with the independence of his investigation.” Loeffelholz died June 29 and his friends claim he committed suicide because he was bullied by “Chicago’s” directors a few days before.