'Not cool': actor unhappy after photo taken during Broadway nude scene
A Broadway actor has spoken out against an audience member who broke theatre rules by taking a photograph during a nude scene.
Audra McDonald co-stars alongside Michael Shannon in a revival of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune at the Broadhurst Theatre in Manhattan.
“To whoever it was in the audience that took a flash photo during our nude scene today: Not cool. Not cool at all,” wrote the six-time Tony Award winner on Twitter on Sunday.
The Terrence McNally play, first staged in 1987 and later adapted for film, is a romance that opens with the two characters in the throes of passion in a sex scene.
The 49-year-old star has featured in multiple television series including The Good Wife, The Good Fight and Grey’s Anatomy and won plaudits for her performance as Billie Holiday in both the West End and Broadway in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill.
But until Frankie and Johnny, she said she had never before performed a nude scene on stage.
Before the show opened in May, she publicly shared her fears about doing the scene in an interview.
“Maybe strippers get real used to it,” she told the New York Times, “but for me there’s nothing normal about that. So there’s nowhere in my mind that I can drift off and let this just kind of happen, because everything about it is demanding that you be present.”
The director Arin Arbus brought in an intimacy coordinator – as is increasingly common on stage and screen in the wake of the #MeToo movement – to help stage it.
A spokesperson for the production said the theatre has a “no-photo policy” and that if an audience member is spotted taking a photo or video, they are asked by a member of the theatre staff to delete them.
“The photographer is then asked to show their ‘deleted’ folder and empty it so there is no record of it still on the phone. If they refuse to hand over their camera, they are asked to leave the theatre,” he added.
“The ushers and house management are vigilant; they are always on the lookout for cameras through the performance, and make announcements pre-show and after intermission.”
Unwanted photos during nude scenes is an ongoing problem for theatres. In 2009, nude photographs of
Anna Friel reportedly emerged online while she was starring in Breakfast at Tiffany’s in the West End.