Theater

Patti LuPone gives up Actors’ Equity card, quits ‘circus’ Broadway

Broadway legend Patti LuPone may be done with Broadway.

The feisty and foul-mouthed 73-year-old tweeted Monday that she has quit the union representing actors on the Great White Way — a move that would prevent the three-time Tony Award winner from appearing in most major US theater productions.

“Quite a week on Broadway, seeing my name being bandied about. Gave up my Equity card; no longer part of that circus. Figure it out,” she wrote.

Turning in her Actors’ Equity Association card would mean LuPone is still able to perform onstage in one-woman shows and cabarets and in most productions outside of the US.

The association, which represents both actors and stage managers and negotiates wages and benefits, could not immediately be reached for comment on LuPone’s announcement.

When reached by The Post, LuPone would not specify why she was deciding to call it quits on Broadway.

“When the run of ‘Company’ ended this past July, I knew I wouldn’t be onstage for a very long time,” LuPone said in a statement of her most recent Broadway turn, for which she earned her third Tony. “And at that point I made the decision to resign from Equity.”

During a May performance of “Company,” the star laid into a maskless theatergoer.

Patti Lupone tweeted the news on Monday. Twitter/Patti Lupone

The exchange was caught on video and went viral on Twitter. Some users deemed it “rude,” “vulgar” and “disrespectful.”

However, both “Company’s” official Twitter page and the musical’s lead producer, Chris Harper, said the entire production “stands with” the veteran.

LuPone accepted the Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for her work in “Company” on June 12. Getty Images for Tony Awards Pro

That wasn’t the first time LuPone lost her cool mid-performance. The first instance happened in 2009 when an audience member snapped a photo during Stephen Sondheim’s “Gypsy.”

Then in 2015, LuPone snatched the cellphone out of a texting woman’s hands while onstage in the play “Shows for Days.”

LuPone also threatened to quit the 2002 comedy “Noises Off” after reportedly throwing a “harrowing hissy-fit.”

LuPone has developed a reputation as a diva across her Broadway career. Getty Images


Back in 1994, she was famously fired by Andrew Lloyd Webber from his production of “Sunset Boulevard.” LuPone subsequently sued the composer for $1 million and used her winning funds to build a swimming pool at her Connecticut estate.

She savagely named it the Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool.