I'm sure Megan Mullally is a very nice person and she's quite the trouper, appearing in The Receptionist in Los Angeles with a cast on her wrist after being in a car accident.In this Los Angeles Times story, Mullally talks about the pressure she felt being on Broadway in Young Frankenstein:
“Since I was the most recognizable name in the show, I always felt like, oh, God. I can never get sick or miss a show, because there were Will & Grace fans flying in from all over the world to see that. And I always thought, what if I miss a show and a guy came from India or a lot of people came from Finland, South American countries, everywhere.
She certainly was in the musical the night I saw it, no beef there. But I do have to take issue with this next statement from Mullally:
"I’d go out and sign autographs every night and go, if I hadn’t been there tonight and you’d come all the way from Russia, that would have been a real bummer.”
Well, I didn't come that far but I did wait outside the Hilton Theatre stage door for quite awhile on a chilly fall night, Playbill and Sharpie in hand, and she never materialized.
It wasn't a huge disappointment. I was there because I love the movie Young Frankenstein, not because I was a big Will & Grace fan.
I got a picture and chatted briefly with the wonderful Christopher Fitzgerald. I had a chance to tell Andrea Martin how funny she was in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I also met Sutton Foster and Fred Applegate.
What bothers me is that there are performers who do go above and beyond to sign autographs. Some of them, like Alice Ripley, spend an incredible amount of time talking to people.
So please, don't say you were at the stage door every night greeting your adoring fans out of your great sense of obligation when you weren't.
I'll give Mullally the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was feeling under the weather. Maybe she had out-of-town guests or she had to be someplace early the next morning. Perhaps that was the only night she missed and it just slipped her mind.
2 comments:
I'm glad I'm not the only one that felt that way. I actually DID see the show mainly just for her, and while it was a thrill seeing her live on stage, it was disappointing that she didn't come out the stage door. I went in March, and was told by a worker at the theater that she had been skipping her fans for quite some time. I understand that it's not part of her contract to do a meet and greet every night, but it was still disappointing. Actually the week I went to the show, the only main cast member that was coming out the stage door consistently was Shuler Hensley.
Wow, thanks for the comment. I thought maybe the performance I attended was the only one she missed! That makes her comment in this article even worse.
I'm so sorry you were disappointed. I go to the stage door a lot after I see a show and I know what it's like to wait there and not have the person come out.
On the other hand, many, many actors do come out and sign autographs and they're usually very gracious and giving of their time, especially the ones who are primarily theatre actors.
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