Metro

A mystery pooper is tormenting Broadway

A mystery pooper has turned Broadway into the Great Wipe Way, laying waste to audition rooms by using them as a personal potty — and revolting thespians.

The stealthy stink bomber struck during tryouts for the “Magic Mike” musical at Pearl Studios at 500 Eighth Ave. on Feb. 26, and again on March 6 at the Ripley-Grier space down the block.

“There was a lot of disbelief,” said actress Eunice Bae of the first incident, when she saw a show rep slip on something on the floor.

“She stopped and said, ‘Oh, I just stepped in s–t.’ We all laughed thinking she was using the slang version of s–t to mean general mess, but then we all began to smell it.”

Fellow auditioner Alle-Faye Monka said, “The first theory was that someone carried it off the street on their shoes. But there is no way that was plausible given that it looked like, well, a fresh pile.”





Theater insiders have plunged in with their own hunches about what might have prompted the dastardly deposits. Some suspect the poo-petrator wanted to dump on the Actor’s Equity Association.

This after the union aggressively promoted the #askifitsequity campaign, which urged ticket buyers to find out if a show they wanted to see was a union production.

The “Magic Mike” audition was an open call, meaning both union and non-union actors were allowed to try out.

Non-union hopefuls often complain that Actors’ Equity mistreats them. But Broadway actors are upset that some shows, including “Sponge Bob Square Pants,” go on tour with non-union performers, who earn about four times less than Equity members.

Two days after the first deuce dropped, someone launched #askifs–tsequity on Twitter.





Actors being actors, they gleefully posted spoofs of the scat attacks, including a singing send-up from the cast of “The Prom” musical, which got 6,647 views on Twitter.

In another skit, based on an SVU-style show called “SPU” — Special Pooping Unit — a “Detective Brown” demands of a witness, “Any details you can help us flush out?”

One actress was grateful for the comic relief.

Alexandra Rose posted her thanks to the “serial pooper” on #askifs–tsequity for “getting me through this particularly arduous audition season.”

Others wondered if a jittery performer, perhaps on the all-tea diet popular with Broadway stars, simply couldn’t get to a bathroom in time.





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Filed under auditions , broadway , poop , 3/16/19