by Caitlin Berg. @caitlinhberg Twitter, @caitlinberg Instagram.
NEW YORK, NY - While previously announced that actors would no longer meet fans at the stage door due to COVID-19 protocols, The Broadway League admitted today that this was a lie. Instead, actors are not meeting fans at the stage door because they are all too fucking weird.
“We want to be clear that not all fans are too fucking weird, but falling under the ‘too fucking weird’ category is easy,” said The League, shortly after declining to increase security funds for theaters. “To clarify if this might be about you, we’ve created a few questions to ask yourself. One, are you older than the actor you are meeting? Two, are you bringing gifts to a person you do not know? Three, are you saying anything to the actor other than a compliment about their performance? Four, have you stagedoored for that show more than once? If you answer 'yes' to any of these, you are too fucking weird.”
Jennifer Anderson, a 47-year-old Broadway fan from Toledo, Ohio, who flies to New York City monthly to see theatre, disagrees with the decision.
“I found out that my favorite former Newsie likes Doritos in 2012, and since then, I’ve brought him a few bags to the stage door every first Saturday of the month,” said Anderson, while heating up a stale Schmackary’s cookie she saved from her last trip to New York. “If I can’t bring Doritos to him, won’t he starve?”
An anonymous former Newsie, who has blocked Anderson on both Instagram and Twitter, stands with The League.
“I’ve been told countless times by fans old enough to be my parents that I saved their life,” said the Newsie, while mapping elaborate exit plans from each Broadway theater on a massive, ten foot wide map using markers, push pins, and string. “That’s insane. I’m twenty-seven. I didn’t save your life. If I could never exit a stage door again it would be the happiest moment of my career, and I’ve been in shows which have won Tonys.”
Anderson remains angry at The League, and has decided to spend the next month in New York scouting out other exits from theaters, in hopes that she can become “better friends” with random cast members from The Music Man.