Would You See a Broadway Show Starring a Trump-Supporting Performer?

Imagine if you will, you’ve just bought tickets for a Broadway show you’ve been dying to see for a while. Weeks before the show date, you find out that one of the leads in the production is a supporter of President Trump. Now, if you too are a supporter of the President, I would imagine this might build up your excitement even more to see the show. If you don’t care about politics, then maybe it won’t even impact your excitement to see the show.

But what if you’re not a Trump supporter. What if you’re someone who is incredibly disapproving of our Commander-in-Chief and would like nothing more for the opposing candidate to win this November? Or worst yet, what if you're someone whose been directly impacted/marginalized by policy decisions this President has made?

Would you still go see the show?

The professional theatre industry seems to be the most unwelcome to those who lean to the right. Very rarely have we seen anyone grace Broadway stages who publicly support right-wing policy. While I do know some who are currently employed, they keep their political allegiances under the most secretive lock and key.

“When I hear politics being discussed in the dressing rooms, I either keep to myself or pretend to go along with everyone else,” one Republican performer told me. “No sense in becoming the black sheep in the cast.”

I had another performer tell me that if their GOP membership was ever found out, they knew at least one director who would make sure they were never cast in her productions ever again.

So you can imagine, if there are Trump-supporting performers on Broadway, you’ll probably never know who they are. Until possibly now.

The casting news announced this week was that a possible Trump-supporting, right-wing toting performer was coming to Mean Girls and the reaction hasn’t gone over too well.

On March 10th, Laura Leigh Turner will make her Broadway debut in the Tina Fay show in the role of Karen. Originally from Arkansas, Ms. Turner attended Oklahoma City University, where she majored in musical theater.

Just after the announcement, a picture of her shaking hands with Donald Trump started making the social media rounds. In the picture, Ms. Turner states “Mr. Prez and I disagreed on a few things but we agreed on the fact that we both went to the Oklahoma State Fair for the food so we shook on it.” She then uses the #makeamericagreatagain.

It’s unknown what year the picture was taken but the Oklahoma State Fair occurs typically at the end of September.

Looking at her Twitter account, she follows a number of Conservative TV personalities and journalists as well as Christian and Pro-Life organizations. But she also follows a number of non-right wing folks such as President Obama, AOC, and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Well, this was enough for some to air their issues with this on social media with others even starting a petition to recast the role. On Change.org, a petition has been drawn up titled “GET TRANSPHOBE/PRO-LIFER LAURA LEIGH TURNER OUT OF MEAN GIRLS”. I’m not going to link to the petition for reasons I’ll explain soon.

Created by Merry Rina, the petition states,

“It was recently announced that Laura Leigh Turner would be taking over as Karen, replacing Kate Rockwell. It has been brought to some fans of “Mean Girls” attention on Twitter, that she's following many pro-life, homophobic, conservative, transphobic public figures. And it is understood that some of her tweets may be harmful as well. If we can get the attention of MG maybe something can be done about this. This is absolutely unacceptable and I strongly believe they need to hold an open call audition to find someone more suitable for the role. We can't sit back and let this happen. It's not right.“

So let’s discuss this, but let’s clear up some things.

First, declaring that Ms. Turner is a “transphobe” is as far as I know, incorrect and unfair. I took a look at her tweets going back as far as 2016 and I didn’t find anything remotely transphobic. Does she follow people on Twitter who have said hateful things about trans people? Yes. But does that automatically mean that she endorses their comments? Absolutely not. Also following some of these people are Taye Diggs, Rachel Chavkin, Patrick Page and Jackie Hoffman. By this petition’s logic, that must mean that they are transphobic, which none of them are. Just try and call Jackie Hoffman transphobic, good luck with that.

Following someone on Twitter has never meant that you endorse their beliefs, it simply is another way of saying you’re subscribing to their tweet feed. I follow lots of people who I don’t agree with politically, but they do put out content that keeps me up to date with what’s going on in the world. Which reminds me, follow us @onstageblog.

Secondly, after reviewing her tweets going back to 2016, I didn’t find anything problematic either. Is it clear that Ms. Turner is a devout Christian? Yes. Did she once tweet support for pro-life causes? Yes. Did she do it in a hateful way? No. Does she quote a lot of scripture? Yes. Does she condemn others who don’t believe what she does? No. If she did, then there would be an issue, but from what I’ve seen, she hasn’t. So I don’t know what Merry Rina is talking about.

Third, unless Ms. Turner was tweeting hate speech, I’m 99.9% sure that the producers wouldn’t fire her. Like it or not, the way you vote for President can’t get you fired from your job.

And let’s also go back to the photo for a moment. I’m not 100% convinced Mr. Turner is a Trump supporter. She does mention in the caption that she disagrees with the President, which is about as far as a criticism many right-wingers will go, especially if they’re from AR. I’ve read similar type statements from other Republicans against Trump but won’t go over the top with their disapproval due to fear of retribution both professionally and socially. Maybe Ms. Turner was doing the same?

But even if Ms. Turner was a die-hard cheerleader from MAGA country, does that matter when it comes to her performing in Mean Girls? I say, as long as she’s not saying detestable things to her colleagues and this creating a hostile work environment, let her support whoever she wants. And the good news folks? She hasn’t come close to saying any of those things.

I feel that theatre is one of those few professions that can unite and where two sides and educate each other. We have to be willing to work with those on the other side of the aisle. We have to show we can be better than our elected leaders sometimes.