Today, every Broadway cast member is given a tutorial on social media. Press agents drill into actors’ heads what they can and, more importantly, can’t say on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any of those other newfangled outlets that have turned everybody into mini-Walter Winchells.
Rule No. 1: Don’t say anything negative. No. 2: Don’t spread backstage gossip.
James Franco and Heléne Yorke must have skipped class.
Franco, who’s got itchy fingers when it comes to his Instagram account (hello, young lady!), lashed out at Big Ben Brantley yesterday, calling the Times critic a “little bitch” and “an idiot” for panning his performance in “Of Mice and Men.”
Yorke, meanwhile, Instagrammed (is that a verb?) a snap of a backstage poster at “Bullets Over Broadway” (she plays the gangster’s girl, Olive) that says the word “f–k” has been removed from Wednesday matinees so the producers can sell tickets to high school groups.
Frankly, I think kids today have more than a passing familiarity with the F-word. If you’re going to remove anything from the script, I’d opt for this, delivered by Zach Braff: “I’m a serious artist. Wrote my first play at school when I was 8 to celebrate Thanksgiving. John Alden is turned down by Pocahontas so he rapes the turkey.”
That’s offensive — against wit. As one wag put it, “If they took out everything offensive, the show would be seven minutes long.”
Removing the F-word makes the producers look desperate. “Bullets” got mixed reviews, denting sales, so they’re turning to school groups.
Yorke, sources say, panicked as soon as she posted the photo. But her job is safe. She’s very funny, and her performance is likely to be one of the few Tony nominations “Bullets” gets.
Plus, as one source says, “At this point, we’ll take any press we can get.”
As for Franco, his attack on Brantley is pretty tepid compared to David Hare’s blistering 1989 letter to Frank Rich after the critic panned Hare’s play “The Secret Rapture.”
Variety printed it under the immortal headline, “Hare Airs Rich Bitch.”
Rich wrote a pointed response, which he leaked to his then-girlfriend, Alex Witchel, who published it in 7 Days magazine.
The exchange was the talk of Broadway for weeks.
Franco’s little broadside also pales in comparison to the heart-shaped ad that producer David Merrick slipped into the Times in 1990 revealing Rich and Witchel’s secret romance, after both zinged his revival of “Oh, Kay!”
Merrick’s ad quoted their attacks and concluded: “At last, people are holding hands in the theater again!”
The ad made the first edition before Rich, furious, had it removed. But it was picked up by media outlets all over the world.
Sad to say, Franco doesn’t have Hare or Merrick’s guts. He took his Brantley zinger down soon after he posted it, due, I’m told, to pressure from his producers who, unlike Merrick, fear the Times.
These new-media tempests in teapots reflect the agitation around Broadway on the eve of the Tony nominations. Neither “Of Mice and Men” nor “Bullets” is a shoo-in, and they may end up struggling at the box office.
The mood is much cheerier over at “After Midnight,” which is certain to pick up several nominations at the end of the month.
A source e-mailed: “Did you hear that Peggy Lee is tweeting from the Great Beyond telling folks to go see ‘After Midnight’!?
“We’re thrilled!”