The Traumatized Gatekeepers of Broadway
Theatre fans measure their passion by nitpicking. Does it do the industry more harm than good?
Earlier this year on the Las Culturistas podcast, Tina Fey had a few choice words for theatre fans.
The subject was the film version of the Mean Girls musical, which came out in January, and Fey was expressing displeasure with the “little Broadway cunts on TikTok complaining about two lines” of a song that had been changed from the Original Broadway Cast (OBC) recording.
For context, fans were not trashing the show or the film adaptation—it has a big fan base. They were nitpicking about word choice in a show that is now seven years old, a change that’s well within the purview of the creative team. “This is why we can’t have nice things,” Fey said, frustrated with the gatekeeping and the obsessive need to be “correct” and the same as the original.
When we talk about American theatre fans, we’re usually talking about people who love Broadway—musicals or plays done at the professional level in New York City. But theatre fandom is not limited to people in and around NYC. In the social media era, theatre fans live all over—and they get very invested in their shows, their stars, and yes, tiny little changes from one version to another.
To some, it’s fannish passion; to others, it’s gatekeeping, and it affects professionals and fellow fans alike. Why are theatre fans like this? As the industry struggles to survive amidst economic changes over the last few years, a huge online fandom not limited by physical proximity should be a boon. But are theatre fans actually destroying the thing they love from the inside?
