On Monday night Carnegie Hall hosted a tribute to Broadway's powerhouse gay songwriting duo Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. Among the performers were Patti LuPone, Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Kerry Butler, Megan Hilty, and Jenifer Lewis, who brought down the house with I Know Where I've Been from Hairspray.
Hairspray coauthors Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman appeared on local NYC show Theater Talk on Friday night to discuss Proposition 8 and the resignation of musical theater artistic director Scott Eckern in Sacramento. (This clip does not cover the Eckern portion of the discussion - if anybody has that, please send it to me.)
Eckern left his job of 25 years after it was revealed that he'd personally donated $1000 to Yes On 8. Prior to Eckern's resignation, Shaiman had called to chastise him and then announced to the press that no Shaiman-Wittman shows would play his theater again. Since then, Eckern's situation has been used by the right-wing press as an example of "gay witchhunts" and how anybody in the arts that opposes marriage equality will have their careers wrecked by gay activists.
