Startling footage has emerged of Broadway star Patti LuPone laying into an audience member for not wearing a mask properly after a performance of ‘Company’ in New York City.
The two-time Tony award winner berated the individual in the audience who supposedly did not have her mask pulled all the way over her nose during an after show talkback.
Put your mask over your nose, that’s why you’re in the theater,’ the 73-year-old was heard barking from the stage.
‘That’s the rule, if you don’t want to follow the rule, get the f**k out!’ LuPone screamed crazily.
Mask mandates have largely been dropped across the country, but NYC residents over the age of two ‘who can medically tolerate a face covering’ are still obliged to wear a face covering in a range of public settings.
LuPone further berated the audience member: ‘Who do you think you are if you do not respect the people that are sitting around you?’, to which the audience member responded: ‘We pay your salary!’
‘Bull****, Chris Harper (the play’s producer) pays my salary!’ Lupone barked back.
LuPone is starring as Joanne in the production, which is a female-focused version of legendary composer Stephen Sondheim’s 1970 musical of the same name.
The award-winning actress’ disdain for the audience member comes after the actress herself contracted Covid just months ago, which forced her off the stage for a run of 10 performances through February and March, according to Playbill.
The Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, where Company is playing throughout the summer, maintains a mandatory mask policy in the theater at all times which is set to continue until at least the end of the month.
But new studies suggest cloth masks, which are widely used in the US, do little to prevent the spread of Covid, or indeed any airborne diseases.
Researchers from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom found that 90 percent of particles could get through cloth masks, making them effectively useless during the pandemic.
Cloth masks have been popular in the US due to shortages and high prices associated with the far more capable N95 respirator masks.
Now, though, experts have discovered that these masks were doing little if anything to actually stop the spread of the virus, and likely contributed to spread as people who believed they were acting safely were not doing so.
Experts also warned against the use of surgical masks, as while their material is somewhat better equipped to contain Covid particles, the large gaps at the side of the mask render them ineffective.