This is a guest article By Ciara Gogan

There was a bold new musical on Broadway this season, Lempicka. It started previews in March, opened in April and closed in May, the closing announced two days after it earned three well deserved Tony nominations — Best Actress in a Musical (the resplendent Eden Espinosa), Best Featured Actress in a Musical (the incredible Amber Iman), and Best Scenic Design in a Musical (for the genius work of Ricardo Hernández and Peter Nigrini)

Lempicka, at its core, is unabashedly the story of a strong, complicated, queer woman, Tamara De Lempicka, and the beautifully portrayed relationship between her and her muse, Rafaela. The incredible book and music of Matt Gould and Carson Kreitzer, coupled with the nuanced direction of Rachel Chavkin (of Hadestown fame) made this story soar and shine. Tamara, a real-life figure, was a renound art Deco artist whose work was sought after in her time, and is experiencing a resurgence of late.

I first saw the show in April and am forever changed! As a strong queer woman myself, Lempicka moved me on so many different levels. It blew me wide open, rocketing me out of a 4+ year numbness (more on that here). It literally changed my life and has moved and changed lives of so many others, but that’s a story for another day. I spent much of my free time since seeing it advocating for it and its company. posting about it, and supporting it in every way I could think of.

What this article is about is the impact a premature closing like this has on the people who work their asses off to bring us these transformative works of art. The cast, crew, the entire company. Every one of them. One of the travesties of this show closing so damn early is that these incredibly talented hard working people are now out of work. Abruptly, unexpectedly without income.  The show was supposed to run for a year, at least. And it closed 5 weeks after opening night. And at a time in the Broadway season when new shows are not opening, so opportunities are very thin on the ground. This is why I was fighting so hard for this show.

I wanted to help save the show so that someone that has the singular, gut-wrenching talent of Amber Iman doesn’t have to “spend months in court fighting eviction”, which she talked about having to do on Instagram. Without this work, is she at risk for this again?  That someone with Eden Espinosa’s resplendent vocals, dedication, and courage doesn’t have to wait 16 years between worthy Broadway roles. That someone with the exuberance, stage presence, and generosity of Natalie Joy Johnson isn’t reduced to streaming tears on closing night, likely at the loss of this stage family, and what this show should have meant in terms of financial independence. I don’t know everyone’s story, I just know that they are all impacted by the premature closing of this magnificent work of theatrical art.

Everyone deserves to earn a decent, stable living. Maybe instability comes with being a theater actor, musician, or crew member, but this defiant, transcendent show should have had a very long run, one that maybe, just maybe could have provided some sense of financial safety that these incredible people deserve. But it was ultimately taken down by unwarranted bad reviews. When critics puff themselves up by tearing others down it hurts more than shows. It hurts humans. It hurts hearts. It hurts livelihoods, and food and housing security. We need to do better…much much better.

Most of the established critics were dismissive of this show, if not downright cruel. This is unnecessary, and I believe this serves their egos instead of the audience. They dismissed the work that went into this production. They dismissed the cast and crew. They dismissed the incredible love story and its exquisite portrayal between Tamara and Rafaela, and they dismissed the vast queer community this show spoke to. We need to rethink this whole system. We need reviewers, not critics, the word critic is by its definition negative. We need to diversify the slate of reviewers so that they represent the wonderful diversity of the audiences and incredible theatre community. This community that’s made up of people from all walks of life; the Black, Brown, Latinx, and Asian communities, the LGBTQIA+ community, people of all genders, the disabled community, young, old, native New Yorkers, and people from all over the world. Most of these voices are not represented in the critics writing for the major publications.

“Art helps to move and shape society” — Chris Riley.

If a work doesn’t resonate with you, you don’t need to tear it down. Maybe sit with yourself and think about why it made you feel the way it did. Great art is not meant to be tidy, formulaic, easy. It’s meant to make us FEEL something, even if that something is uncomfortable.

This show, Lempicka made so many people feel seen and represented in ways they had never felt before. It literally changed lives, mine included, and that is powerful. That is not to be dismissed.

“The mission of the theatre, after all, is to change, to raise the consciousness of people to their human possibilities” — Arthur Miller

So how do we make this “system” of Broadway work for everyone? I think we start by acknowledging that it’s entirely too reliant on positive reviews from a handful of self-important people. We uplift and support people like LaChanze, who is changing the face of the industry, we make space for the very people who fill many of the roles, backstage and onstage, the queer community, in all of our forms, and we don’t shy away from the beautifully messy storylines that are being created. We need to embrace the entire artistic community, not just those we agree with or whose work resonates with our particular perspectives. This is a moment of reckoning and potential change…will we meet the challenge?