Bad PR

Theater that cast homophobic actress won’t commit to firing her

 

Actress Oluwaseyi Omooba was recently cast as Celie in Leicester’s Curve and Birmingham Hippodrome’s co-production of the hit Broadway musical of The Color Purple.

Birmingham Hippodrome is the UK’s most popular single auditorium theaters that attracts over half a million visitors each year.

But shortly after the announcement was made, Omooba came under fire for a hateful Facebook post she wrote in 2014 calling homosexuality unnatural and wrong.

The post was shared by Hamilton actor Aaron Lee Lambert, who tweeted: “@Seyiomooba Do you still stand by this post? Or are you happy to remain a hypocrite?”

“Seeing as you’ve now been announced to be playing an LGBTQ character,” he added, “I think you owe your LGBTQ peers an explanation. Immediately.”

Both Curve and Birmingham Hippodrome quickly issued a joint statement in response to the “historic social media post” ensuring theatergoers that they were “looking into the matter” and would release a full response in the near future.

Five days later, people are beginning to question when–or if–that response is ever going to come.

The fact that it’s been five days and the show’s producers still haven’t figured out how to handle the matter, or even craft a response longer than 140 characters, is definitely not a good look.

Maybe they’re still trying to figure out who to cast in Omooba’s place?

As one Queerty reader on Facebook commented:

Related: Broadway musical star blasts homosexuality as unnatural and “not right”

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