Jeremy Strong and Michael Imperioli's An Enemy Of The People performance interrupted by climate protesters
Activists interrupted the Jeremy Strong and Michael Imperioli-led play last night, shouting things like "no theater on a dead planet."
In an event that feels like it could have been ripped straight out of an unused script from Succession, a group of activists interrupted Jeremy Strong’s Broadway play An Enemy Of The People last night to protest the government’s inaction concerning the climate crisis. Shouting things like “no theater on a dead planet,” the protesters cleverly staged their action during a scene in the play where Strong and his co-star, Michael Imperioli, act out a town hall meeting with the house lights in the show’s NYC theater already up to increase audience immersion (via Deadline).
In what one audience member said initially seemed like an intentional part of the show, approximately six activists stood up to reveal shirts bearing the logo of Extinction Rebellion NYC, the group responsible for the action, before walking down the aisles to the stage area. “We’re not protesting the event itself; we are not protesting theater; we are not protesting the emissions that brought spectators to get here. That’s not the point,” said one participant, Lydia Woolley (via an Extinction Rebellion press release). “We are here because we have to disrupt this public event as our last resort to draw public attention to the climate emergency we are facing today.”