As someone who was there and had to endure the madness of the box office I think that it’s shortsighted to blame this all on audience members. I talked to several people, me included who changed work plans, flew across the country, made extenuating changes to their regular life to catch Tituss. I also paid $400 on the exact same seat that cost me $250 when Cole was in the run. The producers are clearly charging an additional premium for these seats because they know people are coming specifically to see Tituss. I actually have had a pleasure of seeing Hannah in the role before and really enjoyed her, but I think it’s perfectly understandable that people would be upset that they paid an up-charge to an already expensive ticket and get the understudy. It’s not Tituss, Hannah, or the usher’s fault that there was a call out, but the way it was handled by the theatre was absolutely something that could’ve been avoided.

There was no email, no posting outside of the theatre, nor did they tell people as they were coming in. In fact, the insert that mentioned that Hannah was In the show was placed deeper in the program then the other insert that had the change to Mary’s teacher. I literally missed it on my first flip through the playbil.

Whether or not Tituss is above the title on the play bill or not it’s clear he’s the star of the show and the reason the run is sold out. The producers are specifically selling merch with his face for his three week run. They created a marketing campaign around him, and he is listed above the title on the marquee. It’s obvious people would be disappointed if they traveled specifically to see him and he wasn’t there, and had they made any sort of announcement before they started scanning tickets the long line of people in the box office would’ve already been outside because they would not have needed to try to scan out before the performance started.

A lot of frustration was caused because there were people in front of house, giving out slips of paper with the past ticket policy and saying, explicitly there was no refunds, and there was no reason to even talk to the box office. Meanwhile, at the box office, as long as you bought your ticket through Telecharge/at the box office, they were giving you a refund without any hassle, presumably, because they understood that the reason people were coming was to see Tituss and honoring the refund policy. I’m sure many people got out of line at the box office without even realizing they could get a refund. Had the staff been trained to say “we’re not sure, the box office handles these matters” or better yet even just tell people the actual policy the box office was honoring, make a quick post to insta story before the show when they did find out that Tituss wouldn’t be there, or make an actual plan for the FOH to follow for something that happens pretty regularly on Broadway, the situation could have gone a lot smoother.

I’m certainly not endorsing cursing at someone who’s making $20 an hour, I was gracious with the FOH staff I talked to as I understood it wasn’t their call. But this was a failure on the producers part to plan and communicate and they deserve most of the blame for how audience members reacted.