“No hard feelings,” the Emmy winner wrote after helping physically escort one protester from the theater.
Michael Imperioli has reacted to his “wild” night after climate protestors crashed Thursday’s preview performance of his new Broadway show, An Enemy of the People.
In video footage from the event published online, at least three Extinction Rebellion activists can be seen being physically escorted out of the Circle in the Square Theater — including one by Imperioli himself — after they disrupted the play to protest the ongoing climate crisis, shouting, “There’s no Broadway on a dead planet!”
“Tonight was wild….no hard feelings, Extinction Rebellion Crew. Michael is on your side, but Mayor Stockmann is not. Much love,” Imperioli wrote on social media after the performance, referring to his character in the play.
3/ Activists are facing harsh sentences for nonviolent protest. Joanna Smith and Tim Martin protested at the National Gallery of Art to highlight the climate crisis. They face up to ten years in prison and fines of $500,000. pic.twitter.com/C3RFyflb9y
— Extinction Rebellion NYC 🌎 (@XR_NYC) March 15, 2024
Their protest echoes the premise of Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 play. The revival, which stars Imperioli and Succession‘s Jeremy Strong, follows a doctor (Strong) who discovers that the town’s drinking water is poisoning residents, only to be silenced by local officials, including his brother (Imperioli).
The protestors took a stand during a unique break in the play in which a bar is brought out on stage and theatergoers are offered the chance to have a drink as its characters mill about. Actors were called to leave the stage while the protestors were removed, but many remained in character throughout the disruption, with Strong and Imperioli reacting to Extinction Rebellion as if the interruption were part of the script.
John Nacion/FilmMagic
Michael Imperioli
In another clip from the performance, a protestor can be heard shouting that “governments have failed us,” prompting Strong to shout back, “He’s right.”
“He’s not right!” Imperioli replied.
After the final protestor was removed from the theater, Imperioli said, “Go back to drama school.”
Representatives for An Enemy of the People declined to provide a statement to EW.
Tommaso Boddi/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty Images; Bruce Glikas/WireImage
Michael Imperioli; Jeremy Strong
In a press release obtained by EW, Extinction Rebellion claimed that their interruption of the show was intended to “peacefully protest against the use of fossil fuels.” They are demanding that “the government tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, halt biodiversity loss, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.”
“This action follows a tradition of nonviolent civil disobedience in arts and theater, such as Parisian students’ occupation of the Odéon theater in 1968— not to mention theater itself as a powerful medium for provoking social change,” the release read in part. “Today’s action highlights the failure of governments and corporations to treat climate and ecological breakdown as the crisis it is.”
An Enemy of the People is set to open at the Circle in the Square Theater on March 18.
Additional reporting by Dalton Ross.
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