Broadway's 'To Kill A Mockingbird' Halts Performance During Shooting Scare
The evening performance of Broadway’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” came to an abrupt halt Tuesday when motorcycle backfire sounds outside the theater were mistaken for gunshots.
As Deadline first reported Tuesday, the incident took place shortly before 10 p.m. and during the final scene of the play, which stars Jeff Daniels and Celia Keenan-Bolger. When a motorcycle backfired near New York’s Times Square, frightened pedestrians began dashing into the lobby of the Shubert Theatre, as well as Sardi’s restaurant, a popular nightspot for theatergoers located across the street.
According to Gideon Glick, who plays Dill Harris in the show, the sounds of the crowd emanating from both the theater’s exterior and the lobby sparked panic among both the “Mockingbird” cast, who left the stage, and audience members.
Stopped our show tonight due to a motorcycle backfire that was mistaken for a bomb or a shooting. Screaming civilians tried to storm our theater for safety. The audience started screaming and the cast fled the stage. This is the world we live in. This cannot be our world.
— Gideon Glick (@gidglick) August 7, 2019
Keenan-Bolger, who won a Tony Award for her portrayal of Scout Finch, shared her perspective on the “terrifying” experience in a series of tweets.
Tonight during my last speech in the play there was panic at our theater because a motorcycle backfired near Shubert Alley & people believed there was an active shooter & tried to get into the theater for safety. This was terrifying for the audience who heard screaming & banging
— Celia Keenan-Bolger (@celiakb) August 7, 2019
on the doors, so they hid or ran & tried to flee. It was terrifying for us because we didn't know what was happening or what to do. Our security and stage management did an amazing job of keeping people safe and as calm as possible. I'm still processing the whole experience but
— Celia Keenan-Bolger (@celiakb) August 7, 2019
all I can think about are the young people who've had to go through the actual thing. The trauma and fear that they have had to endure and what something like that does to a young person's brain. We cannot go on like this.
— Celia Keenan-Bolger (@celiakb) August 7, 2019
According to Playbill, the panic also reached the nearby Music Box and Imperial theaters, where the hit musicals “Dear Evan Hansen” and “Ain’t Too Proud—The Life and Times of The Temptations” are being staged.
While the performances of those shows had both concluded, cast members and audience members were asked to stay inside the theaters until the fracas outside subsided.
The New York City Police Department addressed the reports in a tweet late Tuesday, confirming that the sounds had, in fact, been motorcycles backfiring.
There is no #ActiveShooter in #TimesSquare. Motorcycles backfiring while passing through sounded like gun shots.
We are recieving multiple 911 calls. Please don’t panic. The Times Square area is very safe! @NYPDnews @NYPDTimesSquare— NYPD Midtown North (@NYPDMTN) August 7, 2019
The incident came just days after a pair of mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, left at least 31 people dead across the two cities.
A representative for “To Kill a Mockingbird” declined to comment.
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.