The Broadway musical “Hadestown” parted ways with an actor who had been set to join the production next month after comments he made about transgender people in online videos surfaced.
The actor, Geno Segers, was scheduled to join the Tony Award-winning production as Hades, god of the underworld, with an all-new principal cast on Sept. 1, according to a news release from the show last week.
But in a statement on Sunday, the show announced that “the producers of ‘Hadestown’ and Geno Segers have mutually agreed that Mr. Segers will no longer join the Broadway production.”
The statement did not give any reason for Segers’s departure. He was to star with Amber Iman as Persephone; Jasmin Savoy Brown as Eurydice; and Kayko as Orpheus.
“Additional casting will be announced,” the statement added.
The videos in question appeared to have been removed or made private on Segers’s social media accounts sometime after he was announced in the new cast on July 30. But in clips shared by the OnStage Blog, an online theater publication, he comments on the trans community. The OnStage Blog said the clips were from Segers’s YouTube page.
In one clip, Segers says: “I’m not against anyone living out their lives the way they want, but I am against their rights superseding the rights of other people. That’s a little bit foul.”
He adds, “I don’t see transgender people becoming oppressed or being oppressed.”
In another clip, Segers appears to criticize the practice of asking others their preferred pronouns. “If you asked me what my preferred pronouns are and it’s not obvious to you that I’m a he/him, that I’m good with he/him, surely you don’t need any help. I’m not wearing a dress.”
In that same clip, Segers likens transgender people to people pretending they are service animals in hopes of receiving discounts on airfare.
It was not clear when the videos were recorded.
Segers and his representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Hadestown” has had a seven-year run at the Walter Kerr Theater on Broadway. Written by Anaïs Mitchell and directed by Rachel Chavkin, the musical reimagines the ancient myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and their journey into the underworld, with a New Orleans-style blues and jazz sound. In 2019, it won eight Tony Awards, including best musical.
Segers, a singer and voice artist, began his career playing Mufasa in the Australian production of “The Lion King,” according to a biography that accompanied the “Hadestown” news release. His television credits include “Yellowstone,” “Teen Wolf” and “Castle.”
Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
