The show is called Here Lies Love, not Here’s Lea’s Dressing Room.
Nevertheless, audience members, a month into the new musical’s run and shortly before its July 20 opening, found their way backstage to visit Lea Salonga; the patrons are clearly fans, but their act is a breech of theatergoing etiquette and Salonga’s privacy.
A video shared on Twitter on July 16, now going viral, shows about four patrons filming Salonga, bag in hand and seemingly ready to leave the theater, in her dressing room. Dressing room visits are by no means standard; in general, the actor will invite a guest to their dressing room, but that person will have to go through a backstage security entrance. How these patrons found their way to the dressing rooms is still unclear, and, online, fans defending Salonga ask how these audiences bypassed security.
Salonga is composed but direct in her interaction with the fans; she, not security, helps usher the audiences out of the dressing room and theater, taking them through the backstage hallways of the Broadway Theatre, where the David Byrne musical, directed by Alex Timbers, is now playing.
The uninvited guests name dropped someone who allegedly gave them access, but Salonga was unconvinced.
Following the incident, shortly after midnight on July 17, Salonga tweeted, “Just a reminder… I have boundaries. Do not cross them. Thank you.”
Salonga will appear in the musical for a limited run through August 13.
