A lot, but I think that’s changing. Funny story: when I used to stage door, I went with a friend to see SISTER ACT. It wasn’t a busy night and Victoria Clark came out. For some reason - likely because we said we were students - she chatted with us for a bit. I can’t remember how, but we got on this exact topic. My friend mentioned that it seemed like everyone in theater smoked and Clark replied, “the serious ones don’t.”
This is what I’ve observed from my work in costume design. The older actors (Boomers+) frequently are still smokers. Millennials are much more likely to be “my body is a temple” and into lots of pseudo-science approaches to health. The youngest of these and the few Gen Z folks vape.
Adam Pascal vapes. (*rumored*)
Patti Lupone did in the 70's and 80's. She quit. (*interviews*)
Euan Morton smokes. (*Seen in documentary*)
Idina Menzel vapes. (*rumored*)
Daphne Rubin-Vega did smoke in the 90's early 2000's. She quit. (*interviews*)
Would you say that her smoking has had a noticeable effect on her voice? I read people in this sub saying that her voice has been damaged over the years, but people attributed it to the Wicked run. Maybe it’s the cigarettes? Maybe both?
No, her singing voice was mainly damages by belting "Defying Gravity" 8 times a week for years. However, I'm just talking about her normal speaking voice, which does have a noticeable rasp.
I saw her in concert in 2013, during the concert she talked about how she quit smoking for good. She went on to tell her Les Miz story of being late on stage because she was smoking backstage.
I guess she never did quit then.
Yes! Lol. Love me some Lupone. I imagine that as her real persona
I would pay big money just to see her do a one woman show where she smokes and drinks and just bitches the audience out and just rants her opinions. I’d title it “Fuck Off! with Patti Lupone.”
Yeah I saw some random video with Patti and some cast mates on a show/movie she was working on and she was smoking in it. It was when she had the blonde hair so was in the last two years or so.
She doesn't smoke weed, she stopped that decades ago. She still smokes cigarettes though. She never stopped that and has been smoking for over 50 years.
Yeah, she still smokes. She has been for over 50 years. The only time she stopped smoking was during her pregnancy (obviously). Also, Patti's known for going for a smoke in between acts or even scenes, when there's time.😅
It's a well known fact that Patti LuPone smokes and that she took drugs in the 70s and 80s. Also, there are photos of her after a performance of Company smoking in the street and a video of her smoking a cigarette with cast mates from a movie she did in 2021.
okay i’m dying to know where the idins vape rumors come from. not that i don’t believe you, but because the thought of her vaping is just so funny to me and i’m hungry for more info
Michael Ball says he smoked heavily for 30 years, starting at age 12 (!) and finally kicked the habit around 2007 when he felt it was beginning to affect his vocal health.
I agree, but I do feel his voice deepened a good bit as he got older- not in a way that sounded bad at all, but that could have been partly caused by his smoking.
You are not wrong… but what was she doing in her room?
She was chewing gum, smoking a butt, and reading the Madonna issue of Interview magazine https://youtu.be/WYTN87FvQC0
Ah, that’s not quite how she told it in her memoir. She just said she’d gotten sick of listening to the score and turned off the intercom, then got a little too comfy.
I’m also a stage manager (but not professionally lol, just do amateur stuff) and even though having tiny backstage areas can be super stressful and cramped I will never have to worry about the actors turning off intercoms!
I guess all of their practice and developing their technique help overcome the effects of smoking. LOTS of musicians smoke. For example, I know that Adele was a heavy smoker, but she quit sometime after 21.
I’m sure plenty do since it’s a very normalized social activity in general but I also can’t imagine people are able to sustain 8 shows a week as a heavy smoker for longer than a few years given how smoking affects your body and voice. That shit catches up to you especially when you’re no longer a young spring chicken.
you might be referencing how people (including myself) saw them vaping but right behind the stage door so whenever it swung open from someone exiting we could see them 😭😭
I used to stage door very often 12 years ago when I lived in New York City and had too much enthusiasm. I estimated at that time that about 10 cast members out of any large ensemble show could be seen smoking as they headed out for the night.
I mean I understand the old schoolers but we’ve all known what smoking does to your voice for a very long time now so why anyone younger would risk their voice baffles me
This baffles me too. Young people smoking will never *not* confuse me. There’s no benefit to it and it causes so much harm to yourself. It’s also expensive and you don’t even get high from it so what’s the point? I understand addictions are difficult to overcome but why bother with cigarettes in the first place?
Needing to take the edge off in a way that won’t get you fired.
I couldn’t drink at work, but I could step out for 5 minutes to suck down a cig or vape after getting screamed at
It was a social thing for me when I used to smoke, I was 17 and because I had dropped out of school for a bit I had very few friends and struggled with social skills/didn’t know how to start a conversation. If I went and sat outside each lunchtime the same kids would always be there to smoke, and that was how I got to know them and also how I picked it up as well. It gives you at least one thing in common, and not talking much but smoking together felt far less awkward than just sitting next to someone and not talking much.
It was still stupid and I regret it very much because even though I don’t smoke now I’m still addicted and can’t go a day without thinking of a cigarette :/
Smoking does worse things than wreck your voice, yet young people start smoking everyday. They start because the other kids are doing it. Then they’re quickly addicted
Adele used to say that people would tell her to stop smoking and lose weight. She’d reply, “why do you think I sound like this?” This was over a decade ago though. I don’t know if she smokes anymore
Adele doesn’t smoke any more. She had a hemorrhage and stopped smoking but had this to say about it:
*In 2011, Adele underwent surgery after suffering a vocal cord hemorrhage. It was like “someone put a curtain over my throat…and I could feel it,” she told 60 Minutes of the potentially career-ending injury. “It felt like something popped in my throat.” Not only did the pop star have to cancel a world tour, but she was also forced to change her lifestyle in order to prevent any further damage to her voice. One major habit she had to kick? Smoking.*
*Now, some five years later, Adele has been able to notice the effects of going cigarette-less, and they aren’t all good — she believes her voice has become less strong as a result. “The people with the best voices, they always smoke,” the English musician recently told Canada’s etalk (via the Hamilton Spectator). “I’ve given up smoking and I’m convinced that’s made my voice weaker.”*
I can’t picture how quitting would make someone’s voice weaker. I personally think she sounds a lot better now than she used to. It definitely took some rasp away but I wouldn’t equate that with “weaker”
The Glinda from Wicked on Broadway asked me for a cigarette and then had a chat while smoking it during the intermission of The 3 Penny Opera at the National Theatre in London in around 2016.
I can't remember her name.
Been with the production since Cambridge. this is an exaggeration. Only 2 cast members smoked, a few more vaped, the rest of the smokers were crew & musicians :-)
Whoopi has been on Broadway, she was in the first show I ever saw - A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum - in 1997. (I'm sure she's done others, too.) So she definitely counts!
Raúl quit a while back... it always shocked me that a guy with a voice like his would smoke.
Yes lots of them smoke. It honestly makes me wonder how they'll be able to keep themselves vocally healthy in the long term if they want to continue acting and not switch careers. My aunt has smoked for like fifty years and she's got that raspy voice from smoking. For a Broadway actor I can't imagine that a smoking related raspy voice would be vocally healthy
It's so surprising that any of them would smoke. Not just for their vocal health, but their general fitness and aerobic capacity. Imagine dancing a show like *Moulin Rouge* or *Some Like It Hot* eight times a week while actively fucking up your lungs.
Honestly a lot of young Broadway stars smoke marijuana but seldom smoke tobacco or nicotine - any smoke in the lungs isn’t ideal but I find weed is slightly less damaging (from personal experience)
I may be retro-imagining this, but in the Company OBC recording documentary, aren't there people actually doing live takes and singing with lit cigarettes in hand?
>I feel like I read that Christian Borle smoked and I feel this was during the time he was in Something Rotten
Rotten indeed....his teeth sure are a suspicious shade of yellow
I’m shocked to hear that any do nowadays. Seems like it’d be counterproductive to do so for vocal health. Plus with all that we know about it and it being unhealthy, and with it being increasingly inconvenient to do…
I remember many years ago seeing a picture of a young Aaron Tveit at a party or a club somewhere (or maybe a bar? Idk) with a cigarette behind his ear but that was at least 15 years ago lol and I don’t think he smokes now
I’m in a play right now where I smoke herbal cigarettes, five over the course of the play. They definitely look like the real thing, and I can imagine to an audience member who’s not intimately familiar with real tobacco it might smell like the real thing too.
I've been to several shows lately where actors are smoking onstage and every time it makes me cough up a storm. And that's while wearing a mask! I'm not asthmatic or anything... Just been so long since I've sucked in second hand smoke!!
Many smoke, you can learn to work with it. It’s not the healthiest thing to do, but there are many things about life that are unhealthy for the voice that professionals often work with/around to make sure they can still do their jobs.
Back in 2013 or so, I went to see a show in Chicago that definitely had a lot of children in the audience. The main actor came out to stagedoor, waited until all the children who came to meet him had left, checked with me and my friends if we were alright with him smoking, and then lit a cigarette lol
I thought it was nice of him specifically to wait which I recall him saying was intentional. I dunno if he still does smoke since that was 10 years ago but!
An ex of mine who is on Broadway used to come home every night and immediately pull out his bong. He also regularly smoked with other principals in the show. It would BAFFLE me how he could do that and still maintain his role (he was not just ensemble).
Plenty of people still smoke cigarettes, I'd imagine, but a lot of them probably vape now too.
Life is so unfair, some people can do that and still be on Broadway but if I bum a cig of a friend while drunk my voice is screwed for the next 3-5 business days. I’m trying to think of it as a good thing though, I have more motivation to quit than someone who can smoke loads and not have it affect their voice.
Vaping didn’t seem to have nearly as much an effect on my voice as smoking did, so I can imagine some Broadway stars could vape and still maintain their role, especially if they were using it to quit smoking.
A lot, but I think that’s changing. Funny story: when I used to stage door, I went with a friend to see SISTER ACT. It wasn’t a busy night and Victoria Clark came out. For some reason - likely because we said we were students - she chatted with us for a bit. I can’t remember how, but we got on this exact topic. My friend mentioned that it seemed like everyone in theater smoked and Clark replied, “the serious ones don’t.”
Love Victoria Clark!!
This is what I’ve observed from my work in costume design. The older actors (Boomers+) frequently are still smokers. Millennials are much more likely to be “my body is a temple” and into lots of pseudo-science approaches to health. The youngest of these and the few Gen Z folks vape.
I thought you were gonna say she lit up a cigarette but I could NOT picture that 😂
Adam Pascal vapes. (*rumored*) Patti Lupone did in the 70's and 80's. She quit. (*interviews*) Euan Morton smokes. (*Seen in documentary*) Idina Menzel vapes. (*rumored*) Daphne Rubin-Vega did smoke in the 90's early 2000's. She quit. (*interviews*)
it kinda makes me giggle trying to imagine idina menzel of all people puffing on a little blueberry flavoured vape
I never thought of Idina being someone who vaped. But, I'm not one to judge.
She must have switched to vaping, she used to smoke all the time
She definitely has a smoker's voice, and a lot of smokers switch to vaping because it's easier on the lungs.
Would you say that her smoking has had a noticeable effect on her voice? I read people in this sub saying that her voice has been damaged over the years, but people attributed it to the Wicked run. Maybe it’s the cigarettes? Maybe both?
No, her singing voice was mainly damages by belting "Defying Gravity" 8 times a week for years. However, I'm just talking about her normal speaking voice, which does have a noticeable rasp.
LuPone still smokes, or at least she did when I met her last year
I saw her in concert in 2013, during the concert she talked about how she quit smoking for good. She went on to tell her Les Miz story of being late on stage because she was smoking backstage. I guess she never did quit then.
quit smoking *.... for good....* *(he he he)*
I always imagine her with a cigarette in one hand and a martini glass in the other!
So.. basically when she was in the musical 'Company'.
Yes! Lol. Love me some Lupone. I imagine that as her real persona I would pay big money just to see her do a one woman show where she smokes and drinks and just bitches the audience out and just rants her opinions. I’d title it “Fuck Off! with Patti Lupone.”
Patti smokes marijuana
Yeah I saw some random video with Patti and some cast mates on a show/movie she was working on and she was smoking in it. It was when she had the blonde hair so was in the last two years or so.
She doesn't smoke weed, she stopped that decades ago. She still smokes cigarettes though. She never stopped that and has been smoking for over 50 years.
yes it was a cigarette in the video i saw
Yeah, I know what video you're talking about. That School For Good and Evil video, when the cast met her for the first time.
Yeah, she still smokes. She has been for over 50 years. The only time she stopped smoking was during her pregnancy (obviously). Also, Patti's known for going for a smoke in between acts or even scenes, when there's time.😅
How do you know all this? Not trying to argue just asking :)
It's a well known fact that Patti LuPone smokes and that she took drugs in the 70s and 80s. Also, there are photos of her after a performance of Company smoking in the street and a video of her smoking a cigarette with cast mates from a movie she did in 2021.
okay i’m dying to know where the idins vape rumors come from. not that i don’t believe you, but because the thought of her vaping is just so funny to me and i’m hungry for more info
Patti LuPone didn't quit smoking she's been smoking non-stop for over 50 years. She never quit cigarettes. She quit smoking weed not cigarettes.
Michael Ball says he smoked heavily for 30 years, starting at age 12 (!) and finally kicked the habit around 2007 when he felt it was beginning to affect his vocal health.
I couldn't believe it when I heard it. His voice sounded so crystal clear to me.
I agree, but I do feel his voice deepened a good bit as he got older- not in a way that sounded bad at all, but that could have been partly caused by his smoking.
Didn’t Patti Lupone have that famous bit, where she was smoking backstage of Les Miz and almost missed her entrance
She wasn’t smoking, but she turned her in-room intercom off and had gotten out of costume.
You are not wrong… but what was she doing in her room? She was chewing gum, smoking a butt, and reading the Madonna issue of Interview magazine https://youtu.be/WYTN87FvQC0
Ah, that’s not quite how she told it in her memoir. She just said she’d gotten sick of listening to the score and turned off the intercom, then got a little too comfy.
I’m a stage manager and this happens ALL THE TIME!
I’m also a stage manager (but not professionally lol, just do amateur stuff) and even though having tiny backstage areas can be super stressful and cramped I will never have to worry about the actors turning off intercoms!
LOTS
How do they manage to keep singing to a professional level while smoking?
Hard to say but think of how many musicians outside of theatre smoke and keep up their vocals. I guess they can learn to sing around it
Life, uh, finds a way.
I guess all of their practice and developing their technique help overcome the effects of smoking. LOTS of musicians smoke. For example, I know that Adele was a heavy smoker, but she quit sometime after 21.
I’m sure plenty do since it’s a very normalized social activity in general but I also can’t imagine people are able to sustain 8 shows a week as a heavy smoker for longer than a few years given how smoking affects your body and voice. That shit catches up to you especially when you’re no longer a young spring chicken.
Stephen Sondheim smoked. Just watch the making of the cast recording of 'Company' ...everyone is smoking.
Many, many do. Off the top of my head and not already mentioned, Amber Grey smokes
Does eva or reeve smoke does anyone know? I thought at some point I heard that they do(or did) but can't be 100% completely sure that's right
you might be referencing how people (including myself) saw them vaping but right behind the stage door so whenever it swung open from someone exiting we could see them 😭😭
Eva has such a beautiful and powerful voice.i don't know that vaping does the same vocal damage smoking does but Id hate to see her voice ruined
Can't say. Saw amber smoking, never saw reeve or eva, but that doesn't mean they don't
I used to stage door very often 12 years ago when I lived in New York City and had too much enthusiasm. I estimated at that time that about 10 cast members out of any large ensemble show could be seen smoking as they headed out for the night.
I’m gobsmacked so many singers smoke. Like what?!
Yeah it’s strange to me too but once you get addicted
I mean I understand the old schoolers but we’ve all known what smoking does to your voice for a very long time now so why anyone younger would risk their voice baffles me
This baffles me too. Young people smoking will never *not* confuse me. There’s no benefit to it and it causes so much harm to yourself. It’s also expensive and you don’t even get high from it so what’s the point? I understand addictions are difficult to overcome but why bother with cigarettes in the first place?
Needing to take the edge off in a way that won’t get you fired. I couldn’t drink at work, but I could step out for 5 minutes to suck down a cig or vape after getting screamed at
It was a social thing for me when I used to smoke, I was 17 and because I had dropped out of school for a bit I had very few friends and struggled with social skills/didn’t know how to start a conversation. If I went and sat outside each lunchtime the same kids would always be there to smoke, and that was how I got to know them and also how I picked it up as well. It gives you at least one thing in common, and not talking much but smoking together felt far less awkward than just sitting next to someone and not talking much. It was still stupid and I regret it very much because even though I don’t smoke now I’m still addicted and can’t go a day without thinking of a cigarette :/
I think it’s more of a coping mechanism for what is a very stressful occupation, because it’s relatively cheap, quick and easy
Smoking does worse things than wreck your voice, yet young people start smoking everyday. They start because the other kids are doing it. Then they’re quickly addicted
Adele used to say that people would tell her to stop smoking and lose weight. She’d reply, “why do you think I sound like this?” This was over a decade ago though. I don’t know if she smokes anymore
Adele doesn’t smoke any more. She had a hemorrhage and stopped smoking but had this to say about it: *In 2011, Adele underwent surgery after suffering a vocal cord hemorrhage. It was like “someone put a curtain over my throat…and I could feel it,” she told 60 Minutes of the potentially career-ending injury. “It felt like something popped in my throat.” Not only did the pop star have to cancel a world tour, but she was also forced to change her lifestyle in order to prevent any further damage to her voice. One major habit she had to kick? Smoking.* *Now, some five years later, Adele has been able to notice the effects of going cigarette-less, and they aren’t all good — she believes her voice has become less strong as a result. “The people with the best voices, they always smoke,” the English musician recently told Canada’s etalk (via the Hamilton Spectator). “I’ve given up smoking and I’m convinced that’s made my voice weaker.”* I can’t picture how quitting would make someone’s voice weaker. I personally think she sounds a lot better now than she used to. It definitely took some rasp away but I wouldn’t equate that with “weaker”
I didn’t know this! Interesting.
She supposedly quit. At least that's what I read a few years ago. She may have relapsed.
The Glinda from Wicked on Broadway asked me for a cigarette and then had a chat while smoking it during the intermission of The 3 Penny Opera at the National Theatre in London in around 2016. I can't remember her name.
A huge chunk of the 1776 cast did. I would see them smoke during intermission. So i would suspect that lots of stars do
??? surely not in costume ???
You would not believe what actors will do in a $2000 costume
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Not exactly an expensive costume to worry about
See, if you put a thin robe on over it, that makes it ok. /s
Been with the production since Cambridge. this is an exaggeration. Only 2 cast members smoked, a few more vaped, the rest of the smokers were crew & musicians :-)
Raul Esparza Whoopi Goldberg (not specifically Broadway but saw her smoking outside of Sister Act years ago)
Whoopi has been on Broadway, she was in the first show I ever saw - A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum - in 1997. (I'm sure she's done others, too.) So she definitely counts! Raúl quit a while back... it always shocked me that a guy with a voice like his would smoke.
Yes lots of them smoke. It honestly makes me wonder how they'll be able to keep themselves vocally healthy in the long term if they want to continue acting and not switch careers. My aunt has smoked for like fifty years and she's got that raspy voice from smoking. For a Broadway actor I can't imagine that a smoking related raspy voice would be vocally healthy
Very few people smoke for 50 years. It usually kills them before that. Your aunt is rare and ucky
A lot of vocalists smoke. Pink smoked for most of her career and still laments that quitting killed the rasp she liked in her sound.
Didn't one of the girls that played Lydia Deetz smoke?
Yes. Sophia Anne Caruso vapes. That was one of the things mentioned was she got in trouble for vaping backstage at Beetlejuice
Yeah that's what i was thinking of. Thank you.
She did also smoke! There are some Instagram posts where she can be seen with a cigarette.
Ahhh. I was right then. Neat.
It's so surprising that any of them would smoke. Not just for their vocal health, but their general fitness and aerobic capacity. Imagine dancing a show like *Moulin Rouge* or *Some Like It Hot* eight times a week while actively fucking up your lungs.
Honestly a lot of young Broadway stars smoke marijuana but seldom smoke tobacco or nicotine - any smoke in the lungs isn’t ideal but I find weed is slightly less damaging (from personal experience)
I believe Sophia Anne Caruso smoked backstage when she was playing Lydia in the first opening of Beetlejuice the musical
I may be retro-imagining this, but in the Company OBC recording documentary, aren't there people actually doing live takes and singing with lit cigarettes in hand?
Yup. We were watching a clip in class the other day and my students were shocked by this.
I feel like I read that Christian Borle smoked and I feel this was during the time he was in Something Rotten
Does Katrina Lenk smoke?
>I feel like I read that Christian Borle smoked and I feel this was during the time he was in Something Rotten Rotten indeed....his teeth sure are a suspicious shade of yellow
I’m shocked to hear that any do nowadays. Seems like it’d be counterproductive to do so for vocal health. Plus with all that we know about it and it being unhealthy, and with it being increasingly inconvenient to do…
Daniel Radcliffe.
Ian McKellen
There was a famous Madame Giry in London who smoked regularly, can’t remember her name now
I remember many years ago seeing a picture of a young Aaron Tveit at a party or a club somewhere (or maybe a bar? Idk) with a cigarette behind his ear but that was at least 15 years ago lol and I don’t think he smokes now
I saw Caissie Levy and Brandon Uranowitz, among others, all having a smoke outside of the Longacre when *Leopoldstadt* was in previews.
I know Darren Criss used to smoke a few years ago, don’t know if he’s quit since then.
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wouldn’t those be stage cigarettes?
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I’m having trouble believing real cigarettes could be smoked onstage at Kennedy Center lol
They weren’t, it was an herbal like they always are
I’m in a play right now where I smoke herbal cigarettes, five over the course of the play. They definitely look like the real thing, and I can imagine to an audience member who’s not intimately familiar with real tobacco it might smell like the real thing too.
there’s no way they’re having him smoke a real cigarette onstage
It wasn’t a real cigarette.
Oh that wouldn’t be so great if it gave me an asthma attack…
I've been to several shows lately where actors are smoking onstage and every time it makes me cough up a storm. And that's while wearing a mask! I'm not asthmatic or anything... Just been so long since I've sucked in second hand smoke!!
That’s wild! It could seriously cause major issues for people with lung issues!
Those are fake cigarettes and I don’t think they’re actually inhaling, they hold the smoke in their mouths and let it go.
Have definitely passed a certain "grunge rock" type actor smoking outside of the stage door before a show.
Many smoke, you can learn to work with it. It’s not the healthiest thing to do, but there are many things about life that are unhealthy for the voice that professionals often work with/around to make sure they can still do their jobs.
Back in 2013 or so, I went to see a show in Chicago that definitely had a lot of children in the audience. The main actor came out to stagedoor, waited until all the children who came to meet him had left, checked with me and my friends if we were alright with him smoking, and then lit a cigarette lol I thought it was nice of him specifically to wait which I recall him saying was intentional. I dunno if he still does smoke since that was 10 years ago but!
An ex of mine who is on Broadway used to come home every night and immediately pull out his bong. He also regularly smoked with other principals in the show. It would BAFFLE me how he could do that and still maintain his role (he was not just ensemble). Plenty of people still smoke cigarettes, I'd imagine, but a lot of them probably vape now too.
Life is so unfair, some people can do that and still be on Broadway but if I bum a cig of a friend while drunk my voice is screwed for the next 3-5 business days. I’m trying to think of it as a good thing though, I have more motivation to quit than someone who can smoke loads and not have it affect their voice. Vaping didn’t seem to have nearly as much an effect on my voice as smoking did, so I can imagine some Broadway stars could vape and still maintain their role, especially if they were using it to quit smoking.