That’s show business.
A veteran Broadway and TV actress claims she was wrongly dumped from a play ahead of its run on the Great White Way — and wants the big-time paycheck she would have gotten for the gig.
Ciara Renée, who played the character “Hawkgirl” in the TV shows “Arrow” and “The Flash” and has starred as Jenna in “Waitress,” Elsa in “Frozen” and in the 2013 Broadway shows “Pippin” and “Big Fish,” believed she was in line to join the cast of the upcoming musical “Wanted” after starring last year in the show’s run at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, NJ.
Titled “Gun & Powder” during its two-month, 2024 Garden State run, Renée earned positive reviews for her role as Mary Clarke, one of a pair of black, gun-toting twin sisters in 1893 Texas who became outlaws.
The show, based on a true story, was named a “critic’s pick” by The New York Times.
Renée, 34, even recorded songs from the show in the studio at the producers’ request, she said in a lawsuit.
In August 2024, she was asked to appear at an event for potential investors in Martha’s Vineyard, where she was introduced as “a member of the future Broadway cast of the play,” she said in court papers.
Producers asked her to appear at other events, including a stage reading of the show in October and a Nov. 18 awards show for the New Jersey production.
But about a week later, producer Alecia Parker — a Broadway veteran best known as executive producer of “Waitress” — and Samuel Lopez cut her loose, she contended in the Manhattan Federal Court filing.
Parker and Lopez told Renée they’d “advised” Sisters Clarke LLC, the company behind the play, not to negotiate with or hire her because she’d “failed to collaborate” and was “unwilling to accept feedback from the creative team,” during the Jersey run, she said in the legal papers.
The allegations were false, contended Renée — who said she would have earned $486,000 for a nine-month run in the Broadway production, which is expected to debut in 2026.
A lawyer for the producers rejected Renée’s claims.
“We vehemently deny her allegations and will vigorously defend her falsehoods,” said attorney Richard Roth in a statement.
