In her response, which was published at as well as and, Ms. He comes off as wooden and insincere, like he’s trying to hide something, which of course he is.” “Frankly, it’s weird seeing Hayes play straight. Hayes for his performance in “Promises, Promises,” writing, Chenoweth’s co-star on “Glee,” of whom he wrote: “When he smiles or giggles, he seems more like your average theater queen.” Mr. To play gay (as Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger did in ‘Brokeback Mountain’), it’s rare for someone to pull off the trick in reverse.”Īmong the openly gay actors Mr. In the original Newsweek article, called “Straight Jacket” and published online in April, Ramin Setoodeh wrote: “While it’s OK for straight actors Chenoweth, the Tony Award-winner and star of “Promises, Promises,” postedĪ lengthy online rebuttal to a Newsweek article that she called “horrendously homophobic” for contending that gay actors could not play straight characters,Īnd citing her “Promises, Promises” co-star Sean Hayes as an example. Not that we have any beef with Kristin Chenoweth to begin with, but we’d think long and hard about picking a Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes in the Broadway revival of “Promises, Promises.”