Marcie Simone Lowy Wright filed a wrongful death lawsuit March 10 concerning the death of her husband—Broadway stagehand Peter Wright, who fell to his death in 2020—in the Supreme Court.
The lawsuit names Beetlejuice Broadway, Aurora Productions, Bespoke Theatricals, and Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures as defendants in the case, according to Deadline. The complaint asks for an unspecified amount in damages.
In 2020 Mr. Wright was working at the Winter Garden Theatre on routine theatre maintenance when he fell from a ladder 30 feet over the stage to his death. The theatre, which was empty at the time, had just finished the load-out of Beetlejuice to prepare for the arrival of The Music Man.
In the lawsuit, Wright puts forth that the production companies were negligent and failed to provide proper protections. The suit states that the fly stage, guardrails, and ladders were "improperly secured," and "proper and approved safety devices" such as scaffolding, hoists, and braces were not provided. Mr. Wright was employed at the time by the Shubert Organization, which owns the Winter Garden. Following his death, OSHA cited the Shubert Organization, which was not named in the suit.
The suit comes as the musical Beetlejuice prepares for a return to Broadway at the Marquis Theatre April 8.
