Broadway actress calls out audience member who photographed nude scene

A Broadway actress has shamed an audience member who took a photo of her during a nude scene.

Audra McDonald, 49, is starring opposite Michael Shannon in a new production of two-person love story Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune in New York.

McDonald tweeted: “To whoever it was in the audience that took a flash photo during our nude scene today: Not cool. Not cool at all.”

Read more: Benedict Cumberbatch Chastises Fans For Filming in Theatre

The multi-Tony-Award-winning actress - who has appeared in hit TV shows Grey’s Anatomy and The Good Wife and opposite Meryl Streep in 2015 movie Ricki and the Flash - had previously spoken of her nervousness about performing naked on stage.

McDonald told The New York Times: "Maybe strippers get real used to it, but for me, there's nothing normal about that. So there's nowhere in my mind that I can drift off and let this just kind of happen because everything about it is demanding that you be present."

The play, which is a revival of Terrence McNally 1987 off-Broadway production, opens with a graphic sex scene.

Producers of the show hired a so-called "intimacy co-ordinator" to work with the actors in choreographing the scene.

The show opened at the Broadhurst Theatre in May and only has one more week left to run.

While most theatres impose smartphone bans taking photos or videos of stars on stage to share online has become increasingly common.

When Benedict Cumberbatch appeared in Hamlet at the Barbican Theatre in London in 2015, he made an impassioned plea to fans at the stage door, asking them not to use phones in the auditorium.

Read more: Michael Shannon, Audra McDonald to Star in Broadway Revival

He said: "I can see cameras in the auditorium. It may not be any of you here but it's blindingly obvious. It's mortifying and there's nothing that's less supportive or enjoyable as an actor on stage experiencing that.

"What I really want to do is try and enlist you. I don't use social media and I'd really appreciate it if you did tweet, blog, hashtag the s*** out of this one for me."

In 2009, nude photographs of Anna Friel appeared online while she was playing Holly Golightly in a West End production of Breakfast At Tiffany's.