Rob Bowman, the veteran Broadway music director who has previously conducted Chicago on Broadway and on tour, has returned to the long-running revival. He replaces longtime music director Leslie Stifelman, who became embroiled in controversy earlier this year following an investigation launched by Actor’s Equity Association into circumstances that led to the suicide of long-time cast member Jeff Loeffelholz.
With the revival since it opened in 1996, Loeffelholz was the standby for Mary Sunshine and took his own life in June. Loeffelholz's friends and family state that the actor was bullied and intimidated by Stifelman and Walter Bobbie, the show’s Tony-winning director, during a rehearsal. He was the last remaining original cast member signed to their original run-of-show-contract, a standard agreement found in Broadway production contracts meant to protect jobs for members of a show’s original company.
An official statement from the show’s publicist states that Stifelman left “to pursue other opportunities and the parting was amicable.”
