In the theater page of today’s New York Times, Testament of Mary producer Scott Rudin has taken out a strange advertisement attacking Times theater reporter Patrick Healy:

“Let’s give a big cuddly shout-out to Pat Healy, infant provocateur and amateur journalist at the New York Times. Keep it up, Pat — one day perhaps you’ll learn something about how Broadway works, and maybe even understand it.”-Scott Rudin.

What is this about?

It is apparently a reaction to Healy’s Q and A interview with Testament author Colm Toibin, which begins:

“The Irish writer Colm Toibin was shaving in his bathroom on Tuesday morning, and savoring the news that his “Testament of Mary” had just been nominated for a best play Tony Award, when the telephone rang. The voice on the other end said, “I have Scott Rudin on the line for you.” And so began one of the more surreal phone conversations that Mr. Toibin ever had: He was a freshly minted Tony nominee, but his producer Mr. Rudin was telling him that the play would close on Sunday, after only 43 performances and far earlier than planned, due to poor ticket sales.”

Later on there is this exchange:

Q…[D]id you ask Scott to reconsider closing the show?
A. You know, I really trust his judgment. If he was calling to say that this was the decision he’d come it, then in my view the finances of the show – whether it could run an extra week or not – is of no concern to me.

And then this:

Q: Scott Rudin is one of the most successful and strong-minded producers on Broadway. What was working with him like?

A.The amount of care and work he did was extraordinary. He was around all the time….

Q: Did you two get along well, even when he told you that the play would close?
A. Yes…

If the questions were provocative, the answers were not.

Scott Rudin is one of Broadway’s most successful producers — among his some three dozen shows are “The Book of Mormon,” the recent Tony-winning revivals of “Death of A Salesman” and “Fences,” and the original Broadway productions of “Doubt,” “The History Boys” and “Caroline, or Change.” He is also a prolific movie producer: “The Social Network,” “No Country for Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood” are among the nearly 100 movies he has produced.

He is the only producer (and one of only a handful of people)  to have won an Emmy, a Grammy and Oscar AND a Tony.

He also does not seem to shy away from controversy or conflict. The latest one involving Broadway was just last year, when he quit as producer of “Clybourne Park” two months before its opening — because of his ire at the unrelated decision by “Clybourne Park”‘s playwright Bruce Norris to withdraw as an actor in Rudin’s proposed television series based on Jonathan Franzen’s “The Correction.” It was a controversy covered extensively — including by Patrick Healy.