There was a bit of drama Friday at the Broadway theater where The Color Purple performs, just not onstage. The lobby of the theater was mobbed by disgruntled ticket holders demanding refunds when ex-American Idol Fantasia, who stars as Celie, failed to turn up for work. Lobby spies for Post columnist Michael Riedel witnessed an 8-year-old girl “sobbing uncontrollably when she heard Fantasia was not going to be in the show.”

But it seems there was nothing fantastic about Fantasia’s Friday flake-out – she’s missed fifty performances since taking over the role from Tony winner LaChanze in April! And if you're wondering whether a press release featuring the euphemistic “exhaustion” is on the horizon, the Idol’s publicist says, “She lives the role when she's onstage, and it's taken an emotional toll on her. She's just not up to doing eight performances a week.” That’s just too bad for the show’s producers, who have had to refund tens of thousands of dollars in ticket sales due to the star’s weariness.

When the stagehands’ strike started, Fantasia did manage to summon the energy to appear outside the theater and sing a song for stymied theatergoers; Reidel quotes one Shubert theater executive’s reaction: “There's no show, and she's out there singing. Now if we could get her to perform when there is a show, we'd be in business.” At least they won’t have to worry about her come January 9th, when she stops showing up for good and Chaka Khan, gospel singer BeBe Winans and American Idol finalist LaKisha Jones join the cast.

Three years ago, prompted by Donna Murphy's many absences from Wonderful Town (she now says it was a hemorrhaged vocal cord), the NY Times' Charles Isherwood pondered Broadway absenteeism, chalking much of it up to stars doing other work (film, TV, other performances).