After a mentally and physically devastating year, Shaina Taub is stepping away from Broadway’s Ragtime to focus on her health.
The Tony Award-winning composer and performer, currently starring as Emma Goldman in Lincoln Center Theater’s revival of Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens’ hit musical, has announced that she will be taking a leave of absence from performances from January 6, 2026 to March 29, 2026.
In a candid Instagram post on Thursday, November 20, Tauve, 37, said the role was a “childhood dream come true” but that she made the decision after experiencing three pregnancies last year.
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Matthew Murphy
Her message comes amid a widespread call for candor on pregnancy loss, grief and reproductive health. Taub, the subject, said she hopes she will feel less isolated.
“This is a sensitive topic that is often overshadowed, but I posted this in hopes that anyone reading it would feel less alone,” she wrote, later adding that she didn’t share her experience “for attention or sympathy,” but to help others. “One in four pregnancies end in loss. How can something so common feel so isolating? Hearing other people’s stories has given me so much comfort. So by telling my story, I hope I can offer some comfort as well. If you belong to this painful club, I feel for you too.”
Over the past year, Taub explained, she and her husband, director Matt Gehring, have been trying to start a family. She has been pregnant three times, but “all ended in loss.”
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The actress spoke in detail about each of these losses. She suffered a first-trimester miscarriage during a Broadway production of “Suffus” last December, a second-trimester TFMR (acronym for medically terminated abortion) in May, and another miscarriage in mid-October, the opening week of Ragtime.
The last one was especially harrowing. She began a spontaneous miscarriage on Wednesday, October 15, but lost consciousness several nights later after experiencing a “horrifying amount” of blood loss and contractions.
Gehring, 39, called 9-1-1 and Taub was taken to the emergency room. So doctors performed an immediate D&C (dilation and curettage). This is a medical procedure that removes pregnancy tissue from the uterus to prevent further bleeding after a miscarriage.
“Honestly, it’s been hell,” she wrote, adding that her body “really needs rest” after being “hospitalized multiple times.”
“My heart could use that, too,” she said.
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Taub went on to thank the team at Lincoln Center Theater for their support throughout the ordeal, saying, “Performing during my loss has been part of my healing,” and that she is “delighted to be back for the remaining performances.”
She also praised her castmates and creative collaborators. “This amazingly kind cast and crew were truly a lifeline,” she wrote.
Ragtime is currently scheduled to run at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in New York City until June 14th.
Matthew Murphy
Based on the best-selling novel by EL Doctorow, this musical tells the epic story of three families (white, black, and Jewish immigrant) living in early 20th century America, whose lives intersect during major social changes. The show depicts the promise and pain of the American Dream, weaving fictional stories with real historical figures such as Emma Goldman, a radical political thinker and women’s rights advocate who shaped social movements in the early 20th century.
The production is directed by Joshua Henry, Grammy nominee Casey Levy, and Tony Award winner Brandon Uranowitz, and features Colin Donnell, Nichelle Lewis, Ben Levi Ross, Anna Grace Barlow, John Clay III, Rod Cyrus, Nick Barrington, Tabitha Lawing, and an ensemble of approximately 30 actors.
PEOPLE reached out to the show’s reps to find out who will replace Taub.
Elsewhere in her post, Taub spoke about the importance of reproductive health, admitting that she now sees the topic in a “whole new light” after what happened to her.
For example, the texts and documents she needed to manage a miscarriage are exactly the same procedures used for abortions, and are illegal in more than 20 states after the June 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade, which repealed the federal constitutional right to abortion and returned the power to regulate abortion to the states.
“Thank goodness I made it here in New York,” she wrote, noting that had she been elsewhere, “I might not have made it.”
“Thousands of American women face this crisis every day. How many of them bleed before they even cross state lines?” she added. “That’s part of what people mean when they say, ‘Abortion is medical.’ I fully support elective abortion, but I have a hard time using that word because these pregnancies were so wholeheartedly desired. But what I’m trying to say anyway is to help people understand how many different scenarios this care is needed and why it should be legal everywhere.”
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Taub urged her followers to consider supporting those on the front lines, like the “compassionate doctors” at Mount Sinai Complex Family Planning who treated her.
In response to the Supreme Court’s ruling, the team launched a care fund to fully cover the cost of reproductive health services for patients who have nowhere else to turn, including those traveling from prohibited states. To help others, Taub and Gehring created a fundraising page to support future patients. “It’s not for us,” she clarified, but noted that the average cost for a complete treatment for one person is $2,500.
“The best way we can show love right now is to share it with women and families who don’t have the same resources as we do,” Taub wrote.
She concluded her post by recommending literature to others experiencing miscarriage.
“This continues to be a messy and complicated experience, and we really don’t have the language or the rituals,” Taub said. “I’ll try to find more words another time. For now, thank you for reading and considering donating. To those suffering in silence, I hear your voices.”
If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line (741-741). Connect with a certified crisis counselor.
