Shaina Taub is stepping away from Broadway’s Ragtime to focus on her health after an emotionally and physically devastating year.
The Tony-winning composer and performer, who is currently starring as Emma Goldman in Lincoln Center Theater’s revival of Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens’ beloved musical, announced that she will take a leave from the production beginning Jan. 6, 2026 through March 29.
In a candid Instagram post posted on Thursday, Nov. 20, Taub, 37, shared that while the role has been a “childhood dream come true,” she came to the decision after experiencing three pregnancy losses over the last year.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Matthew Murphy
Her message arrives amid a broader push for candor around pregnancy loss, grief and reproductive health — subjects Taub said she hopes become less isolating.
“This is a vulnerable topic often kept in the shadows, but I’m posting in the hopes that someone reading feels less alone,” she wrote, adding later that she wasn’t sharing her experience “for attention or pity” but to help others. “One in four pregnancies end in loss. How does something so common feel so isolating? Hearing others’ stories has given me substantial solace, so by telling mine, I hope I can give some too. If you’re in this painful club, I’m so with you.”
In the past year, Taub explained, she and her husband, director Matt Gehring, have been trying to start a family. And while she’s been pregnant three times, “each time ended in loss.”
Dia Dipasupil/Getty
The actress detailed those losses one by one: a first-trimester miscarriage during the Broadway run of Suffs last December, a second-trimester TFMR — an acronym for termination for medical reasons — in May, and another miscarriage in mid October, the week of Ragtime’s opening.
That last one was particularly harrowing. She began to miscarry naturally on Wednesday, Oct. 15, but passed out a few nights later after hemorrhaging “a terrifying amount of blood” and experiencing labor contractions.
Gehring, 39, called 9-1-1 and Taub was rushed to the emergency room. There, doctors performed an immediate D&C (dilation and curettage), which is a medical procedure that clears the uterus of pregnancy tissue after a pregnancy loss to protect against further bleeding.
“Honestly, it’s been hell,” she wrote, adding that after “multiple hospitalizations,” her body “badly needs a break.”
“My mind could use it too,” she said.
Amy Sussman/Getty
Taub went on to thank the team at Lincoln Center Theater for their support throughout the ordeal, noting that “Performing during loss has been part of my healing” and that she’ll be “glad to return for the rest of the run.”
She also praised her castmates and creative collaborators. “This remarkably kind cast and crew have been a real lifeline,” she wrote.
Ragtime is currently scheduled to continue through June 14 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in New York City.
Matthew Murphy
Based on E. L. Doctorow’s best-selling novel, the musical tells the sweeping story of three families in early 20th-century America — one white, one Black, and one Jewish immigrant — whose lives intersect amid a time of tremendous social change. The show captures the promise and pain of the American dream, blending fictional stories with real historical figures (like Emma Goldman, the radical political thinker and women’s rights advocate whose activism shaped early 20th-century social movements).
Joshua Henry, Grammy nominee Caissie Levy and Tony winner Brandon Uranowitz lead the production, alongside Colin Donnell, Nichelle Lewis, Ben Levi Ross, Anna Grace Barlow, John Clay III, Rodd Cyrus, Nick Barrington, Tabitha Lawing and an ensemble of nearly 30 more actors.
PEOPLE has reached out to reps for the show for who will replace Taub in the role.
Elsewhere in her post, Taub spoke about the importance of reproductive healthcare, admitting that she now sees the topic “in a stark new light” after what happened to her.
For example, that D&C she needed for miscarriage management is the exact same procedure used for abortions, and is illegal in over 20 states following the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade (which eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion and returned the authority to regulate abortion to individual states).
“Thank goodness I could get one in time here in New York,” she wrote, pointing out that had she been elsewhere,”I might not have made it.”
“Thousands of American women face this crisis daily. How many of them are bleeding out before they can travel across state lines?” she added. “This is part of what people mean when they say, ‘abortion is healthcare.’ Even though I fully support elective abortion, I struggle to use the word in my case because these pregnancies were deeply wanted. But I’m trying to say it anyway, so people understand how many different scenarios require this care, and why it must be legal everywhere.”
Theo Wargo/Getty
Taub urged followers to consider supporting those doing frontline work, like the “compassionate doctors” at the Mount Sinai Division of Complex Family Planning who treated her.
After the Supreme Court’s decision, the team there launched a Care Fund that covers the full cost of reproductive services for patients with nowhere else to turn, including those traveling from states with bans. To help others, Taub and Gehring created a fundraising page supporting future patients — “not for ourselves,” she clarified — noting that the average cost of a person’s full care is $2,500.
“The best way to show us love right now is by paying it forward to women and families in situations like ours who don’t have the resources we do,” Taub wrote.
She ended her post by recommending literature for others navigating pregnancy loss.
“This continues to be a messy, complicated experience, one we really don’t have language or ritual for,” Taub said. “I will try to find more words another time. For now, thank you for reading, and for considering a donation. To those suffering in any degrees of silence, I hear you.”
If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
