Patti LuPone announced her retirement from Broadway and the Actors' Equity Association this week, much to the shock and surprise of everyone.

The Broadway legend wrote on Twitter on Monday, “Quite a week on Broadway, seeing my name being bandied about. Gave up my Equity card; no longer part of that circus. Figure it out.” While her fans were left stumped over the announcement, LuPone later explained to People what prompted her abrupt decision to leave what she's dubbed the “worst union” after five decades as a due-paying member. “They accepted my resignation and told me that if I ever wanted to rejoin, I'd have to be approved,” she explained to the outlet. “And it's the perfect reason I withdrew from Equity. Fifty years to this year...I've been a card-carrying member of Equity, and they don't know who I am basically. They just said, 'Fine, but if you want to rejoin, we're going to have to approve you.'”

The three-time Tony winner's latest career move is apparently a response to her growing frustration over seeing her name brought up multiple times over the past week after Hadestown star Lillias White “reprimanded” a hearing-impaired audience member for using a captioning device, which the theatergoer suggested the actor may have mistook for a recording device. The comparison between the two Broadway stars was made because LuPone has been known to call out audience members mid-performance over their lack of theater etiquette. But the actor saw this inclusion as a failure by her union, saying that Actors' Equity “does not support actors at all. They're just not good. And I just didn't want to give them any more money.”

LuPone added, “I just thought, ‘This is ridiculous.’ And I don't know when I'm going to be back on stage. But then the best kept secret is that you can perform without being a member of Equity. Nobody knows that, so I don't use their services. So, I'm not a member of Equity anymore.” The vast majority of Broadway performances require every performer be an Actors' Equity Association member, however, some productions grant guest contracts that would allow the Company star to perform regardless of her union status. Some regional and touring productions also have “non-Equity” contracts, and LuPone's lack of membership would not effect her ability to hold concerts or cabarets. The storied theater actor said she's still “wondering what's going to happen” next in her career, but for now, she knows one thing for sure, “I don't think I will be doing eight shows a week ever again. Not that I can't, because that's what I'm built for. I don't want to.”