John Cardoza, an actor starring in the Broadway adaptation of The Notebook, was robbed “at gunpoint” in a Dunkin’ Donuts in New York City on Sunday afternoon—around an hour before he was set to take the stage for a matinee performance.
Cardoza, 30, said in a post on his Instagram Story that a middle-aged Black man had approached him in the store and asked him for a dollar. “I offered to buy him lunch because I didn’t have cash on me, and it escalated from there very quickly,” he wrote. He added that the gunman “didn’t make off with anything irreplaceable.”
To allay any concern, Cardoza wrote in subsequent posts that, “I am fine,” and “I really am OK.”
The New York City Police Department confirmed to the New York Daily News that a robbery in the uptown Dunkin’ Donuts had taken place just before 2 p.m. on Sunday. The suspect, hand in his pocket, said he had a gun, and snatched the victim’s wallet, containing personal items and roughly $9 in cash, police said. Police told the New York Post that the suspect “used his hand to simulate a gun inside his pocket.”
Cardoza said that the robber “made multiple attempts to use my credit card” at bodegas, grocery stores, and pharmacies in the neighborhood.
“It makes me sad to think people are as desperate as this—and it makes me sad to feel a need [to] alert anyone to this kind of activity,” Cardoza wrote. “But it’s the world we’re living in, and if you’re like me, you already are careful and you don’t think it’s going to happen to you until it’s staring you in the face.”
He suggested on his Story that, after the robbery, he had gone to the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater for a 3 p.m. performance of The Notebook, in which he plays the younger version of Ryan Gosling’s character from the 2004 movie, itself an adaptation of the 1996 Nicholas Sparks novel.
“I was grateful to have a place to head immediately after, full of people I love, to do work that I love,” Cardoza said. “So I’ve been in good hands.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to a representative for Cardoza, the NYPD, and The Notebook’s creative team for more information.
The robbery occurred within hours of another incident involving a Broadway actor in the city. Around 7:45 p.m. on Sunday, Michael Stuhlbarg was struck in the neck with a rock in a random attack while walking in Central Park. The Boardwalk Empire star chased his assailant, a 27-year-old man named Xavier Israel, out of the park. Israel was subsequently taken into custody and charged with assault.
Stuhlbarg, 55, declined medical attention. Feeling “fine” after the attack, he went on to make his debut in the Broadway play Patriots on Monday night, the production said in a news release.
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