Tyler Perry cancels Coliseum show before its start

This much we do know: About 8:20 Thursday night the curtains closed on "Madea's Big Happy Family" at the Nassau Coliseum.

An announcement over the public-address system said the Tyler Perry production had been canceled before it even started, and everyone left the venue a little confused. "It was a lot of chaos," said Regina O'Neill, of New Hyde Park. "There was no explanation. Weird."

And that's what we don't know: why the show didn't go on. "We don't have an official statement," Luchia Ashe, the general manager of Perry's production company, said Friday. "Tyler's OK, everyone in the production is OK, outside of that, I can't really speak on it."

Perry, the media-shy actor-mogul, announced earlier in the week that he was cutting short this leg of the "Big Happy Family" tour - a theatrical production based on his film character Madea - beginning Oct. 19 due to exhaustion. "I am starting to realize that I am human and I have to know when to slow down," Perry said on his website.

The Coliseum mystery and the tour cancellation are unrelated, Ashe said.

Rumors spread inside the Coliseum that the stage had collapsed, but O'Neill and her husband didn't see anything. "You know how rumors get started," Ashe said. Representatives at the Coliseum had no comment.

Perry's weekend shows at Madison Square Garden were to go on as scheduled, Ashe said. He is not rescheduling the Coliseum show, but refunds are available at point of purchase, Ashe added.