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‘50 YEARS AGO TODAY’
March 12, 2070 — Today, on the 50th anniversary of the day Broadway theater was shut down because of a coronavirus epidemic raging in New York, theater lovers and other antiquarians will gather at Fauci Center (formerly the Nederlander Theater) to commemorate the event and the truncated history of what was once America’s most prestigious center of live stage performance. As every schoolchild knows, the efforts to restore Broadway to its former glory were stymied by ………………
I’M GLAD I WON’T live to read that nostalgic news analysis. And I’d like to believe that things won’t turn out that way. But for the sake of all that is holy (Stephen Sondheim, Joe Allen’s burgers, the ghost light), what is the future of Broadway theater? How is Broadway going to save itself?
WHEN THE SHOWS DON’T GO ON The home page of the ticketing service Telecharge tells the story in three paragraphs.
Quick recap: On March 12, 2020, every Broadway theater in New York went dark (31 shows were running at the time, eight of them still in previews). The shutdown was just until April, they said. New Yorkers would start wearing masks and latex gloves and keeping six feet apart from one another — and that would stop the novel coronavirus, also known as Covid-19, in its tracks.
Then the powers that be reconsidered. Theaters wouldn’t reopen until, maybe, summer. Then — not until Labor Day. And finally (we hope, finally), in late June, we were told that Broadway theaters would begin reopening in early 2021. And speculation ran wild.
‘WHEN THEATER COMES BACK …’ Lin-Manuel Miranda, in “Hamilton.”
The headlines in various publications promised insight — maybe even clairvoyance. A July 10 headline on broadway.com was intriguing: “Lin-Manuel Miranda Reveals What He’s Reading in Quarantine and Thoughts on the Future of Broadway.” But as it turned out, his thoughts on the future of Broadway were about race, ethnicity, gender, age and creed.
“When theater comes back,” he said, “that’s the time to start talking about a more diverse, inclusive theater…. Let’s make our backstages look as diverse as our casts. Let’s make our audiences look as diverse as our casts.”
Admirable goals, certainly, but they have nothing to do with when and how theater makes that comeback. Incidentally, Miranda was reading a biography of Shakespeare.
’DINOSAURS SURVIVING THE CRUNCH’ Patti LuPone’s show, a new revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” that had just wrapped up in London, was in Broadway previews when New York theaters closed.
PATTI LUPONE talked to The Los Angeles Times in June, doing virtual promotion for her role in Ryan Murphy’s mini-series “Hollywood.” And she was not feeling positive about the lockdown.
“I feel I have more blue days than I had when this whole thing started,” she said, “because it’s going to go on forever.”
And when it does end, she said, maybe she’ll move to Ireland.
AT LEAST THEY HAD THEATER BACK THEN. Nathan Lane in a publicity photo for Showtime’s “Penny Dreadful: City of Angels.” Asked about Broadway’s future, he told an interviewer, “We’re not going back to normal,”.
NATHAN LANE’S mood wasn’t particularly sunny either. “I’m hovering between suicidal and homicidal,” he told The Daily Beast for a May article. Referring to Broadway’s shutdown, he said, “I think eventually we will come out of this, and it will thrive again. It’s just going to take a long time.”
How long? Long. “Once there’s a vaccine, and people feel safe and confident, it will come back, and there will be a lot of plays about quarantine, plagues — “
FAITH IN CHANGE Keith Sherman, founder of Keith Sherman & Associates, had Covid-19 early in the pandemic. He believes Broadway will adapt.
KEITH SHERMAN, whose public relations firm celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2019, considers himself an optimist. Yet when he was interviewed by thetheatrepodcast.com this spring, he admitted, “I don’t know when we’re going back.”
“The theater is about a lot of people in a small room, elbow to elbow, experiencing a moment,” he observed. “At this point in our society, that’s forbidden.”
Sherman had his own brush with coronavirus early. His husband runs two nursing homes, so it may have been inevitable that he would bring the virus home. But Sherman was soon feeling much better (“hopeful that I have the antibodies”).
Unlike many others, he does see the possibility of adaptation in the theater industry. “I think it will come back — in a different form,” maybe by cutting the number of seats for social distancing. But he acknowledged that budgets were a major factor; theater works on “a very tight margin.”
BEFORE SOCIAL DISTANCING Charlotte St. Martin of the Broadway League with Robert E. Wankel of the Shubert Organization at a Crain’s Hall of Fame event last year.
CHARLOTTE ST. MARTIN, president of the Broadway League, the organization that authorized the theater shutdown, begs to differ with Sherman. “We can’t financially make it with a socially distant audience.”
Meanwhile, Broadway shows that have new opening dates — in spring 2021 — include “American Buffalo,” “Flying Over Sunset,” “MJ: The Musical” (MJ is Michael Jackson), “1776” and “Plaza Suite.”
WHERE HE BELONGS Jerry Zaks, directing “Hello, Dolly!” at the Shubert Theater.
JERRY ZAKS has now scheduled his revival of “The Music Man,” with Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster, for 2021. And he agrees with Charlotte Sf. Marfin.
“One thing not possible — you cannot change the seating,” he told Page Six, the New York Post column, in June.
And just in case that wasn’t clear, he also said: “You can’t undo a person-to-person event. You can’t digitize theater.”
Like some others, he believes the timing will depend on medical progress. “Nobody feels secure until there’s a vaccine.”
IT’S NOT DEAD! IT’S A PHOENIX! Audra McDonald (with her husband, Will Swenson) gave Vanity Fair the standard happy-talk line but then revealed more.
AUDRA McDONALD was sheltering in place in Westchester County with her husband, Will Swenson, and four kids when she talked to Vanity Fair. “Broadway is not dead,” she said cheerfully. “Broadway is a phoenix and will continue to rise.”
“We will be back and stronger than ever,” she added.
Asked why she bothered doing digital events (like the acclaimed online 90th-birthday concert for Stephen Sondheim), she revealed another aspect of her state of mind. “Well, it just makes you feel less hopeless.”
Then — after advising actors to work on their craft while they’re homebound — she found a true silver lining. “We will have all experienced a trauma like we have with this that makes you a deeper and fuller performer in some ways.”
We promise to be a deeper and fuller audience too.
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