Back on Broadway: What to Expect When Theater Makes Its Return
For theatregoers around the world, it is bewildering to think that when Broadway went dark unexpectedly, the plan was for the shutdown to only last two weeks. With a multibillion dollar industry shut down overnight, it left artists and others who make their living on Broadway without steady work, and it has been this way for more than a year now. Finally, with Broadway’s reopening on the horizon, here is what to expect when fans can safely return to the Great White Way.
The Music Box Theatre / Courtesy of Wikipedia
New York City mayor Bill de Blasio has finally just announced Broadway reopening plans, which have been a long time coming considering other crowded places have been able to operate at full capacity for some time now, including the very planes and buses that take travelers into the city.
De Blasio says that when shows return, starting with “flex venues” opening as early as April 2, there will be a maximum audience capacity of 150 people, all of whom must provide a negative COVID test before attending. The Music Box Theatre, which currently is home to Dear Evan Hansen, will be the first on-Broadway theatre to open its doors to audiences.
Already, the city has launched the NY PopsUp initiative, which has triumphantly initiated the start of the return to live performance. NY PopsUp stages live pop-up performances all around the city in which the locations are not disclosed beforehand. Some huge names like Alec Baldwin and Sarah Jessica Parker are slated to participate in this 100-day long event.
Additionally, de Blasio announced the impending opening of vaccination sites that will be dedicated to people who work in the theatre industry, namely Broadway performers and crew. There will also be a mobile vaccination site for workers in off-Broadway shows. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says that these vaccination sites, however, will abide by the vaccine rollout plan already in place in the state of New York. Considering the young age of a lot of Broadway performers and tech crew, it will be interesting to see how quickly they are able to vaccinate these workers.
As for what audiences will be able to see when Broadway opens its doors, more mainstream shows like Chicago, Wicked, or Phantom of the Opera will most likely be the first to reopen. These shows have held a prominent place in the Broadway landscape for a while now, and have more resources to make a quicker return. It may take some time for newer or less well-known shows to do the same.
Mean Girls / Courtesy of Playbill
So what does this mean for these newer shows? The good news is that some have already announced that they will be returning for sure such as the revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company, which was in previews when the shutdown happened, and stars Broadway legend Patti Lupone. Unfortunately, other shows are not as lucky and performed for the last time in March 2020, like Mean Girls, which announced its closing on January 7 of this year.
The trouble for these shows comes from two major issues. First, the sheer cost involved in staging a Broadway show, and second, the small size of the New York theatres. Typically, a lot of conventionally successful shows on Broadway never even break even on their initial investments. In this business, breaking even is seen as excelling above and beyond. Broadway shows will need to sell at at least 75% capacity in order to survive, which is made near impossible when taking social distancing into account. The city has pledged to help the theatres with crowd management.
“We’re ready, we’ve stayed in shape, our voices are strong... All we need is a stage.”
Most likely, we will start to see Broadway up and running again in the fall, which for performers means returning to rehearsals in late summer, and Broadway performers could not be more ready to take the stage. Tony winner André De Shields (Hadestown, The Wiz) echoes this sentiment, saying, “We’re ready, we’ve stayed in shape, our voices are strong...All we need is a stage.”
So, mask up, get the vaccine if you are eligible, and support Broadway theatre when it makes its grand return, especially shows that may have a harder time coming back, such as Company or Hadestown. Although there is still much uncertainty about what theatre will look like in the coming months, one thing is for certain - when the performers get their stage, Broadway will be back just as strong or better than it was before.