Broadway and the Virus

[jo]

Variety is hosting an online discussion on --

the Road back to Broadway!


variety.com/2020/legit/news/legit-road-back-to-broadway-1234772445/


I wish they had also been able to get more powerful voices on Broadway!

[ADMIN]

It's great to see signs that Hugh is indeed rehearsing for Music Man, but this announcement does not bode well for Broadway/Theater in general -

The Metropolitan Opera will remain closed another year, in a chilling sign for America’s Broadway theaters, concert halls and comedy clubs.

The Metropolitan Opera announced Wednesday that the still-untamed coronavirus pandemic has forced it to cancel its entire 2020-21 season, prolonging one of the gravest crises it has faced in its 137-year history and keeping it dark until next September.

The decision is likely to send ripples of concern through New York and the rest of the country, as Broadway theaters, symphony halls, rock venues, comedy clubs, dance spaces and other live arts institutions grapple with the question of when it will be safe again to perform indoors. Far from being a gilded outlier, the Met, the nation’s largest performing arts organization, may well prove to be a bellwether.

Full article

This announcement will probably reverberate through the theater community in the coming days/weeks.

New York's Metropolitan Opera on Wednesday announced the "painful" cancellation of its entire 2020-21 season over the still-spreading coronavirus, a major blow for the city's decimated arts and culture industry.

The announcement is a dire signal for live arts institutions in New York -- including the renowned Broadway theater district -- which have sat dark since the pandemic hamstrung the city starting in mid-March, and look set to remain that way indefinitely.

Shows at the Met, a 3,800-seat bellwether for the return of live performances, now will not resume before September 2021 at the earliest.

The Met said it based its decision to cancel the entirety of its current season on the advice of health authorities, saying it would be unsafe to resume rehearsals and productions until "a vaccine is widely in use, herd immunity is established, and the wearing of masks and social distancing is no longer a medical requirement."

"Health officials have said this will likely take at least five to six months after a vaccine is initially made available," the organization said.

Peter Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera's general manager, told AFP that with the cancellation of this season along with the final eight weeks of the previous one, the revered house anticipated a loss in earned revenues of at least $154 million, even as expenses have been reduced.

Calling this "the most challenging time" in the company's 137-year history, Gelb said in an interview he was aiming to negotiate with unions representing many Met employees to help them weather the storm.

[jo]

Apropos to the news on the Met schedule cancellation, it was noted on theatre boards that the customer base and patrons of the Met lean towards the much older demos, hence making it even more important for them to reconsider their season. The comment noted that it is the nature of the customer profile of the Met that probably made its decision towards the season's postponement.

Jo

[hughmanity]

A long but poignant article from NYT
Hugh and TMM kick off the article, in a nod to what could have (should have) been this week.  Also found the following mention of the show:

Sutton Foster, 45, was slated to be starring opposite Hugh Jackman in a Broadway revival of “The Music Man.” Instead she has been holed up with “a wonderful variety of sweatpants,” and is leading dance cardio workouts for charity on Instagram Live. She and Jackman are planning a two-week choreography rehearsal, after which she will film the seventh season of “Younger.” “I’m excited to work,” she said, “but I know it’s going to be a completely different environment.”here

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/24/arts/new-york-fall-arts-economy.html

[jo]

Thanks - maybe we can share the entire article -- since New York is very much in many people's minds this month.

There was 9/11
And Hugh prowling Broadway like a masked bandit ( twice!)
And someone decided adding the soundtrack to that new marquee on Broadway was an excellent idea -- it made people pine for marching bands
And Hugh was seen with the trademark Prof Hill's strawboater ( and cane)
And museums have started to open...no matter without the usual crowds ( I was shocked to read that food will not be served at the MoMA -- sign of the times)

The city that was supposed to never sleep...

One Lost Weekend


We zero in on one moment in New York City’s cultural calendar that’s been wiped clean — what it means, what it looks like, what it cost and what’s ahead.

Photographs by Dina Litovsky, Victor Llorente and Daniel Arnold By Michael Paulson, Elizabeth A. Harris and Graham Bowley



Sept. 23, 2020

Ah, New York. The city where, this coming weekend, Hugh Jackman will make mischief out of marching bands in Broadway’s “The Music Man”; Anna Netrebko will pine stirringly as Aida for the Metropolitan Opera; and Nick Cave will command the stage with the Bad Seeds at Barclays Center.

The whole world seems to be here: Acts from Egypt, Morocco and Lebanon join an Arabic music festival at Joe’s Pub. Performances and parties herald the opening of a new $60 million home for the Irish Arts Center. And the reimagined Next Wave Festival draws adventurous artists from around the globe to BAM.

That’s not hypothetical. That’s the actual arts calendar for this weekend, Sept. 25 to 27, 2020.


Or at least, it was.

The coronavirus pandemic has shredded the schedule, silencing New York’s stages. Now Jackman is taking online dance classes. Netrebko is being treated for Covid-19.

Even as culture vultures return to museums, students to schools, and diners to restaurants, the performing arts remain indefinitely dark. (There are exceptions, of course, mostly small and outdoors. And there is streaming — so much streaming.)

So what happens when the performances pause, seasons are suspended, and stages go dark? We look at the toll the shutdown is taking through data (jobs vanished, revenues gone), visuals (picturing the season that isn’t) and personal stories (22 arts workers who should have been working this weekend, and what they’re doing instead). One weekend, lost, but also, so much more.


22 PEOPLE WHO SHOULD BE CLOCKING INTO WORK RIGHT NOW • Matt Doyle, a 33-year-old actor, expected to be on Broadway in a gender-bending revival of “Company.” Instead, “it’s hustle in any way imaginable”: singing on Cameo, teaching on Zoom, gaming on Twitch, writing comics on Webtoon, even renting out his car via Turo. Said Doyle, “The world fell out underneath us.” • Jesse Malin, 53, a rock singer and co-owner of clubs like Bowery Electric and Niagara, would have been touring across the Northeast in anticipation of a new album in October. Lockdown meant more than 100 lost shows, losing the musician up to 75 percent of his income. “$1,000 now is like $10,000 pre-Covid” for musicians who live week-to-week, tour-to-tour, he said. • Sutton Foster, 45, was slated to be starring opposite Hugh Jackman in a Broadway revival of “The Music Man.” Instead she has been holed up with “a wonderful variety of sweatpants,” and is leading dance cardio workouts for charity on Instagram Live. She and Jackman are planning a two-week choreography rehearsal, after which she will film the seventh season of “Younger.” “I’m excited to work,” she said, “but I know it’s going to be a completely different environment.”


• Lindsey Jones, 30, a freelance dancer who performs with John Heginbotham and Pam Tanowitz, expected her September to be full of rehearsals. She has no plans to stop performing, but in June she started an herbal medicine program and landed a job in garden design. “I have the body awareness that it requires because we’re doing so much heavy lifting,” she said. “Dance prepared me to do this job.” • Nick Catchdubs, 39, a DJ and co-founder of Fool’s Gold Records, would have been preparing for his independent label’s annual festival. About a quarter of his own income has evaporated, and the label shuttered its downtown location. “It’s phantom-limb syndrome,” he said of not being able to DJ. “And I don’t think anybody wants to go to a nightclub with ten people in circles.” • Frank Huang, 42, is the concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic. He lost a large part of his income when the Philharmonic’s musicians all agreed to accept the same reduced pay (about $2,000 a week). He has put off purchasing a car and some items for his daughter, born in May, and has been more frugal at the grocery store — “things I would never have thought twice about in the past” — while playing lawn concerts for his Scarsdale neighbors.


THE CITY

When the Cultural Engines Cut Out

The shutdown has touched New York in its heart — and its wallet.

In many ways, the city’s pulsing cultural scene, big and small, rich and struggling, scrappy and refined, makes New York what it is. It’s why we live here, or why we visit. The arts entertain us, provoke us, inform us, inspire us.

They’re also an engine that drives the city’s economy.

Before the pandemic, New York state’s arts and cultural sector contributed $120 billion to New York’s economy, or 7.5 percent of the state’s economic output, and employed nearly half a million people, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

In New York ( central Manhattan) there are pockets of peace and quiet thru small parks here and there. One of the things I am not too hopeful I could visit once more is Paley Park -- a secret oasis ( complete with a gentle waterfall...and many lounging-type chairs scattered around) where one can have a quiet and almost serene lunch ( they serve sandwiches) without being overcrowded on East 53rd! Once recharged, you can go to the hustle and bustle of Fifth Avenue, Rock Center, the MoMA... the quiet comfort within St Patrick's... before joining the throngs busily looking up ( at the skyscrapers) and ready to go up one of them ( Tip: Some people prefer to go up Rock Center than having to wait long in line at the twin viewing top of the Empire State Building). Hopefully, the gardens at the MoMA surrounded by art will be back with people around... Or will the lingering pandemic memories make people shy away from cloistering together even if a vaccine could eventually mitigate the risks?

Sad and poignant... because the people who live in New York or who come to New York to realize a dream or to simply be a real touristy tourist are as much a part of the cultural atmosphere of this great city!


Jo

[jo]

[JH4HJ]

Some theatres in London are starting to have live stage productions again. (I'm still on a few mailing list from a trip a couple of years ago.) I thought some of you might be interested to read about *how* they're doing it.

Nimax Theatres is delighted to welcome audiences back into our six West End venues. The safety of our audiences, performers and staff is our utmost priority. We have put in place a number of new measures as part of our Covid-safe reopening plan . . . 

COVID 19 SECURE

[jo]

[JH4HJ]

‘Hamilton’ could be first show to reopen Broadway after COVID-19
The Tony-winning musical is set to return to the Richard Rodgers Theatre on July 4

“Hamilton” is hatching a plan to make history yet again — by wielding its massive might to become the first show to open on Broadway after the COVID-19 lockdown.

And with a characteristic theatrical flair, we’re told they’re hoping to throw open the door of the Richard Rodgers Theatre on July 4.

Gov. Cuomo is expected to reopen theaters on the Great White Way in June, but it’s expected to be at a limited capacity, meaning almost all shows would be operating at a loss by playing to smaller audiences.

But we’re told that because “Hamilton” — which Business Insider reported to make an average of $600,000 in profit each week — has such formidable cash reserves, it could sustain itself even with a socially distanced run.

Also, power player Lin-Manuel Miranda would be well placed to take a reduction in pay on his nightly cut as its author.

So we’re told that producers are planning a headline-grabbing return to Broadway, and timing it to the holiday to draw a parallel between the end of the Broadway shutdown and the celebrations that accompanied the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which is at the center of the fêted production.

“In their heads, it’s all about being leaders in the theater community and blazing a trail” for their fellow thespians, said an insider. “But the p.r. wouldn’t hurt, either. It’d be on the front pages of the paper.”

Full article

[jo]

I like the idea of a home-based flower shop.

Even when one gets back to Broadway -- it can still be maintained as a small business, employing other actors who are " having a rest" ( as the out-of-work actress in ASPECTS OF LOVE describes her out-of-work time)

Jo

[jo]

London has imposed another lockdown for theatres, with no definite lifting date. It is disappointing as the London theatre situation was supposed to be the harbinger of what happens to live theatre, also on Broadway.

www.playbill.com/article/under-tier-3-restrictions-london-theatres-enter-another-lockdown-as-holidays-approach

Hopefully, this will be lifted in the near future given that the vaccination program is now underway.


Jo

[jo]

Jan 13, 2021 21:08:36 GMT -5 jo said:

www.talkinbroadway.com/allthatchat_new/d.php?id=2503541

Michael Riedel on Broadway re-opening

Posted by: HelenHaze 11:06 am EST 01/13/21

Riedel was interviewed by Foster Hirsch last night for a Lambs Club event and said he thinks when Broadway re-opens it should be a HUGE event with a parade down Broadway led by Hugh Jackman and all the casts from all the shows doing "76 Trombones" ending in a Times Square performance that should be nationally televised. A real event. He also said he didn't think Broadway could come back with the same prices. He says people just don't have the money any more and the prices will come down for a while until everything is back to normal. I have to agree with him on both points.

BTW, he was plugging his new book which is terrific.

Could be workable -- if it is done via the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade ( when The Music Man will only be less than a month from first previews)...

maybe by that time, herd immunity against the virus has been or close to being achieved?


Jo

[jo]

[jo]

NYC Updates


Governor Cuomo Reveals Details of NY PopsUp, Including Participation from Hugh Jackman, Idina Menzel, Sutton Foster and More!
Other performers with include Broadway veterans Renée Fleming, Billy Porter, Gavin Creel, Jessie Mueller and more!
by BWW News Desk Feb. 8, 2021



Plans are underway to bring the arts back to the state of New York. NY PopsUp, an unprecedented and expansive festival featuring hundreds of pop-up performances (many of which are free of charge and all open to the public) that will intersect with the daily lives of New Yorkers, was announced earlier today by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo.

This series of events, intended to revitalize the spirit and emotional well-being of New York citizens with the energy of live performance while jumpstarting New York's struggling live entertainment sector, is a private / public partnership overseen by producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal, in coordination with the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and Empire State Development (ESD).

The Festival will serve as a "pilot program," creating the state's first large-scale model for how to bring live performance back safely after this prolonged COVID-related shutdown. The programming for NY PopsUp will be curated by the interdisciplinary artist Zack Winokur, in partnership with a hand-selected council of artistic advisors who represent the diversity of New York's dynamic performing arts scene and artistic communities. NY PopsUp will launch on Saturday, February 20 and run through Labor Day. The Festival will reach its climax with the 20th Anniversary of the Tribeca Film Festival and The Festival at Little Island at Pier 55, bringing the total number of performances to more than 1,000. NY PopsUp is being coordinated in lock step with state public health officials and will strictly adhere to Department of Health (DOH) COVID-19 protocols.


Cuomo made the announcement during today's press briefing (watch below), during which he also commented on how and when Broadway can return. "The overall effort is headed toward reopening with testing," he said. "Would I go see a play and sit in a playhouse with 150 people? If the 150 people were tested and they were all negative, yes, I would do that... I think reopening with testing is going to be the key."


"Cities have taken a real blow during COVID, and the economy will not come back fast enough on its own - we must bring it back," Governor Cuomo said. "Creative synergies are vital for cities to survive, and our arts and cultural industries have been shut down all across the country, taking a terrible toll on workers and the economy. We want to be aggressive with reopening the State and getting our economy back on track, and NY PopsUp will be an important bridge to the broader reopening of our world-class performance venues and institutions. New York has been a leader throughout this entire pandemic, and we will lead once again with bringing back the arts."


The events produced by NY PopsUp, in addition to being free of charge, will be staged across every type of neighborhood and district in all five boroughs of New York City, throughout upstate and into Western New York. As the current realities of COVID-19 make mass gatherings and large, destination-style events impossible, NY PopsUp will meet New York City and State residents where they are, infusing their daily lives with the surprise and joy of live performance. The hundreds of free, pop-up events that constitute NY PopsUp will make stages out of New York's existing landscapes, including iconic transit stations, parks, subway platforms, museums, skate parks, street corners, fire escapes, parking lots, storefronts, and upstate venues, transforming everyday commutes, local communities, and locations never used for performances into canvases of awe and exhilaration. Instead of there being masses of audience members at a handful of events, this Festival is a mass of events, each for a safe and secure 'handful' of audience members.


As COVID restrictions begin to loosen, the model that NY PopsUp builds for holding safe live events will pave the way for, and incept the reopening of, multidisciplinary flexible venues ("flex venues") throughout New York State to open and participate in the Festival. These will be the very first indoor performances since the pandemic began and will mark a major moment in New York's recovery efforts. Not only will these indoor events be a symbol to the entire world that New York is back, they will also be a key step in the long process of getting tens-of-thousands of arts professionals around New York State back to work; and a bridge to getting Broadway and all of the New York cultural world open. These Flex Venues are established union and non-union performance spaces without fixed seating and are thus able to be adapted for social distancing. Examples of these venues would include The SHED, The Apollo, Harlem Stage, La MaMa, and The Glimmerglass Festival's Alice Busch Opera Theater. All indoor events will strictly follow Department of Health public health and safety guidance.


"Having artists call on other artists as a means to build this festival's giant creative community will spur opportunities for wild, bold, and intimate collaborations that would never otherwise have been possible. As a result, the work presented will represent a near limitless range, colliding disparate styles, disciplines, and points-of-view to infiltrate the daily lives of New Yorkers in genuinely surprising and unprecedented ways," Zack Winokur explained, adding: "Ultimately, this Festival is about using art as a means of reestablishing human connection. With NY PopsUp, there is no mediating force between artist and artist, or artist and audience. It's humans in direct contact with each other, and the context of this particular moment will make that connection all the more profound."

Governor Cuomo Reveals Details of NY PopsUp, Including Participation from Hugh Jackman, Idina Menzel, Sutton Foster and More!

The council of artistic advisors, who are all collaborating and co-curating NY PopsUp, is comprised of a unique group of New York's premier artistic visionaries, all hailing from different disciplinary backgrounds and each a leader in their own field. These advisors are charged with inviting other artists to join the NY PopsUp community. The artists they engage will, in turn, engage their own networks, ultimately populating the festival with the broadest, most diverse coalition of performers ever united around a single mission. In short, NY PopsUp is being built by artists asking artists to participate.


The council includes renowned choreographer and MacArthur Fellow, Kyle Abraham; three-time Grammy Award nominated jazz musician, Jon Batiste; choreographer and Hoofer Award-winning tap dancer Ayodele Casel; Grammy Award nominated singer, actor, and international opera star, Anthony Roth Costanzo; the playwright of Slave Play, the most Tony Award nominated play in history, Jeremy O. Harris; Tony Award-winning set designer Mimi Lien; the legendary nine-time Grammy Award-winning musician, Wynton Marsalis; two-time National Book Critics Circle Award-winning poet, essayist, and playwright, Claudia Rankine; Grammy Award-winning jazz vocalist, Cécile McLorin Salvant; leading member of the Punch Brothers and four-time Grammy Award winner, Chris Thile; acclaimed "Saturday Night Live" writer, comedian, and actor, Julio Torres; and acclaimed director and musician, Whitney White.

The public will encounter a range of artists representing all areas of performance - from theater to dance, from poetry to comedy, from pop music to opera, and so much more. Among the confirmed artists are Hugh Jackman, Renée Fleming, Amy Schumer, Alec Baldwin, Chris Rock, Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, Isabel Leonard, Nico Muhly, Joyce DiDonato, John Early and Kate Berlant, Patti Smith, Mandy Patinkin, Raja Feather Kelly, J'Nai Bridges, Kenan Thompson, Gavin Creel, Garth Fagan, Larry Owens, Q-Tip, Billy Porter, Conrad Tao, Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, Tina Landau, Rhiannon Giddens, Aparna Nancherla, Anthony Rodriguez, Jonathan Groff, Savion Glover, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, Chris Celiz, Christine Goerke, Kelli O'Hara, Dev Hynes, Phoebe Robinson, Sara Mearns, George Saunders, Caleb Teicher, Danielle Brooks, Jeremy Denk, Idina Menzel, Sondra Radvanovsky, Gaby Moreno, Davóne Tines, Jerrod Carmichael, Taylor Mac, Sutton Foster, Jessie Mueller, and Courtney ToPanga Washington, among many others. The events themselves will ignite imaginative collisions of different artforms.


Mr. Rudin and Ms. Rosenthal remarked, in a joint statement, "As two lifelong New Yorkers, it has been utterly devastating to see our creative community brought to an absolute standstill for a year. It's inconceivable. We both spend our lives generating opportunities for artists, so we were both thrilled to be asked by Governor Cuomo to try to ignite a spark to bring art and performance back to life for the State. The passionate enthusiasm of every person we asked to join us in this incentive is going to make this a labor of both love and invention. We're honored to be spearheading this campaign. Frankly, our most profound hope is that by the time NY PopsUp culminates on Labor Day, New York will be fully on the way to being reopened and revitalized and that this initiative, having served its purpose, will no longer be necessary. It's the spark, not the fire --- the fire is the complete return of all the arts, in their full glory, standing as they always have for the rich, emotional life of the city and state in which we both live."


During the run of the festival, NY PopsUp will grow in its scale, volume of performances, and geographical footprint, with events throughout New York State, from the Bronx to Staten Island, from Buffalo to Suffolk County, from the Hudson Valley to the Capitol.

NY PopsUp will reach its apex over the summer, as we celebrate both the 20th Anniversary of the Tribeca Film Festival (June 9 through 20) and the opening of one of New York's most highly anticipated projects: Little Island (June).

The Tribeca Film Festival was founded by Rosenthal and Robert DeNiro in the aftermath of 9/11 to revitalize Lower Manhattan. Tribeca has come to symbolize the resilience of New Yorkers, the importance of our artistic communities, and their impact on the economic activity of our city. This year's 20th event will be the first in-person film festival in the entirety of North America since the pandemic began to host its filmmakers and their premieres in front of a live audience. With over 300 ticketed and non-ticketed events, the film festival will have screenings, panel discussions, concerts, and more, in parks, on piers, on buildings, and on barges. Tribeca will reach all five boroughs in celebration of the spirit of New York with a closing night celebration of Juneteenth.


The idea for Little Island, a soon-to-open, first-of-its-kind public park on the Hudson River that merges nature and art, was dreamt up as a solution to repair and reinvigorate New York's West Side after the destruction wrought by Hurricane Sandy. A Diller - von Furstenberg Family Foundation project, this is yet another example of the unique power of the arts to revitalize New York in the aftermath of crisis. Little Island, which will begin hosting performances in June, will serve as a permanent, year-round home for easily accessible, multidisciplinary programming, and it will continue bringing artists and audiences together long after NY PopsUp hosts its final performance. Little Island will host its own festival, The Festival at Little Island, in conjunction with the final weeks of NY PopsUp. The Festival at Little Island, which kicks off August 11, 2021 and runs through September 5, will host an average of 16 events per day, for a total of 325 performances by approximately 500 artists.

More details about NY PopsUp will be announced soon. Please note that, given the impromptu nature and surprise element of the pop-up format, not all performances will be announced in advance.

The testing requirement before each performance will encourage people to attend if this would practically eliminate any super-spreading.

[jo]

Just wondering --

Will Hugh be participating when the festival comes to the Little Island Park ( on the Hudson River in the Chelsea neighboring - maybe he can even see it further to the north of the Hudson at his place)? I saw an image of a prospective ampitheatre (do watch the clip) at Little Island ( formerly Pier 55).

www.dezeen.com/2019/11/13/heatherwick-studios-pier-55-renamed-little-island/







Btw, the project is spearheaded by Barry Diller -- one of the three major producers of THE MUSIC MAN. The two other TMM producers are Scott Rudin and David Geffen. Hmm... if Rudin and Diller are involved in the POPS-UP festival ( which also includes Sutton Foster)...

maybe a number from THE MUSIC MAN?

How about "Seventy Six Trombones"

As I have said - I am daydreaming -LOL!


Jo

[jo]

Technically NOT Broadway in its strict definition, it seems Little Island will host performances in an open-air near-theatrical setting.

From a 2018 NYTimes article ( before the pandemic) --

The park will also serve as a performing arts center, with a 700-seat amphitheater for music, dance and theater productions developed by the playwright George C. Wolfe and the producers Scott Rudin and Stephen Daldry, among others enlisted by Mr. Diller.

[jo]

Reposting this here, as it the comprehensive program ( reported here by the Office of Gov Cuomo) is hoped to spark the return of the performing arts, including BROADWAY!

Feb 8, 2021 21:49:28 GMT -5 jo said:

The Comprehensive Report from the Office of Gov Cuomo --


www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-marshals-return-performing-arts-new-york-ny-popsup

FEBRUARY 8, 2021 Albany, NY
Governor Cuomo Marshals the Return of the Performing Arts to New York with "NY PopsUp"
CULTURERECREATIONTOURISM
TOP Governor Cuomo Marshals the Return of the...SHARE
An Expansive Statewide Festival of Pop-Up Events Delivered Right Into the Daily Life of New Yorkers, Transforming Existing New York Landscapes into Stages for World-Class Performance

More Than 300 Pop-Up Events Planned Throughout the Five Boroughs and Across New York State in 100 Days

All Made by New York Artists to Revitalize New York Audiences and Bring the Struggling Live Entertainment Sector Roaring Back to Life

Festival to Serve as a Bridge to the Full Safe Return of Live Performance Back to New York

Begins February 20th

Multi-Disciplinary Events to Grow in Scale, Volume and Geographical Footprint Through Labor Day

NY PopsUp Logos Are Available Here

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the launch of NY PopsUp - an unprecedented and expansive festival featuring hundreds of pop-up performances, many of which are free of charge and all open to the public — that will intersect with the daily lives of New Yorkers. This series of events, intended to revitalize the spirit and emotional well-being of New York citizens with the energy of live performance while jumpstarting New York's struggling live entertainment sector, is a private/public partnership overseen by producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal, in coordination with the New York State Council on the Arts and Empire State Development.

The Festival will serve as a "pilot program," creating the state's first large-scale model for how to bring live performance back safely after this prolonged COVID-related shutdown. The programming for NY PopsUp will be curated by the interdisciplinary artist Zack Winokur, in partnership with a council of artistic advisors who represent the diversity of New York's dynamic performing arts scene. NY PopsUp will launch on Saturday, February 20 and run through Labor Day. The Festival will reach its climax with the 20th Anniversary of the Tribeca Film Festival and The Festival at Little Island at Pier 55, bringing the total number of performances to more than 1,000. NY PopsUp is being coordinated in lock step with state public health officials and will strictly adhere to Department of Health COVID-19 protocols.

"Cities have taken a real blow during COVID, and the economy will not come back fast enough on its own - we must bring it back," Governor Cuomo said. "Creative synergies are vital for cities to survive, and our arts and cultural industries have been shut down all across the country, taking a terrible toll on workers and the economy. We want to be aggressive with reopening the State and getting our economy back on track, and NY PopsUp will be an important bridge to the broader reopening of our world-class performance venues and institutions. New York has been a leader throughout this entire pandemic, and we will lead once again with bringing back the arts."

The events produced by NY PopsUp, in addition to being free of charge, will be staged across every type of neighborhood and district in all five boroughs of New York City, throughout Long Island and Upstate New York, and in all regions of the state. As the current realities of COVID-19 make mass gatherings and large, destination-style events impossible, NY PopsUp will meet New York City and State residents where they are, infusing their daily lives with the surprise and joy of live performance. The hundreds of free, pop-up events that constitute NY PopsUp will make stages out of New York's existing landscapes, including iconic transit stations, parks, subway platforms, museums, skate parks, street corners, fire escapes, parking lots, storefronts, and upstate venues, transforming everyday commutes, local communities, and locations never used for performances into canvases of awe and exhilaration. Instead of there being masses of audience members at a handful of events, this Festival is a mass of events, each for a safe and secure 'handful' of audience members.

As COVID restrictions begin to loosen, the model that NY PopsUp builds for holding safe live events will pave the way for the reopening of multidisciplinary flexible venues ("flex venues") throughout New York State to open and participate in the Festival. These will be the very first indoor performances since the pandemic began and will mark a major moment in New York's recovery efforts. Not only will these indoor events be a symbol to the entire world that New York is back, they will also be a key step in the long process of getting tens-of-thousands of arts professionals around New York State back to work; and a bridge to getting Broadway and all of the New York cultural world open. These Flex Venues are established performance spaces without fixed seating and are thus able to be adapted for social distancing. Examples of these venues would include The SHED, The Apollo, Harlem Stage, La MaMa, and The Glimmerglass Festival's Alice Busch Opera Theater. All indoor events will strictly follow Department of Health public health and safety guidance.

"Having artists call on other artists as a means to build this festival's giant creative community will spur opportunities for wild, bold, and intimate collaborations that would never otherwise have been possible. As a result, the work presented will represent a near limitless range, colliding disparate styles, disciplines, and points-of-view to infiltrate the daily lives of New Yorkers in genuinely surprising and unprecedented ways," Zack Winokur said. "Ultimately, this Festival is about using art as a means of reestablishing human connection. With NY PopsUp, there is no mediating force between artist and artist, or artist and audience. It's humans in direct contact with each other, and the context of this particular moment will make that connection all the more profound."

The council of artistic advisors, who are all collaborating and co-curating NY PopsUp, is comprised of a unique group of New York's premier artistic visionaries, all hailing from different disciplinary backgrounds and each a leader in their own field. These advisors are charged with inviting other artists to join the NY PopsUp community. The artists they engage will, in turn, engage their own networks, ultimately populating the festival with the broadest, most diverse coalition of performers ever united around a single mission. In short, NY PopsUp is being built by artists asking artists to participate.

The council includes renowned choreographer and MacArthur Fellow, Kyle Abraham; three-time Grammy Award nominated jazz musician, Jon Batiste; choreographer and Hoofer Award-winning tap dancer Ayodele Casel; Grammy Award nominated singer, actor, and international opera star, Anthony Roth Costanzo; the playwright of Slave Play, the most Tony Award nominated play in history, Jeremy O. Harris; Tony Award-winning set designer Mimi Lien; the legendary nine-time Grammy Award-winning musician, Wynton Marsalis; two-time National Book Critics Circle Award-winning poet, essayist, and playwright, Claudia Rankine; Grammy Award-winning jazz vocalist, Cécile McLorin Salvant; leading member of the Punch Brothers and four-time Grammy Award winner, Chris Thile; acclaimed "Saturday Night Live" writer, comedian, and actor, Julio Torres; and acclaimed director and musician, Whitney White.

The public will encounter a range of artists representing all areas of performance - from theater to dance, from poetry to comedy, from pop music to opera, and so much more. Among the confirmed artists are Hugh Jackman, Renée Fleming, Amy Schumer, Alec Baldwin, Chris Rock, Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, Isabel Leonard, Nico Muhly, Joyce DiDonato, John Early and Kate Berlant, Patti Smith, Mandy Patinkin, Raja Feather Kelly, J'Nai Bridges, Kenan Thompson, Gavin Creel, Garth Fagan, Larry Owens, Q-Tip, Billy Porter, Conrad Tao, Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, Tina Landau, Rhiannon Giddens, Aparna Nancherla, Anthony Rodriguez, Jonathan Groff, Savion Glover, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, Chris Celiz, Christine Goerke, Kelli O'Hara, Dev Hynes, Phoebe Robinson, Sara Mearns, George Saunders, Caleb Teicher, Danielle Brooks, Jeremy Denk, Idina Menzel, Sondra Radvanovsky, Gaby Moreno, Davóne Tines, Jerrod Carmichael, Taylor Mac, Sutton Foster, Jessie Mueller, and Courtney ToPanga Washington, among many others. The events themselves will ignite imaginative collisions of different artforms.

Mr. Rudin and Ms. Rosenthal said, in a joint statement, "As two lifelong New Yorkers, it has been utterly devastating to see our creative community brought to an absolute standstill for a year. It's inconceivable. We both spend our lives generating opportunities for artists, so we were both thrilled to be asked by Governor Cuomo to try to ignite a spark to bring art and performance back to life for the State. The passionate enthusiasm of every person we asked to join us in this incentive is going to make this a labor of both love and invention. We're honored to be spearheading this campaign. Frankly, our most profound hope is that by the time NY PopsUp culminates on Labor Day, New York will be fully on the way to being reopened and revitalized and that this initiative, having served its purpose, will no longer be necessary. It's the spark, not the fire --- the fire is the complete return of all the arts, in their full glory, standing as they always have for the rich, emotional life of the city and state in which we both live."

During the run of the festival, NY PopsUp will grow in its scale, volume of performances, and geographical footprint, with events throughout New York State, from the Bronx to Staten Island, from Buffalo to Suffolk County, from the Hudson Valley to the Capitol.

NY PopsUp will reach its apex over the summer, as we celebrate both the 20th Anniversary of the Tribeca Film Festival (June 9 through 20) and the opening of one of New York's most highly anticipated projects: Little Island (June).

The Tribeca Film Festival was founded by Rosenthal and Robert DeNiro in the aftermath of 9/11 to revitalize Lower Manhattan. Tribeca has come to symbolize the resilience of New Yorkers, the importance of our artistic communities, and their impact on the economic activity of our city. This year's 20th event will be the first in-person film festival in the entirety of North America since the pandemic began to host its filmmakers and their premieres in front of a live audience. With over 300 ticketed and non-ticketed events, the film festival will have screenings, panel discussions, concerts, and more, in parks, on piers, on buildings, and on barges. Tribeca will reach all five boroughs in celebration of the spirit of New York with a closing night celebration of Juneteenth.

The idea for Little Island, a soon-to-open, first-of-its-kind public park on the Hudson River that merges nature and art, was dreamt up as a solution to repair and reinvigorate New York's West Side after the destruction wrought by Hurricane Sandy. A Diller - von Furstenberg Family Foundation project, this is yet another example of the unique power of the arts to revitalize New York in the aftermath of crisis. Little Island, which will begin hosting performances in June, will serve as a permanent, year-round home for easily accessible, multidisciplinary programming, and it will continue bringing artists and audiences together long after NY PopsUp hosts its final performance. Little Island will host its own festival, The Festival at Little Island, in conjunction with the final weeks of NY PopsUp. The Festival at Little Island, which kicks off August 11, 2021 and runs through September 5, will host an average of 16 events per day, for a total of 325 performances by approximately 500 artists.

More details about NY PopsUp will be announced soon. Please note that, given the impromptu nature and surprise element of the pop-up format, not all performances will be announced in advance. Please follow @nypopsup on Twitter and Instagram for the latest.

The first performances will include, among others still to be announced, the following:

Beginning Saturday, February 20 (Opening Day), members of the artists council will lead a performance at the Javits Center as a special tribute to our healthcare workers. The performance will feature Jon Batiste, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Ayodele Casel, and additional special guests joining forces for a one-of-a-kind live performance.

Throughout the day, the performers will travel around New York City, meeting audiences at various locations throughout all five boroughs in courtyards, workplaces, parks, and street corners, at the footsteps of locations such as, Flushing Post Office, Elmhurst Hospital, and St. Barnabas Hospital. Saturday will conclude with one of Jon Batiste's signature Love Riots beginning at Walt Whitman Park and ending at Golconda Playground in Brooklyn.

On Sunday, February 21, legendary choreographer Garth Fagan's company will lead a special performance at the MAGIC Spell Studios at the Rochester Institute of Technology as a tribute for the staff who have made it possible for RIT to stay open and safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a statement, Mr. Fagan said, "I remember with great pride and pleasure receiving a NYS Governor's Arts Award from then Governor Mario Cuomo and his wife Matilda in 1986. It is fitting that during our 50th anniversary season, we work with their son, Governor Andrew Cuomo and the State of New York to revive the magic of live performance in Rochester, NY, simultaneously honoring our unheralded RIT essential workers. We look forward to NY PopsUp creating more opportunities for artists in New York State in the months to come!"

ALSO:

Patti Smith performing at the Brooklyn Museum in remembrance of the passing of Robert Mapplethorpe.

Partnership with "Works & Process" at the Guggenheim, that will take brilliant new performances beyond the famed Rotunda to locations around the boroughs. These collaborations include George Gershwin's anthem to New York City, Rhapsody in Blue, performed by New York's own pianist and composer, Conrad Tao, with new choreography by Caleb Teicher; The Missing Element, a beatbox and street dance collaboration, featuring Chris Celiz and Anthony Rodriguez's "Invertebrate"; and Masterz at Work Dance Family performing a brand-new dance by choreographer Courtney ToPanga Washington.

A series of performances in storefront windows, amplified out onto the street, from artists Gavin Creel, J'Nai Bridges, Davóne Tines, Bobbi Jene Smith, Or Schraiber, and more.

A new live radio show hosted by Chris Thile, broadcast from stoops all over New York State, from Brooklyn and the East Village to the steps of Albany's Empire State Plaza across from the Capitol building.

A series of dynamic and participatory performances created by Ayodele Casel taking place in the lobbies of free museums throughout the City of New York, including the Brooklyn Museum and Queens Museum.

NY PopsUp, the Tribeca Film Festival, and The Festival at Little Island will together bring a total of more than 1,000 performances to New York State between February 20 and Labor Day, signaling an event unmatched in scale and unrivaled in scope.

Contact the Governor's Press Office
Contact us by phone:
Albany: (518) 474 - 8418
New York City: (212) 681 - 4640

[jo]

[jo]

Slowly and tentatively...but surely --

reopening the arts in New York.

A report from Broadwayworld --

Select Broadway Theaters Will Re-Open in April as Part of NY PopsUp
Flex Venues include the Apollo, Park Avenue Armory, St. Ann’s Warehouse, The SHED, Harlem Stage, La MaMa, National Black theatre, and more.


by BWW News Desk Mar. 3, 2021

Select Broadway Theaters Will Re-Open in April as Part of NY PopsUp

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced today the long-awaited return of live indoor performance across New York State will commence April 2, 2021 with the reopening of a significant number of Flexible Venues ("Flex Venues") as part of an ongoing systematic effort to help jumpstart New York's struggling live entertainment sector.

Also a part of the announcement, New York event, arts and entertainment venues holding less than 10,000 people will be allowed to reopen at 33% capacity beginning April 2. Up to 100 people will be allowed indoors, and 200 people will be allowed outdoors.

NY PopsUp, the new festival of pop-up events overseen by producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal, was established to help revitalize the spirit and emotional well-being of New York citizens through the energy of live performance set over 100 days throughout New York City and State. New safety protocols developed by NYPopsUp in coordination with the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and Empire State Development (ESD) will also serve as the pilot program to re-open Flex Venues. These Flex Venues -- established performance spaces that are able to be adapted for social distancing guidelines - include such important culture hubs as The Apollo, Park Avenue Armory, St. Ann's Warehouse, The SHED, Harlem Stage, La MaMa, National Black theatre, and The Glimmerglass Festival's Alice Busch Opera Theater.





In April, select Broadway theaters, beginning with the Music Box on 45th Street, will open their doors to audiences for the first time since March 12, 2020, with a series of special NY PopsUp programs, and will put in motion safety protocols that will eventually be employed for Broadway's return.

Following the year-long shutdown, these coming performances will mark a major moment in New York's recovery efforts, signaling that the arts in New York are coming back in force. And especially, these events will also mark a significant step in the long process of getting tens-of-thousands of arts professionals around New York State back to work.

The New York State Department of Health and NY PopsUp are collaborating with Broadway theater operators to create specific safety plans for each participating building, in advance of April's first performances. This thorough process will serve as Broadway's own pilot program that will increase audience size over time as the Department of Health allows, and will put select protocols into action as New York prepares for Broadway's complete re-opening.


Producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal said, "In just two weeks NY PopsUp has become the engine that drives the safe re-opening of the arts throughout our State. It's a wonderful bonus to the opportunity to present 300 shows in 100 days, and to the enormous satisfaction in bringing artists back to work here. It's incredibly exciting to see what the arts community and the state can do, together, when we all row in the same direction."

In a statement, Founding President & Executive Producer of Park Avenue Armory, Rebecca Robertson, said, "Park Avenue Armory is delighted to be working with the State on providing a truly safe pathway to the re-opening up New York's performing arts sector and getting our artists back to work. We thank the Governor for letting the Armory and other flexible spaces welcome back audiences in a responsible way. I also applaud the NY Forward initiatives and NY PopUps program headed up by Jane Rosenthal and Scott Rudin for working so creatively to revive the arts sector at such a critical time."


Sade Lythcott, CEO of National Black Theatre and Chair of Coalition of Theatres of Color, said, "The reopening of these venues will provide the much needed light at the end of this long, dark tunnel. This is how we begin to bring our workforce back, enliven the streets with the power of live performance, and chart a measured and strategic pathway towards the full reopening of our sector. Above all, these performances will be medicine for the soul of New York."

NY PopsUp is an unprecedented and expansive festival featuring hundreds of pop-up performances (many of which are free of charge and all open to the public) that will intersect with the daily lives of New Yorkers. The programming for NY PopsUp is curated by the interdisciplinary artist Zack Winokur, in partnership with a hand-selected council of artistic advisors who represent the diversity of New York's dynamic performing arts scene and artistic communities. NY PopsUp launched on Saturday, February 20 and will run through Labor Day. The Festival will reach its climax with the 20th Anniversary of the Tribeca Film Festival and The Festival at Little Island at Pier 55, bringing the total number of performances to more than 1,000. NY PopsUp is being coordinated in lock step with state public health officials and will strictly adhere to Department of Health (DOH) COVID-19 protocols. NY PopsUp's model for delivering safe performance experiences is also providing a roadmap for New York's preeminent cultural institution, Lincoln Center, in the planning of their new outdoor performing arts complex, "Restart Stages." "Restart Stages," boasting a total of 10 outdoor performance and rehearsal spaces, is set to open April 7.


Per New York State's Department of Health, attendee capacity of any performance must be limited to the lesser of 33% of the maximum occupancy for the particular area or 50 people; exclusive of performers, crew, and other staff who are necessary for the event. Effective April 2, 2021, the number of attendees may exceed the social gathering limit of 50 people, up to a maximum of 150 attendees, within a 33% maximum occupancy limit for the particular area so long as all attendees receive an appropriate negative diagnostic test result prior to the event.

[jo]

The report from Deadline.com --

Select Broadway Theaters To Open For New York Pop-Up Events Beginning In April
By Greg Evans

Greg Evans
Associate Editor/Broadway Critic

@gregevans5


AP Images
A select number of now-dark Broadway venues will begin opening in April for a series of live- performance pop-up events that could establish the safety protocols needed for the theater industry’s eventual return.

Beginning with the Shubert Organization’s Music Box Theatre on 45th Street, Broadway theaters will be among the venues housing the events of the NY PopsUp program described as a new 100-day arts festival throughout New York City and State. The series is being overseen by producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal.

Though the PopsUp festival had been previously announced, the inclusion of Broadway theaters as the program’s “flexible venues” was disclosed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo today. The series of live indoor performances across the state begins April 2. Outdoor events began Feb. 20.


The venues will utilize safety protocols, developed by NY PopsUp in coordination with the New York State Council on the Arts and Empire State Development, that will eventually be employed for Broadway’s return, according to the NY PopsUp announcement.

The plan prompted Actors’ Equity Association to urge Cuomo to prioritize arts workers for Covid vaccines.

“As he wisely did when reopening restaurants, we hope that Governor Cuomo will again put workers first and prioritize getting members of the arts sector vaccinated,” said Mary McColl, executive director of Actors’ Equity Association. “Much like workers in the restaurant industry, our members lack the ability to socially distance throughout their entire workdays, making vaccines critical for maintaining a safe workplace. We look forward to continuing to work with the state on reopening the live arts in a way that protects workers, as well as the audience.”

The use of Broadway theaters is being coordinated by the New York State Department of Health and NY PopsUp in collaboration with theater operators. Today’s announcement described the process as as “Broadway’s own pilot program” as the industry prepares for a complete re-opening.

Broadway, which went dark last March, is officially shut down due to the Covid pandemic until June, but no productions are currently expected before the fall. The Music Box Theatre is home to the current (but temporarily suspended) play Dear Evan Hansen.

Additional Broadway theaters to be used for the PopsUp series were not disclosed, but various other cultural venues were identified, including The Apollo, Park Avenue Armory, St. Ann’s Warehouse, The SHED, Harlem Stage, La MaMa, the National Black Theatre and The Glimmerglass Festival’s Alice Busch Opera Theater.


In a joint statement, Rudin and Rosenthal said, “In just two weeks NY PopsUp has become the engine that drives the safe re-opening of the arts throughout our State. It’s a wonderful bonus to the opportunity to present 300 shows in 100 days, and to the enormous satisfaction in bringing artists back to work here. It’s incredibly exciting to see what the arts community and the state can do, together, when we all row in the same direction.”

Exactly what events are planned for April were not revealed due to the “impromptu nature and surprise element” of the format, the organization said. The events and locations will be announced by NY PopsUp via Twitter and Instagram. A musical performance by Gavin Creel, Shoshana Bean and others was staged in a storefront on the Lower East Side last weekend.

The festival, which will run through Labor Day, began with performances by jazz musician Jon Batiste, choreographer and tap dancer Ayodele Casel and opera star Anthony Roth Costanzo for New York’s health care workers last month at the Javits Center, where Covid vaccines are being administered.

The Festival will conclude with the 20th anniversary of the Tribeca Film Festival and the new Festival at Little Island at Pier 55. Performances statewide are expected to total more than 1,000. The events are described as “interdisciplinary” and will be free of charge.

Today’s announcement by Cuomo outlined the state’s plans for indoor reopenings effective April 2, when “the number of attendees may exceed the social gathering limit of 50 people, up to a maximum of 150 attendees, within a 33% maximum occupancy limit for the particular area so long as all attendees receive an appropriate negative diagnostic test result prior to the event.”

[jo]

Wishful thinking...or what??

Joey Sims
@joeycsims
wow, rudin announces small 'pop-up' show (The Music Man), in a 'secret location' (Winter Garden Theatre) for 'select audience' (premium tix only). we're back baby
6:28 AM · Mar 4, 2021·Twitter Web App
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Retweets
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David Gordon
@mrdavidgordon
·
34m
Replying to
@joeycsims
I was absolutely figuring Hugh Jackman in residence at the Winter Garden to be one of those pop up shows
Noah Pattillo
@noahpattillo
·
11m
Replying to
@joeycsims
DROP THE LINK!

[jo]

David is the President of the Outer Critics Circle, which is why I thought there just might be a teeney-weeney secret
that they are dropping hints of

[jo]

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-knew-id-miss-theater-when-broadway-shuttered-i-didnt-know-id-miss-the-audiences/2021/03/08/2b57e980-803c-11eb-ac37-4383f7709abe_story.html

Opinion: I knew I’d miss theater when Broadway shuttered. I didn’t know I’d miss the audiences.

Catherine Rampell
Columnist

March 9, 2021 at 6:45 a.m. GMT+8

A year ago this week, every theater in New York went dark.

I’d just seen what would turn out to be the penultimate performance of “Coal Country,” a haunting play about a West Virginia mine explosion; three other productions I held tickets for were suspended, too. The news was disappointing — for fellow fans, actors, and the broader ecosystem of workers and businesses that rely on performing arts to pay their bills. But everyone understood the closure was necessary to protect public health.

Besides, curtains would rise again in just a month, once this silly virus had been vanquished.

Or so we hoped.

Over subsequent weeks and months, Broadway remained silent. Ambulance sirens, with occasional bursts of applause for essential workers, scored the city, instead. Death washed over New York; refrigerated trucks were converted into overflow morgues, and at one point a New Yorker was dying every two minutes.



I mourned this mass tragedy along with my city. But I also sometimes found myself guiltily fantasizing about a more frivolous loss: those plays that shuttered. The shows that hadn’t, as it were, gone on.

I missed the diversion of live theater, of course — the opportunity to escape into worlds whose characters faced misfortunes and joys altogether different from those around me. I missed the ability to exalt in the virtuosity of members of my species: the trill of a silver soprano, a brilliant plot twist, a jubilant fan-kick. And I missed having a different lens through which to view questions of class and race and family, enemies and friends, compassion and conflict. Theater can entertain and energize, sure, but at its best it has left me deeply, squirmingly uncomfortable. Great shows have a way of dislodging calcified beliefs and behavior, as only storytelling can.

Those things I missed almost immediately. What it has taken me a year to realize is how much I also miss the community of the audience — the strangers surrounding me, obscured by the dark, who have tacitly agreed to escape and exalt and squirm together.



A year ago, I generally noticed my fellow theatergoers only when they annoyed me — with a crinkly candy wrapper or view-obstructing hat or ringing phone. A friend once joked that if she ever struck it rich, she’d use her funds to buy every seat in the house so she could enjoy a performance solo. The idea had appeal.

But it’s only in the extended loss of theater that I’ve come to appreciate how social the medium is, indeed needs to be to succeed. It is a fundamentally communitarian art.

A punchline seems funnier, and we laugh harder, when we’re surrounded by others guffawing. Not because we’re trying to fit in, but because we’re buoyed by the communal mirth. A character’s death or heartbreak likewise feels more painful when the sobs and sniffles of strangers bear witness to it, too.

Theater rests upon these invisible relationships — between performers onstage and their audience, as well as between audience members; we all agree to a collective delusion, to make the storytelling work. That “fourth wall” notwithstanding, the audience is complicit in the performance.



Over the past year, many theaters have presented some of their work online. Bored Americans trapped at home devour content from Netflix and TikTok; why not also streamed theater? Some companies share archived footage of old productions; others convene performers for new concerts or Zoom readings. While I have enjoyed many of these efforts, they’re usually poor substitutes for the real thing.

At first I thought the limitation was stage-acting techniques. Those bigger gestures and facial expressions, designed to reach the balcony nosebleeds, don’t always translate when magnified on camera. But the real problem, I think, is that the medium of live theater requires that real-time connection between actor and audience members, and audience members with one another. Part of the magic comes from watching actors calibrate their pacing and delivery ever so slightly for this audience, and this audience alone. A performer might start a line a millisecond later so as to not step on a laugh; or accelerate her monologue to feed off audience momentum. Live theater thrives on this feedback-driven shared project. When its community is severed by a screen, the viewing experience can feel isolating.

These lost connections — purely symbolic ones, among strangers — may seem like trivial things to mourn in a year filled with much more material and personal losses. But in a way, they’re representative of why the past year has felt so lonely, even as we have the tools to regularly talk and FaceTime with loved ones. Someday, when this scourge is behind us, I look forward to sitting in a dark room, with my phone silenced and candy pre-unwrapped, to once again laugh and cry and connect with New Yorkers I’ve never met.

The feeling of community is stronger in the theatre - the connection is between audience and performers ( and even more so if the 4th wall is breached) and among the audience ( responding in unison most of the time on what they are beholding).

But one can also say that the same magic, to a certain degree, is experienced when one sees a movie together in a cinema.

Jo

[jo]

Broadway asking Hollywood to help its return --

from the NYTimes ...

Where Is Hollywood When Broadway Needs It?

A critic writes a plea to the film and TV stars who got their starts in the theater and can do more to aid its rescu


By Laura Collins-Hughes
March 10, 2021, 5:02 a.m. ET



Dear Extremely Famous Friend of the American Theater,

You’ve been on my mind a lot lately. I realize the pandemic has turned life upside down, but you’ve gone so quiet that I’ve started to wonder if you ever truly meant it — if all the times you spoke of your love of the stage, if every time you reminisced in an interview about how profoundly it shaped you, you were just … what? Following a script? Trying to fit in with your cast mates while you briefly returned to the theater, this time as a star?

I’d rather not believe that. It was comforting to think of you, out there in the klieg-light glare of screen celebrity, as someone who loved the footlights with a kind of tenderness, the way we do the things we cherish most. And the theater — the people of the theater, the people who built their livelihoods telling us stories in the dark — could really, really use some public cherishing right now.

So it is weird and sad and lonely not to have heard from you amid the real torment of this industry, almost wholly shut down for a year as film and TV production has geared back up.


Because I know you know what sets live theater apart, and that the very things that draw us to it — all of us gathered close in a room, breathing the same air — are the reasons it will be so slow to reopen. Indoor theater largely won’t start inching back until sometime this fall, even if all goes well with the vaccine rollout.

And I know you know, if you think about it even for an instant, that the many theater people thrown out of work, barely hanging on, will need meaningful help if they’re going to make it through. Whether that’s a Federal Theater Project reboot for the 21st Century or financial support for the duration, it’s going to require public understanding.



Which is why I’m coming to you — you who fell in love with the stage as a kid, who sharpened your skills and forged your connections in that top-flight training program, who did regional shows or scrappy downtown stuff (oh, how we loved you in that) until luck and talent and timing worked their alchemy, turning you into a household name.

Because, in one of the more surprising revelations of the shutdown, it turns out that the American theater has no towering figure even attempting to lead it through this crisis, the way Andrew Lloyd Webber has in Britain. The people you might expect to step up — powerhouse producers, I mean, not stage stars, many of whom have spent the shutdown donating their skills to countless online benefits — seem to have succumbed to a strange, Darwinian torpor.



It’s like watching the horizon for help that never arrives, because the helpers, comfortable enough themselves, have opted out.

In such a scarily perplexing time, there is no one to rally the troops, let alone do what I’m hoping you will: Make the theater’s case to the culture at large.

You, with your incandescent charm, would be brilliant at that. Even though, in some ways, it’s a very tough sell.



This swaggering cowboy nation of ours has always had trouble thinking of employment in arts and culture — which in 2017 contribute $877.8 billion to gross domestic product, more than construction or agriculture — as real work rather than some extravagant of self-indulgence. Toward theater in particular there’s an entrenched macho bias, bound up in misogyny and homophobia, that makes it hard for the industry to be taken seriously as the economic force it is: Broadway production alone grossed $1.83 billion in the 2018-19 season.

It doesn’t help, of course, that the theater is also perceived as a playground of the rich. Oddly, that’s held against its workers in a way that it isn’t for those who make their living by, say, driving a limousine or handling check-ins at a plush hotel.

As if the wardrobe supervisor were pulling in the same pay as the expense-account executives in the premium seats. As if all the freelancers who work gig to gig — actors, lighting techs, ushers — had some cushy security that freed them from the need for employment. As if many of them weren’t close to the breaking point after so many months of unasked-for idleness, endured with a frayed safety net.



But you know firsthand the smoke and mirrors of it all. You know those cramped backstage spaces, the antithesis of luxury, and the unfamous, everyday people who toil there. You know the restaurants down the street, the bars around the corner, and how they fill up pre- and post-show. You know that it’s a vital ecosystem.

And you know that none of it is happening now — not on Broadway or Off, and not at almost any of the thousands of theaters across this vast country.



Admittedly, I’m being a little coy, not calling you by name. That’s because, in a nation so adept at producing globally famous screen stars, there are quite a few of you. But if you’re wondering whether this applies to you, you can take that as a clue that it probably does.

In any case, I can guess what you’re thinking: It’s too late in the game to step up now, and besides, the situation isn’t as dire as it was, what with the vaccines, the new president and the narrowly flipped Senate. None of that has shortened the shutdown’s projected duration, though. Those socially distanced productions and outdoor pop-ups you’ve read about are more anomaly than comeback.

And when the theater does begin its return in earnest, big, expensive productions employing loads of cast and crew will not be the trend. There will be no poof-it’s-over restoration for this hobbled industry and the workers whose jobs vaporized because it wasn’t safe to breathe.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the median hourly wage for actors in 2019 was $20.43, which full-time (and we both know that full-time acting work is rare) would add up to about $42,000. Just imagine going into the pandemic with that as your baseline — and, 12 months on, still having to dangle over a cliff until autumn. At best, you’d be clinging by your fingernails.



True, the $15 billion in federal relief for arts venues and cultural institutions will help some theaters and producers to survive. And yes, the Biden White House is much friendlier toward the arts, and more responsive to the plight of American workers, than the last administration was. Yet the emergency is ongoing, and the arts in this country have a history as a funding afterthought, no matter who is in charge.

It would be a mistake to assume that legislators, who hold the purse strings, will commit to spending what the theater industry’s devastation demands — especially where individuals, not institutions, would get the money. When those individuals are seen by lawmakers and the people they represent as part of some so-called elite, their actual means notwithstanding, they are at risk of being denied aid.



The reality is that a lot of them will continue to need unemployment benefits until the theater is up to speed again — which means that extending them through Sept. 6, welcome news though that is, will not be long enough. If, in your leaner years, you ever had to scrape by on unemployment, you know that the same goes for the supplemental benefits.

The bottom line is that we need theater people to be OK until their places of employment open up again — later than most other industries, because that’s what public health requires. We need the country to have their backs until then.

Last weekend in the Observer, the British actor Samuel West suggested that television and film stars pitch in to reboot local stages by signing on “to do a play at the regional theater closest to where they grew up.”

“They could say: I will come in 2022 for four weeks, and I’ll take the company wage and I don’t need the play to transfer,” he said. “That would really help.”



Imagine the effect an effort like that could have in this country as well — the excitement it would create, the jobs and ticket sales that would follow.

In the interim, though, the American theater needs a big-name, wildly charismatic advocate — or, hey, it could be a whole glamorous team — making clear to the public and its politicians how deeply this industry matters, economically and otherwise, and how imperative it is that its people make it through.

That isn’t necessarily about writing a check; it’s about using the spotlight that comes with stardom to shape understanding: in interviews, in lobbying and, yes, in tweets.

So I think again of you, and of the love that you professed. And I imagine some hazy future when the theater is back and you’re headlining a Broadway show — conscious, as mega-famous screen stars tend to be, of having to prove your live-performance bona fides.

If I ask you then what you did during the pandemic, what will your answer be?

I’m hoping I won’t even have to pose the question — because when the theater was in peril, you offered genuine friendship. And used your fame to do extraordinary good.

[jo]

We can be proud of Hugh Jackman keeping his commitment to The Music Man despite the 2 postponements!

We can be proud that Scott Rudin is keeping hopes high not only for The Music Man but also for his other productions on Broadway ( for shows like To Kill A Mockingbird and West Side Story) and his overall top involvement in the Pop-Up arts festival for New York.

Jo