No Broadway shows in Orlando until at least April
With the latest delay, Central Florida audiences will go more than a year without seeing a touring Broadway show.
The Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, with co-presenters Florida Theatrical Association and Broadway Across America, announced today that the 2020-21 season of touring shows would not begin until April.
The last performance in Orlando by a touring Broadway show was March 1, when the musical “Mean Girls” wrapped up its run at the downtown arts center.
The local Broadway season, which generally would have started this fall, had previously been pushed back to January, when “The Band’s Visit” was scheduled to open on the 5th. That show will now be presented in late August.
February’s planned show, “The Prom,” will move all the way to December 2021. March was to have seen the return of the hit “Wicked.” That show was categorized as “postponed,” but no new dates were given.
In New York, Broadway theaters have been closed since March because of the coronavirus pandemic. Currently, plans call for theaters to reopen in January but
many theatrical insiders have said mid-spring is more likely. A recent Washington Post article cited unnamed sources as saying Broadway could stay dark until August 2021. The Metropolitan Opera in New York announced last week it would not resume stage performances until the fall of 2021.
One hurdle in re-opening Broadway and touring productions is ensuring the safety of the shows’ cast and crew members. Many, though not all, touring productions employ performers and stage managers represented by the Actors’ Equity Association.
The union, which engaged in a drawn-out dispute with Walt Disney World this summer over performer safety, has been working on developing safety guidelines for theaters. So far, it has given a green light to only a few productions.
The delay in Orlando’s Broadway season, a reliable moneymaker, will further stress the Dr. Phillips Center’s finances. This season has especially popular titles — such as the highly anticipated “Hadestown” and returning hit “Hamilton,” alongside perennial favorite “Wicked.”
The center has been closed to public perform
ances for months, though educational programs have continued. It will slowly return to live shows in October, with spiritualist Jason Addison Ames’ “Angels & Humans” opening in the center’s smaller Pugh Theater on Oct. 10, and Orlando Ballet ’s “The Sleeping Beauty” debuting in the large Walt Disney Theater on Oct. 22.
But after those two shows, there is nothing on the center’s performance calendar for the entire month of November.
The new 2020-21 Broadway season schedule is as follows:
■ Cats: April 20-25. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s adaptation of T.S. Eliot’s cat poems.
■ Hamilton: May 4-30. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash take on the founding fathers.
■ Jesus Christ Superstar: June 15-20. More Lloyd Webber in the classic rock musical.
■ The Band’s Visit: Aug. 24-29. Egyptian musicians bring life to a dusty Israeli village.
■ Hadestown: Sept. 21-26. The frailties of humanity are seen through a stylish modern lens.
■ Tootsie: Nov. 2-7. A man dons a dress to get a job in this adaptation of the 1980s film.
■ The Prom: Dec. 7-12. Self-absorbed actors bring chaos to a small town where two teen girls want to go to prom together.