Dimming hopes for Broadway
The lost lives, overwhelmed hospitals and grieving loved ones surely matter more.
And yet, as a new COVID-19 variant sweeps the country, my heart is still breaking over Broadway.
Live, in-person theater had only recently resumed. Broadway ticket sales were still below pre-pandemic levels, and productions had already added costly new precautions to keep companies and audiences safe from the coronavirus. These included frequent testing of cast and crew, additional staff to check theatergoers’ proof of vaccination at the door, even extra understudies.
Backups to back up the backups, just in case multiple actors called out sick.
But there was hope, both for the performing arts and for the restaurants, hotels and myriad other businesses that depend on the theater industry’s health.
Tourists eager for good, oldfashioned stagecraft and show tunes were returning to New York. Discount offers abounded, seeking to lure cautious locals back to the Great White Way. After some initial, delta-driven hesitation, I recently began falling back into old theater-going habits — seven shows in about six weeks.
Most important, theater’s lucrative holiday week glittered around the corner. The week of or just after Christmas is reliably the highest-grossing week of the year; it provides revenue that subsidizes productions during the usually deserted months of January and February. Then along came omicron. In the past week, more than a dozen productions on and off Broadway canceled performances because of outbreaks within their casts or crew or, in some cases, mere fears of exposure. Many performances were canceled at the last minute: “Moulin Rouge!” did so after the audience had already been seated last Thursday.
Curtains also fell at other shows around the country.
Most of New York’s shuttered shows have said they’re merely pausing performances and plan to reopen. Some have already resumed. There have been some more permanent casualties, though: Radio City Music Hall’s annual Christmas show ended this year’s run early.
The good news: Company members and audiences are required to be vaccinated, and breakthrough cases are usually milder. Prospects were graver for actors and stagehands who tested positive very early in the pandemic, before such protections existed.
The bad news: Many theatergoers are unlikely to continue purchasing tickets under the current circumstances.
With scary headlines about show closures and rising infection rates, prospective patrons may avoid the renewed health risk. Even those who feel relatively protected may postpone outings amid uncertainty about whether any given performance will actually take place. Productions have been refunding ticket holders in the event of cancellations, but why bother planning a trek into midtown Manhattan, possibly from far away, if the show might be canceled by the time you reach your seat?
Some theaters have instituted dramatic measures to keep people safe and ensure performances continue.
New York’s Public Theater, for instance, is requiring patrons to provide proof of a negative coronavirus test taken within 24 hours of a performance. This precaution is a lot to ask at a time when tests are scarce and some test results can take days and come at a high cost.
In other words: The status quo is unsustainable for audiences and certainly for productions, most of which never earn back their investment even during normal times. A blockbuster such as “Hamilton” might be able to eat the cost of a week’s worth of canceled shows, but most others cannot. Maybe there will be some dramatic change in our understanding of omicron; maybe it will prove so mild that the show can safely go on even with everyone infected. But barring that, it’s hard to see how the rialto avoids dimming its lights once again.
In the face of continuing death and desperation, the fate of live theater may strike some as frivolous. But it isn’t for those who in this industry, whose livelihoods are again at risk. Nor for those of us whose spirits are buoyed and psyches are nurtured by their craft.
Theater is about being in a room together, reflecting and refracting our common values and committing feats of empathy. I can think of few experiences more healing — and, right now, few more elusive.
There was hope, both for the performing arts and for the restaurants, hotels and myriad other businesses that depend on the theater industry’s health. … Then along came omicron.