Broadway readies for a fall reopening
— Many Broadway productions are scrambling to resume ticket sales in the coming days to welcome theatregoers this fall after city and state leaders have green-lit a reopening of the Great White Way at full capacity by midSeptember.
“We remain cautiously optimistic about Broadway’s ability to resume performances this fall and are happy that fans can start buying tickets again,” Charlotte St. Martin, president of the Broadway League, said in a statement.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Broadway theatres can reopen Sept. 14 and will be allowed to decide their own entry requirements, like whether people must prove they’ve been vaccinated to attend a show. Selling tickets will allow theatres to gauge interest before stages open, said Robert Mujica, Cuomo’s budget director.
Phantom of the Opera, Broadway’s longest-running show, announced this week it would resume performances on Oct. 22, with tickets going on sale today. More shows are expected to circle return dates in the coming weeks.
Actors’ Equity Association, the national labour union representing more than 51,000 actors and stage managers in live theatre, said the news meant the theatre community is “one step closer to the safe reopening” of Broadway.
“We look forward to continuing our conversations with the Broadway League about a safe reopening and know that soon the time will come when members can go back to doing what they do best, creating world-class theatre,” said Mary McColl, executive director of Actors’ Equity.
The Broadway that reopens will look different. In May, the big budget Disney musical
Frozen decided not to reopen when Broadway theatres restart, marking the first time an established show had been felled by the coronavirus pandemic. Producers of Mean Girls also decided not to restart.
But there will be new shows, including Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s Pass Over that is slated to reopen the August Wilson Theatre, the same venue
Mean Girls has vacated. And a Shubert theatre has been promised for playwright Keenan Scott II’s play Thoughts of a Colored Man.
The lifting of all capacity restrictions has long been considered by the industry as crucial to any reopening plan since Broadway economics demand full venue capacity. Some offBroadway shows have already reopened with limited capacity.