How Broadway got its groove back

Canadian theatregoers comfortable with travel will find deals on tickets and fresh air in Times Square

Broadway is back. And while you’re watching a big-budget musical with dozens in the cast, you might well forget that it’s returned in the middle of a pandemic.

Nevertheless, reality does sometimes burst down the aisle – literally, in the form of the mask-mandate enforcers.

The front-of-house teams in Manhattan’s famed commercial theatre district now include staff trained to deal with patrons who forget about or don’t follow the rules.

The first time I saw one of these super-ushers zip by my seat and shine a flashlight right at an older man whose schnoz had emerged from his mask, gesturing for him to pull it up, I wanted to stand up and cheer. That hero demonstrated all the expert timing and precision of a veteran followspot operator.

Theatre is a serious business in the Broadway district – estimated to contribute more than US$14.5-billion to New York’s economy prepandemic. Producers have therefore invested a lot of money not just into getting musicals and plays running again, but making sure that audiences feel as safe as pandemically possible.

“I feel 100-per-cent comfortable going to the theatre now because there are protocols, there are screenings, there is compliance around mask-wearing,” says the Tony-winning director Diane Paulus, who reopened two shows on Broadway this fall, Waitress and Jagged Little Pill, but early in the pandemic was too anxious to even get take-out dinner.

Broadway – which rebooted slowly in summer, then reopened in earnest in September – now has many months under its belt demonstrating that masked, fully vaccinated audiences don’t seem to be a driver of COVID-19 infections. “It appears that going

to the theatre is not in and of itself a super-spreader event,” says Paulus, while acknowledging this is “anecdotal.”

How did Broadway get its groove back in the late summer while most Canadian theatres (outside of Quebec) are only now starting to open major shows to full-capacity audiences?

It’s thanks to one of the biggest influxes of public funding to the arts in American history – more than US$16-billion made available through the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program (SVOG).

Despite its name, this federal program does not just help owners of physical theatres, but the producers who rent them, too. Broadway productions that were shut down in 2020 because of the pandemic – whether pre-existing hits such as Hamilton and Hadestown, or ones still in previews such as Six – have had access to up to US$10-million each to get back on their feet.

“The game changer for our industry was SVOG,” says Kevin McCollum, currently producer of Six, which reimagines the wives of Henry VIII as a pop group, and a stage adaptation of Mrs. Doubtfire. “Republicans and Democrats saw that if we did not help fund the facilities and the people who take the risk to create shows that the Broadway theatre would basically be crippled.”

The unprecedented bipartisan support – there’s a tax credit of up to US$3-million available to producers in New York, too – has jump-started the strange business of Broadway, where it’s long been said you can’t make a living, only a killing. (Maybe a quarter of shows recouped their costs before closing in the good old days.)

It’s all about earning more at the box office than what you spend on weekly running costs – which are now higher than ever. There are the COVID health and safety managers newly on the payroll, regular testing of cast

and backstage crew, extra front-of-house staff to check vaccination cards.

Producer Sue Frost of Junkyard Dog, which is behind the international success of Come From Away, says coronavirus costs are tens of thousands of dollars a week. She’s pretty frank about how the most successful Canadian musical of all time is doing since reopening on Broadway on Sept. 21: Weekend sales are pretty much back to normal, but weekday performances are a harder sell.

All those workers who normally fill Manhattan office towers during the week are still largely working from home, while tourists who tend to come on longer holidays are only just beginning to return as entry restrictions are lifted. (It is clear walking around Times Square in the middle of the week that the city is not quite back to normal by the fact that you can see the sidewalk instead of just the

shoulders of the people in front of you.)

Broadway has become more and more reliant on international tourists in recent decades; they made up a record 19 per cent of the audience in 2018-19. Come From Away’s secret weapon in New York prepandemic was that visiting Canadians made up about 12 per cent of its audience.

The threat of a new variant (like Omicron) shutting down or inhibiting travel again has always been a possibility. Still, when I stopped by her office, Frost was feeling positive about Come From Away’s longevity on Broadway (and very positive about sales for the Toronto production that reopens Dec. 15). “If everything continues to go in the right direction, we could be here a very long time,” she says.

In the before times, it was very easy to see exactly how well individual Broadway shows were doing because the industry group the Broadway League reported

weekly on how much money each show grossed in ticket sales (though running costs were a closely guarded secret). This fall, however, it has suspended that practice, instead offering a weekly snapshot of the entire district’s box office, which is harder to decipher.

Rumours are rampant that shows appealing to younger adults – like Six, which recently extended its run to September, 2022 – are doing very well, while shows that appeal to older adults – especially plays – are struggling owing to the varying comfort in different demographics in attending to live, in-person events.

A couple of brand-new productions without access to SVOG have announced early closing dates because of low sales – or, in the case of a new comedy called Chicken & Biscuits, the financial impact of having to cancel shows because of breakthrough COVID-19 cases among the cast and crew.

The latter situation has been rare – Broadway employees are required to be vaccinated and actors are tested at least two times a week – though both Aladdin and Chicago have also had incidents that led to pauses in the performance schedule.

This does mean visitors to New York are taking a risk that the show they want to see might shut down because of a breakthrough case – on top of the personal risks of travel that vary week to week.

Canadian theatregoers comfortable with flying in who are flexible about what they want to see, however, will find great deals this holiday season at the TKTS booth in Times Square – and online (where one Cyber Monday offer I saw had Orchestra seats for Jagged Little Pill starting from US$69).

Manhattan without the overwhelming crowds and with more affordable Broadway ticket prices? It’s a real best of times, worst of times situation right now.