The End of Broadway

Across the nation, stages have been quiet for nearly a year as the coronavirus pandemic makes in-person events such as plays and musicals an impossibility. The economic toll has been devastating, with actors and production staff laid off indefinitely and theaters sitting empty. Will the theatre community ever get back on its feet? And how will this impact theatre lovers if this is the end of Broadway?

Champlain College is no exception. Recent years had theater productions such as Blue Stockings which was produced, acted, and cast by students and faculty, but in the past year, there’s been no one breaking a leg.

All Broadway shows were shut down on March 12, 2020. There was brief talk of opening in January of 2021, but reopening Broadway has been extended at least through at least May of 2021.

Many questions are being asked by those within and surrounding the theater community. What happened to all those actors on Broadway? All those people depending on it for their jobs, and the people who went to see those shows? What will happen to them? What happened to all those shows now?

When COVID hit the US everything got pretty much shut down. The first gossip down the grapevine was that Broadway would be closed through at least Labor Day.

Broadway was already facing many different challenges. Number 1, nearly 16% of Broadway theatergoers are over the age of 65. And once you remove all the tourists from that the percentage gets even higher. Number two: during the 2018-2019 season, tourists from outside the New York metropolitan area purchased 65% of tickets sold. Nearly 1 in 5 audience members were visiting abroad. Number three: Many theatres are over 100 years old. Featuring narrow aisles, seats super close together, and tiny bathrooms, in order to fit as many as they could into the theatre.

There are multiple other challenges that made it harder and harder to reopen. As Labor Day 2020 approached, Broadway pushed back the reopening to the beginning of January of 2021. It gave all those hopes for 2021. Once the vaccine came out, New York plans to use the COVID testing as a way to open its struggling theaters.

The Big Apple depends a lot on the sales from Broadway. Last season, Broadway contributed $14.7 billion worth of economic impact. In an interview with CNBC, Charlotte St. Martin, the organization’s president said “That’s people who stay in the hotels and eat in the restaurant because

they’re here to see a show. Broadway is often called the beating heart of New York City, but it also provides real jobs that deliver real benefits to not just the Time Square area, but the entire city.”

All the people who are a part of Broadway are struggling, even those that many wouldn’t think of at first relying on those jobs. The actors, musicians, sound and light technicians, and many more are now all out of jobs. Because of Covid, some shows won’t even be reopening. Shows like Beetlejuice, Frozen, Mean Girls, and others. Some shows are said to presumably resume when the shutdown ends, like Aladdin, Come From Away, Hadestown, Hamilton, and shows supposed to come out now are being deferred a couple of years.

However, only time will tell what long-lasting effects stopping the heart of New York City will have.

By Ping Melchior

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