New York state and city leaders have given permission to reopen Broadway theaters this fall at full capacity. Many Broadway productions are rushing to sell tickets in the coming days to welcome back theater-goers.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says Broadway theaters can reopen September 14. They will be able to decide their own entry requirements, such as whether people must show proof of vaccination to attend a show. Robert Mujica is Governor Cuomo's budget director. He said that selling tickets will permit theaters to find out, before the shows open, how many people want to return to in-person events.
Happy that fans can buy tickets
Charlotte St. Martin is president of the Broadway League. She said in a statement that the group's members are hopeful "about Broadway's ability to resume performances this fall and are happy that fans can start buying tickets again."
Phantom of the Opera, Broadway's longest-running show, announced it planned to resume selling tickets for performances set to start October 22. More shows are expected to announce return dates in the coming weeks.
Mary McColl is executive director of Actors' Equity Association, the national labor union representing more than 51,000 actors and stage managers in live theater. She said the news meant the theater 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 theater," McColl said.
Some shows will not reopen
The Broadway that reopens, however, will look different. In May, the big budget Disney musical Frozen decided not to reopen when Broadway theaters restart. It was the first time the coronavirus pandemic caused the closing of an established show. Producers of the play Mean Girls also decided not to restart.
But there will be new shows. One is Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu's Pass Over, which is set to reopen at the August Wilson Theatre, the same theater Mean Girls left. And playwright Keenan Scott II's play, Thoughts of a Colored Man, will appear in a Schubert theater.
Full capacity is necessary
Theaters see the lifting of all capacity restrictions as important to any reopening plan. That is because the economics of Broadway shows require full capacity. Some off-Broadway shows -- less well-known plays that take place in smaller theaters around New York City -- have already reopened with limited capacity.
All city theaters suddenly closed on March 12, 2020, bringing all shows to an end, including 16 that had still planned to open.
Some shows planned for spring 2020 decided to move their productions to 2021. Among them are a musical about Michael Jackson and a performance of Neil Simon's Plaza Suite, starring Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker. But others gave up on their plans, including Hangmen and a production of Edward Albee's famous play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
I'm Jill Robbins.
