The spread of Coronavirus, a global pandemic, has managed to affect every person in one way or another. From older generations becoming the main target of the disease, sports games, movie release dates, and entire concert tours being cancelled, to young adults having their lives completely put on hold. That including the cancellations of major events, such as college tours, proms, graduation ceremonies, and even entire school semesters. We teens have been exposed to no shortage of TikToks and Instagram posts of teens heartbroken about what could’ve been, and the lives we wish we were living rather than being confined to the rooms of our homes.
In addition to the infinite social media posts surrounding Covid-19, people have been highly vocal on the impact this pandemic has had on the theater community. The virus, and issues stemming from it, have greatly impacted the theater community on both a smaller, more local level, as well as the larger scale. Many schools and local theater’s spring seasons are in the works, or coming to an end, but the vast majority of those productions have unfortunately been canceled. Theater kids across the nation are mourning the loss of their shows, coping only with Broadway bootlegs and an abundance of showtunes. However, as theater patrons we must take notice of the toll this will have on our mothership, our crown jewel, Broadway.
This past week, Broadway announced that they will be stopping all performances, and fully shutting down for one month. This terrifying pandemic has closed the doors to popular shows, and crippling the theater industry. In an article from The Daily News, Tova Moreno, a tailor who’s stitched pieces for shows like Hamilton and Wicked, says, “[The spread of Covid-19] has the industry breaking for economic backlash more punishing than a thousand bad reviews.” Another person working in the costume field estimates that about 90% of the costume industry has been laid off. From this article, we see how the shutdown is affecting this specific group that works behind the scenes. However, how is this going to affect Broadway as a whole, as well as the theater community.
Here is a bit of background for my thoughts and worries regarding how all this will affect Broadway.
- A Broadway show does not in fact own the theatre in which they perform in. The Shubert Organization owns the majority of broadway theatres, and they lease out their theatres to Broadway productions. The shows we see pay rent in order to stay open. There is a special rule set in place for these shows, called a stop clause. Theatres take a cut of the ticket sales of a production, as well as setting the amount of money a production must earn each week. In the stop clause rule, if a show makes below that certain amount of money for two weeks in a row, they will close.This rule is set no matter how successful the show is otherwise. For example, Beetlejuice The Musical announced that they will be closing this summer, despite being extremely popular and breaking box office records. This is because of one two week period in May of last year, where the show did not make enough money.
- The industry is still currently recovering from a humongous loss. This past summer, Broadway lost nearly $100,000,000. In a six week period, fourteen shows announced their closing. 2018 was one of the best seasons Broadway has ever experienced. With extremely high-grossing shows like Hamilton, Oklahoma, and Springsteen On Broadway. However, in 2019 Broadway was unsuccessful in topping their previous season. Before the year even began, That number was estimated to be lost that upcoming summer, and investors knew there was a tough year ahead. Broadway has been in a decline, and shows have less momentum.
- The theater industry is somewhat of a fragile one. The world has witnessed intense periods of decline in broadway shows. The industry heavily struggled throughout the great depression. The economy was in shambles and unemployment was high. Many performers and producers fled to Hollywood to work in film, as talkies were on the rise. The 1940’s-through-50’s was the golden age of broadway. Leading into the 1970’s, another decline on broadway. The city was riddled with crime and vandalism, and this was the time in which broadway “died.” The beautiful optimsm of the previous era seemed to fade away. The iconic show A Chorus Line both opened in this time (and was one of the shows to help the industry back on it’s feet,) and had the “death” of broadway as a major point in the show. The show follows a collection of chorus line dancers as they desperately crane for a job in a time where broadway is falling apart. This as well as seeing a peek into their lives and character.
What does this all mean? Well, the spread of Covid-19 is going to heavily affect Broadway. With the entire industry out of work, the field of theater will crumble. If exceptions to the stop clause are not made the industry will continue to struggle financially on both smaller and larger scales. Many Broadway performers will become unable to afford living in such an expensive city, Investors and the organizations that own Broadway theatres will lose large sums of money, and even some of the greatest productions could close. This will become an ongoing struggle, and something the industry may find hard to come back from. Especially because Broadway is still recover from that $100,000,000 loss. Finally, we’ve seen this happen before. Broadway has entered periods of serious decline in the past, and this could potentially be the fall of Broadway for a time.
However, we don’t actually know how deeply this will hurt Broadway. There are many charities and organizations that have set out to help those struggling in the business. Check out the links below to sites where you can donate, as well as an article on how to support performers during this time! What are your thoughts on this whole situation? Comment below.
- The Actors Fund: https://actorsfund.org/
- The CDC Foundation: https://www.cdcfoundation.org/
- MedShare: https://www.medshare.org/
- Broadway Cares: https://broadwaycares.org/
- Articles with other Broadway charities and information : https://broadwaydirect.com/how-to-help-broadway-during-the-covid19-crisis/ https://www.playbill.com/article/broadway-cares-launches-fundraising-campaign-for-covid-19-emergency-assistance-fund
