Earlier this month at the relaunch of Hamilton after an 18-month-long hiatus, a grateful and tearful creator Lin-Manuel Miranda applauded the audience for complying with the new COVID-19 audience safety measures, then added: “I hope you go see as many shows as you can.” His wish echoed an equally critical and emotional message that once rang out 20 years ago during the dark days that followed the tragedy of 9/11: “The best thing you can do for our city,” the mayor had said, “is take in a Broadway show.”
Then, as in now, Broadway’s starring role in New York’s economy could not be overstated. It was and still is a pulsing heartbeat and hub of the city, accounting for $1.83 billion in revenue in 2019 as well as 97,000 jobs. As evidenced by the way tourism was hobbled then by a fears about travel after the falling of the Twin Towers and recently by the slow and uncertain reopening post-pandemic, the impacts of widespread closures on Broadway can quickly and visibly trickle down far and wide, beyond the theater stages into hotels, restaurants, bars, and entire regions of Midtown Manhattan.
Understandably so, a chorus of exclamations such as “Broadway is back!” and “The shows must go on” have resounded since the historic and unprecedented COVID-19 shutdown, which began for Broadway on March 12, 2020, came to an experimental, and hopeful, end. The shows are going back on: The royal wives are relating their fates again in Six, freshly baked pie is perfuming the air at Waitress, and in Hadestown—based on the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice—(spoiler alert), Orpheus is once again ruining everything by looking back when he is not supposed to.
His theatrical act is a metaphor that speaks volumes right now: Rearview glances are not what’s needed in a reboot. But the Broadway community has somehow always understood that, the degree to which they’ve been challenged and pushed back ever motivating the amplitude and degree of their return.
The industry and the people who make it up have long been known for mobilizing to meet the issues of the moment head on, be they cultural clashes, politics, or health crises. A swift and powerful response has practically become part of the Broadway script. The pandemic provided a window for taking stock and recalibrating, making the past 18 months somewhat of an intermission of reeling that inspired rallying.
There was also “a massive reckoning,” as Come From Away producer Sue Frost puts it: The industry is looking ahead. “I understand the ‘Broadway is back’ conversation,” she says, “but Broadway is forward.”
Broadway’s eyes-ahead gaze has helped keep it keenly adept at adapting to issues and upheavals, and the Black Lives Matter movement has been no exception. Individual theater companies and producers and the industry as a whole have acknowledged how they’ve marginalized BIPOC communities and are striving to improve that off- and onstage. In the wake of protests over police violence, the industry has sought to remedy the long-standing and glaring lack of works by Black writers on Broadway—arguably theater’s most powerful platform for exposure and prominence. Created in 2020, the Broadway Advocacy Coalition (BAC) has partnered with the Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia Law School to bring together actors and law experts to target existing policies, and some of the power players on Broadway—including the owners of 39 theaters—have signed a pact known as A New Deal for Broadway, which prioritizes diversity training and mentoring, renaming theaters for Black artists, and implementing diversity strategies for the Tony Awards among other things.
The changes in Broadway’s landscape are reflected in stories being told, who’s telling them, and who is and is not in the picture. Producers have stepped back from productions after confronting allegations of bullying, and overall there has been a bracing and timely reevaluation of power, accountability, and community.
