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When the theater stopped, it stopped all at once.
Reopening, on the other hand, will be a wild hodgepodge.
What, exactly, will that look like?
The embattled governors announcement about April 2 will not actually mean most theaters will start producing on that date.
WolfBrown is finding that audiences are reluctant, and, for now, theyre not the only ones.
Theres also the matter of the shows themselves.
Messaging aside, Flowers says the April 2 date is somewhat helpful.
You dont know how hard we fought for any kind of runway, she said.
Educating government offices about the arts landscape has been one of the key tasks of the shutdown.
Other reopening announcements indoor dining, movie theaters have usually been made just days before they become effective.
Yang is like many folks: He thinks Broadway when he thinks New York theater.
Touring shows, however, might be.
When a Broadway show announces touring dates, a New York announcement should soon follow.
It almost certainly wont be until the state allows something close to full seating, though.
One Broadway veteran crunched the numbers and said, Id rather wait it out and come back properly.
Large musicals break even at 60 percent of gross potential.
And here youre talking about walking in at 30 percent?
Youd be losing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars a week, for what reason?
The deepest wounds to New York theater are the absences.
If we thought last year was hard, this next year will actually be harder, says Appel.
When it comes to institutional survival, there is much good news.
(Applications open April 8.)
Still, without the bare assistance of rent relief, the situation for many New York artists is untenable.
Even for the salaried, the Paycheck Protection Program has sometimes accidentallyloosenedties between workers and the field.
Before the federal loans came through, some theaters reluctantly furloughed staff, slicing their organizations to the bone.
That shouldhave been good news.
But it hasnt always been.
Commissioner Del Castillo has been encouraged by the way the arts community has taken this time to reexamine itself.
I grew up in New York City, a child in the 70s, she says.
So the April 2 date is a mirage; reopening is a long way off.
But these conversations themselves a silver lining are real and happening now.
The safety net we all thought existed was not there, says Lythcott.
And so we became for each other a stitch-by-stitch, scrap-by-scrap weaving together of our own safety net.
2020 was a year of waiting for rescue.
But now, says, Lythcott: We save us.
