After canceling all four of Friday’s performances of Radio City Music Hall’s enduring Christmas show starring the Rockettes because of breakthrough coronavirus cases in the company, the show’s producers announced late Friday that they would end this season’s run entirely over “increasing challenges from the pandemic.” The show, “Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes,” had been scheduled to run through Jan. 2 with multiple performances each day. But it did not make it to Christmas, or even to the break that many city schoolchildren will begin next week. It became the latest show to be upended by a rash of coronavirus cases among cast and crew members, as the virus has surged in recent days in New York. Earlier Friday, producers had canceled the four performances scheduled for the day because of what the company described as “breakthrough Covid-19 cases in the production.” By the end of the day, they had canceled the rest of the run. “We regret that we are unable to continue the ‘Christmas Spectacular’ this season,” the show said in a statement released later in the day. “We had hoped we could make it through the season and are honored to have hosted hundreds of thousands of fans at more than 100 shows over the last seven weeks.” The decision comes as Broadway has had to endure a raft of cancellations unlike any in its history. Six of the 32 current shows running on Broadway canceled their performances Friday night, including “Moulin Rouge!”, which hopes to resume Saturday afternoon, “Hadestown,” which hopes to resume Saturday night; “Hamilton,” “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “Tina,” which are closed until Tuesday, and “MJ,” a new musical about Michael Jackson, which said it would close until Dec. 27. The cancellations are affecting a variety of shows elsewhere in New York and around the country. At New York City Center, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater canceled all of its remaining performances this week, citing positive coronavirus tests, while Off Broadway, the Red Bull Theater canceled its remaining performances of “The Alchemist” and Soho Rep canceled the rest of its performances of “While You Were Partying.” In a sign of the increasing level of concern over the Omicron variant, the Metropolitan Opera on Wednesday became the first major performing arts institution in New York to unveil a booster mandate: Beginning Jan. 17, all employees and audience members eligible for booster shots will be required to show proof that they have received them in order to enter the opera house. Michael Paulson contributed reporting.
Source: Theater - nytimes.com
