Theater

Tony Awards administrators have decided to hold an online ceremony this fall to honor shows that opened before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered Broadway.The American Theater Wing and the Broadway League — the two organizations that present the awards — announced the decision Friday morning.Twenty plays and musicals opened on Broadway during the abbreviated 2019-20 season, but only the 18 shows that opened before Feb. 19 will be eligible for Tony Awards. A revival of “West Side Story” that opened Feb. 20 and the new musical “Girl From the North Country,” which opened March 5, will not be eligible because too few nominators and voters saw them before Broadway shut down March 12.The decision comes after months of uncertainty over whether and how to recognize the work that was staged on Broadway between May 2019, when a revival of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune” opened starring Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon, and March 2020, when the pandemic forced all 41 Broadway theaters (along with most others across the country) to close.The awards administrators debated combining the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons for one televised ceremony next year, but decided against that over concern that it would not be fair to shows that opened in 2019.“Though unprecedented events cut the 2019-2020 Broadway season short, it was a year full of extraordinary work that deserves to be recognized,” Charlotte St. Martin, the Broadway League president, and Heather Hitchens, the American Theater Wing president, said in a joint statement. “We are thrilled not only to have found a way to properly celebrate our artists’ incredible achievements this season, but also to be able to uplift the entire theater community and show the world what makes our Broadway family so special at this difficult time. The show must go on, no matter what — and it will.”Tony administrators and rule-makers will meet next week to discuss what to do about categories — like original score, and leading actor in a musical — in which there are few eligible competitors, because awards officials want to be sure they are recognizing merit. Based on both precedent and the awards rules, options could include: allow the nominators to choose fewer nominees, or even eliminate categories; and/or require that a certain percentage of voters support a nominee, even in a non-contested category, for them to win an award.The award administrators are hoping to be able to stream a ceremony in late October, but the date remains uncertain, as do many other specifics: What site will it stream on? Will there be a socially distanced in-person ceremony, or will it all be remote? Will there be a host? Will there be performances? Will there be noncompetitive honors for individuals or shows? And how will the ceremony be financed, given that most of the traditional revenue sources (ticket sales, sponsorship and licensing fees) are gone?Other entertainment industry awards shows have also been grappling with the impact of the pandemic. Both the Emmy Awards and the Country Music Awards are scheduled to take place in September, and Tony officials will watch to see how those shows are handled. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said in June that it would extend the eligibility window for next year’s Oscars, and delay that ceremony, to April from February.The Tony Awards were established in 1947, and had been broadcast on CBS since 1978. This year’s ceremony was originally scheduled to to take place on June 7 at Radio City Music Hall.The Broadway shutdown has thrown thousands of people out of work, and has upended the financial fortunes of many shows.Sixteen plays and musicals were slated to open between the March 12 shutdown — a British pop musical, “Six,” was scheduled to open that very night — and April 23, the eligibility cutoff date. Two shows that were in previews but never opened — a new Martin McDonagh play called “Hangmen” and a revival of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” — have said they will not attempt to open after the shutdown; the others are expected to try again next year.Producers have said they would refund all tickets purchased for performances through Jan. 3, and some shows have announced an intention to open as soon as next March, but some industry leaders believe theaters will remain dark even longer.Looking even further ahead: the status of the 2021 Tony Awards depends on when Broadway reopens. Both “West Side Story” and “Girl From the North Country” would be eligible to compete in next year’s awards if they resume performances and once again invite Tony nominators and voters. More

Sandra Marvin had just dropped her plants off with a friend in March, in anticipation of a three-month U.S. tour performing in the musical comedy “Romantics Anonymous.” She checked her phone and got a message that there might be what she called “a small hiccup” in the company’s travel plans owing to growing concerns over the coronavirus. Within days, the tour was called off.Almost six months later, “Romantics Anonymous” is on the road again. Sort of.But instead of the production traveling to its original tour destinations of Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Charleston, S.C., audiences in those cities and others will take turns coming to the Bristol Old Vic in England — virtually — over five consecutive nights.The livestreamed performances, which begin Sept. 22, will feature the creator/director Emma Rice’s original 2017 staging in its entirety, complete with sets, choreography, a seven-member cast and even onstage kissing. The only modifications to the script, Rice said this week, will stem from the absence of an audience in the theater.“We are all nervous,” said Rice, who first presented “Romantics” (which features music by Michael Kooman and lyrics by Christopher Dimond) at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London during her time as its artistic director. (“Sweet-natured and giddy” was The New York Times verdict on the show, a Gallic romance centered on two timid chocolatiers and the titular support group.)“The thought that we might all get to be together again and make music together again and forget what’s happening for a few hours is intoxicating,” Rice added. “Let’s see what we can make happen safely and joyously.”In the latest of several attempts to replicate, or reimagine, the live experience when many countries have severely curtailed and even forbidden indoor theatrical productions, the “Romantics” cast, musicians and crew will spend the first 10 days sheltering in place at their respective homes.They will then be transported in private vehicles to an apartment block around the corner from the Old Vic for the last two weeks. Everyone involved will be tested for Covid-19 at the beginning and end of their first quarantine, then weekly while together in Bristol.“On the whole, we haven’t been looking at theater all that much for ideas because there aren’t that many examples,” said Poppy Keeling, executive producer of Wise Children, the Bristol-based company that Rice created after leaving the Globe. “We’ve really been looking at what TV and film have done in this country, with very clear, government-ratified guidance for getting that industry back up and running.”Simon Baker, the production’s technical director and Rice’s partner, performed in a similar capacity on the popular June livestreams of the Duncan Macmillan play “Lungs” at the Old Vic’s London theater. Its popularity may have had a lot to do with the starry two-person cast — “The Crown” co-stars Claire Foy and Matt Smith — but that modified production demonstrated the possibility of guerrilla filming.“We realized that the technology had really come down in price and we could do it ourselves,” said Baker, who plans to use a camera crew of just four.As with the virtual cinema model, where audiences choose which of several movie theaters to support with a home ticket purchase, “Romantics Anonymous” viewers in the United States can select one of six presenting organizations as their venue.Joining the original three U.S. destinations — the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, the Shakespeare Theater Company and Spoleto Festival USA — are St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, Berkeley Rep in California and Chicago Shakespeare Theater.In each case, the selected theater will split the proceeds with Wise Children. Tickets will cost 15 pounds (about $20) in advance and go up to 20 pounds (about $27) the week of the performances. Information can be found at wisechildrendigital.com or at the individual presenters’ websites.With no limit on tickets, it is hard to determine the financial prospects of the five-performance run. “We’re taking a huge risk,” Rice said. “We know how many tickets we have to sell to break even, but we have found underwriters in case it’s a disaster.”In keeping with the idea of a touring production, the first four performances are exclusive to specific regions of the United Kingdom, beginning with a Sept. 22 show sponsored by seven theaters in Scotland and the north of England. The sole U.S. performance will be the final one, at 4 p.m. E.D.T. on Saturday, Sept. 26. And the creative team hasn’t ruled out the possibility of additional performances, although that would require the entire cast and crew to quarantine longer.The series of livestreams will give everyone the chance to learn from the previous performance’s mistakes, according to Rice. “The experience will be like a typical theater show,” she said. “We’ll all meet at the end of the night and talk about what can be done better.”While Keeling lamented that those nightly talks won’t happen at a local pub, Marvin — who plays three characters in “Romantics” — is looking forward not just to being on the stage after almost half a year, but also to sharing that stage with so many colleagues.“I live by myself,” she said. “This will be the most people I’ve been around since March.” More

One bright pleasure amid the grimness of the pandemic has been the serendipity of hearing from people you’ve lost touch with and had forgotten how much you liked. You get to learn where they’ve been sheltering in place, and how they might have been changed by this age of upheaval and displacement.I was pleased, for instance, to receive an email about Abigail and Shaun Bengson, who have come up with a show of exultant ambivalence for the Actors Theater of Louisville. It’s called “The Keep Going Song,” and it streams through Oct. 8 on a pay-what-you-can basis.I had taken a shine to this eccentrically wholesome couple when I met them at the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival a few years ago. Not that I actually spoke to them or shook their hands (which was a socially sanctioned activity then). But performing their musical memoir “Hundred Days,” about the dramatic genesis of their relationship, the Bengsons emanated the confiding coziness of late-night gab sessions over beers at a kitchen table.That mostly all-sung show, delivered in a gutsy pop-folk style spliced with gospel laments and hallelujahs, was about how — or if — love can survive in the shadow of our awareness of death. So I was curious about the states of their hearts and minds in a year when the imminence of mortal disease is as pervasive as fog.It turns out that the Bengsons have been spending their quarantine in Dayton, Ohio, with their 3-year-old son, in Shaun’s parents’ house. That’s the setting for “The Keep Going Song,” and you can glimpse the accouterments of their improvised life there — a futon, an afghan for an indoor picnic, a tot-size trampoline in the backyard.As Abigail sings, in that wide-open balladeer’s voice of hers, “We have to make it up as we go.” That’s the general credo of this 50-minute piece, which is about nothing more nor less than continuing to exist when everything feels both static and in endless flux.The subjects covered as they address this concern, while playing keyboards and guitars (acoustic and electric), are both homey and cosmic, from financial shortages to the testing nature of God. For the Bengsons, it seems, everyday life is both a religious celebration and a passion play.They begin the show, which was “mixed and mastered” by Ian Kagey, with a ritualistic sharing of challah bread and grape juice, proffered to us through the camera lens. They then shift into what feels like one sustained, shape-shifting song, of varied component parts, which seems to have no beginning or end.Abigail offers a benediction. She hopes we have lots of good television, adequate food and “enough good memories to last you a long time.” The numbers that follow embrace an account about Shaun’s distrust of churchgoing, an anatomy of lacerating grief and Abigail’s description of the sacred hallucinations that come with labor pains. All of them deal with coming to terms with “the dark and the light of the world as it is.”“Keep Going” deals more directly with questions of faith than any made-for-streaming show I’ve encountered during the past five months. The whole work is steeped in a kind of everyperson pantheism, with elements of Judeo-Christian and Eastern religions.The usual prayers, Abigail sings, “just ain’t cuttin’ it,” before she and Shaun segue into a funky, propulsive chant: “I want money comin’ in and good things to happen.” Responses to such requests are not immediately forthcoming, of course.Early on, Abigail sings that she hopes if “your heart is breaking, it’s breaking open.” In other words, be receptive to everything, the pain and the joy, because it’s all part of the same indivisible package. That’s what music is, the Bengsons say, a blending of those opposed feelings into an ineffable, all-transcending whole.On the basis of “Keep Going,” you might almost believe that the Bengsons communicate in song all the time. Surely that’s not actually true, or Shaun’s parents might have run away or strangled them by now.But there is a sense that the melody, heard or unheard, never really stops. The Bengsons use synthesizers and keyboards to layer sounds and rhythms that keep repeating, which extend to an epilogue that’s as infectious as a kindergarten ditty, a list song about things that grow.That includes trees, leaves, people and thoughts, not to mention the music to which this roster is set. I guarantee it will keep expanding in your mind later in ways that should drive you mad. But for me, it felt like some much needed reassurance.The Keep Going SongAvailable through Oct. 8; actorstheatre.org. More

Two closely watched summer theater productions — the first in the U.S. with union actors since the coronavirus pandemic exploded — are being required to reduce their seating capacity to comply with changing local regulations.Productions of “Godspell” at Berkshire Theater Group and “Harry Clarke” at Barrington Stage Company will each allow only 50 people to be present — down from 100 — after the state of Massachusetts rolled back its reopening protocols in an effort to slow the spread of the disease.“They reached out to us right away, and although they wanted an exception to the revised order, they realized they had to come into compliance, so they’re bringing their numbers down to 50,” said Gina Armstrong, the director of public health in Pittsfield, Mass., where both productions are taking place.The productions, which began performances last week, are taking place outdoors, under tents, in the Berkshires region of Western Massachusetts. In each case, performers are regularly tested for the virus; audience members must wear masks and have temperature checks.The productions were the first permitted by Actors’ Equity, the labor union representing performers and stage managers, during the pandemic. The union has since also agreed to allow its members to return to work at Disney World and to participate in the Netflix filming of a Broadway musical, “Diana” (with no audience present).When it became clear that it would have to reduce capacity, Berkshire Theater Group halted all future sales for “Godspell” and began trying to rebook some ticket holders. The theater is also exploring whether to add a performance or two before the show closes Sept. 4.Both productions were already expected to run at a loss; the reduced capacity will exacerbate that.“We are cooperating fully and faithfully with local and state health authorities, under whose direction we are reshuffling audiences to meet the latest reduction in capacity order,” Nick Paleologos, the executive director of the theater, said in a statement. “In addition, we continue to comply with the strictest of safety protocols which include: temperature checks, regular testing, contact tracing, masks, social distancing, sanitizer, and surface disinfection.”Julianne Boyd, the artistic director at Barrington Stage, said she is also cutting back capacity for “Harry Clarke,” a one-person show which ends its run Sunday. “We have to reduce our audiences to 50 — that’s what the governor said, and we’ll do it,” she said. She said she is still trying to figure out how the rules will affect two outdoor concerts she has planned later this month. More

Through articles, a book, a play and more, a Times special project commemorating the ratification of the 19th Amendment focuses on lesser-known women who were crucial to the fight. More

A Seeing Place Theater production and a Play-PerView reunion reading by the 2007 Cherry Lane Theater cast bring out different aspects of Amiri Baraka’s famous play. More

He played Hamlet, the wizard Gandalf and Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof.” But he was probably best known for “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” More

A major Broadway advertising agency has sued the powerful producer Scott Rudin, claiming he owes the company $6.3 million.The litigation, filed in New York State Supreme Court, is an unusual public break between two major players on Broadway, an industry that has been shut down and facing major economic distress since March. But the dispute predates the coronavirus pandemic: according to the lawsuit, the agency and the producer have been at loggerheads since last September.The agency, SpotCo, says that Rudin has failed to pay it for advertising work done on eight shows, including a revival of “West Side Story” that opened in February and a revival of “The Music Man” that was supposed to open this fall but has been delayed because of the pandemic.SpotCo, founded in 1997, is one of a handful of dominant players in the marketing of Broadway shows, and has worked on multiple Rudin projects. The company said the services it has provided, without a written contract, include media buying, ad production and marketing strategy.The ad company alleged that Rudin and his production company “have had a practice of being delinquent on outstanding invoices” but said that the delinquency has worsened, prompting the litigation.Rudin, through his lawyer, rejected the claim. “The case has no merit and the defendants intend to contest it vigorously,” said the lawyer, Jonathan Zavin.The lawsuit was previously reported by Law360. More