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      Coming to Broadway: Vaccinations for New York’s Theater Workers

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      Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the city would create a vaccination site for theater workers to try to help Broadway shows reopen by the fall.Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York said on Thursday that the city plans to open a Covid-19 vaccination site on Broadway, as well as a mobile vaccination unit and pop-up sites specifically for theater industry workers.Jeenah Moon/ReutersMayor Bill de Blasio announced on Thursday that the city plans to create a coronavirus vaccination site on Broadway that will be reserved for theater industry workers, promising to dedicate city resources to help Broadway theaters reopen for live performances in the fall.At a news conference, Mr. de Blasio said that in addition to the Broadway vaccination site, there would be a mobile vaccination unit to serve theater workers beyond Broadway. The sites will be staffed by theater workers, many of whom have been relying on unemployment insurance since Broadway shut down over a year ago.“This is going to be a year to turn things around,” Mr. de Blasio said. “It’s time to raise the curtain and bring Broadway back.”TIMES EVENT On April 29, subscribers can explore Australia’s theater reopening and lessons for Broadway, with conversations and songs from “Moulin Rouge!,” “Frozen,” “Come From Away” and more.The city’s plans will not change the state’s rules around vaccine eligibility, which currently allow residents older than 50 to sign up for shots, as well as those in certain job categories and with certain health conditions. Mr. de Blasio said that the sites would be set up over the next four weeks or so and that vaccination eligibility is expected to be much more broad by then.“We want to get the Broadway community involved, and the Off Broadway community, in vaccinating their own folks, by definition a very high percentage of whom are eligible right now,” he said. “We also know that in just a matter of four or five weeks, at latest, everyone will be eligible. I won’t be surprised if that even is sooner.”There will also be pop-up coronavirus testing sites located at or nearby Broadway and Off Broadway theaters to make sure that there is ample testing available as the theater industry tries to get back on its feet. The city will be assisting Broadway theaters in developing plans to manage crowds as they flow in and out of venues.This month, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that arts, entertainment and events venues can reopen April 2 at 33 percent capacity, with a limit of 100 people indoors or 200 people outdoors, and higher limits if patrons show they have tested negative for the coronavirus. But Broadway producers say it is not economically feasible to run commercial productions at reduced capacity, and although there are likely to be some special events inside theaters this spring and summer, full-scale plays and musicals are not likely to open until after Labor Day.In the months leading up to a full revival, there will be a period of preparation needed to mount plays and musicals, including rehearsals and stage maintenance, which will involve actors and stagehands returning to work in close quarters. That period will require ample testing accessibility, Mr. de Blasio said.Mr. de Blasio urged the state to create clear guidelines for the theater industry around mask usage, as well as on how audience members can prove they were vaccinated or received a negative coronavirus test result before a performance. He did not mention a similar effort for other performing arts workers outside the theater industry. The mayor’s office said that once eligibility rules are expanded, this newly announced vaccination site would not turn away workers in the performing arts industry who are outside the theater sector.Some public officials are anxious about the revival of arts and entertainment next week and are calling for more caution. On Wednesday, Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, urged Mr. Cuomo in a news conference to hold off on the planned reopenings — which will include theaters, music venues and comedy clubs — citing his concern for the spread of the virus variants. New York and New Jersey currently have the highest per capita rates of Covid-19 cases in the country, averaging 39 and 47 new cases per 100,000 people in the last week, respectively.“We have to scale back the rush to reopen,” Mr. Williams said. “One of the side effects of rushing to reopening is that it makes people feel safe to start doing things again.”Mr. de Blasio was joined at the virtual news conference by two Broadway performers, André De Shields, a Tony winner for “Hadestown,” and Telly Leung, whose roles have included starring in “Aladdin.” Both of them welcomed the mayor’s support.“We’re ready, we’ve stayed in shape, our voices are strong,” Mr. De Shields said. “All we need is a stage.”Mr. Leung said reopening would require safety measures for performers and audience members.“This pandemic has hit our industry particularly hard,” he said. “We all have a long way to go as a community, but I really do think that today is a really good first step in our healing.”The Broadway League, which represents theater owners and producers, and Actors’ Equity, the labor union representing 51,000 stage actors and stage managers around the country, welcomed the mayor’s announcement. The union, which has barred its members from working in all but a few dozen productions before live audiences during the past year, has been eager to see its members vaccinated to make the return to the stage safer.Mary McColl, the union’s executive director, said in a statement that the mayor understood that theater workers could not socially distance, making testing and vaccine availability “critical for maintaining a safe workplace.”“Our community has suffered catastrophic losses,” the Broadway League said in a statement, “and the sooner we can return to share our stories in a safe and secure way, the better our city will be.” More

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      Mariachis Play On, Their Music Unsilenced by the Virus or the Deaths

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      Even as the birthday parties and weddings grew scarce during the pandemic, the musicians were increasingly hired to play at funerals, including those of band members.Listen to This ArticleFacing the stone archway of St. Joseph’s Salesian Youth Retreat Center outside Los Angeles, the dark wooden coffin holding the body of Juan Jiménez was wheeled next to a band of masked mariachis. The group readied themselves to play, simultaneously lifting bows to violins, hands to a golden harp and fingers to pluck at guitarróns, their bass guitars.When the priest’s prayer ended, Jesus Guzmán led the band, Mariachi Los Camperos, through almost an hour of music: songs that express grief and goodbyes, like “Las Golondrinas” (“The Swallows”).The calendars of mariachi bands nationwide used to be full of dates for weddings, quinceañeras and serenades where the vigorous music of Mexican culture helped enliven some of life’s most joyous moments. With the onset of the pandemic, those opportunities disappeared, leaving behind only the funerals, the mounting number of funerals, that have kept some mariachis from financial ruin.Mariachi Los Camperos playing a concert before the pandemic. In February, they performed at the funeral of their nationally acclaimed guitarron player, Juan Jiménez (back row, second from right) who died in the pandemic.Jesus GuzmanAt this funeral, in February, the playing was particularly passionate and the musicians, sombreros off, bowed their heads as the body passed. Jiménez was one of their own, a revered guitarrón player who had succumbed at 58 to the coronavirus.“His friends were all there with him, playing for him, thanking him, continuing his legacy,” said Guzmán, a friend of Jiménez since childhood and the music director of the mariachi band they both called their own.To witness the number of sad events that have kept some mariachi bands financially alive is to confront the virus’s harrowing toll on the people who once sang to their music. Latino and Black residents caught in this winter’s fierce coronavirus surge through Los Angeles County died at two or three times the rate of the white population there.Members of Mariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio say the pandemic caused the cancellation of dozens of events that they had been scheduled to perform. Christopher Lee for The New York TimesThe story is similar in other locations with large Latino populations, and studies show Latinos are more vulnerable to becoming ill and dying from the virus. Their communities and households tend to be more crowded and to rely on mass transit, their access to health care is limited and their jobs are likely to involve contact with the public.So as the caskets go into the ground, many mariachi bands in California, Texas, Illinois and elsewhere have turned to playing songs of pain and sorrow to ease the passing. Even for the bands used to playing at funerals before the pandemic, the sweep of death has been overwhelming. Many have lost family and friends, band members and music teachers.For decades, family-run mariachi bands and self-employed musicians in Los Angeles have descended on Mariachi Plaza east of Downtown to vie for new bookings. This is where Christian Chavez, the secretary for the Organization of Independent Mariachis of California, has handed out boxes of food to struggling musicians since the pandemic first upended business.Tuning up in the parking lot.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesRehearsing in the final minutes before an event.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesMariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio rehearsing at a member’s home before an event.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesMiguel Guzman, a member of Mariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio, said he almost died when the coronavirus landed him in the hospital for a month in November.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesLike many musicians he met on the plaza, Chavez was not immune to the pandemic’s financial hardships. The band his grandfather first founded in Mexico, Mariachi Tierra Mexicana, struggled. The pandemic wiped out his savings in seven months. The coronavirus forced Chavez and other mariachis to make grueling decisions just to make ends meet. That led many to continue working at events where people were nonchalant about masks and social distancing.But, for many, funerals and burials became the mainstay, easing the financial pain but exacting another kind of harm, even for those used to playing such ceremonies intermittently between other events. The weeping. The people grasping for coffins as they were lowered. Chavez said that, at times, these moments were so devastating he had to turn away and just focus on his trumpet.Of the 400 active members of the California mariachi organization, about 80 died of the virus, possibly having picked it up performing at events like parties and at restaurants, Chavez said. That tally includes his godfather, Dagoberto Martinez, who played the vihuela in his family band for 15 years.“Every time I go to work, I pray that I’m one of the lucky ones to return home,” Chavez, who is working events and playing at dozens of funerals, said in a video interview. He and his family got dangerously sick with the virus in October, too.All performing arts workers have struggled during the pandemic as unemployment had an undue influence on that sector. What is unique about the mariachi band members, many of them said in interviews, is how much their music became part of the ritual of passing for a population particularly affected by the pandemic.As more people get vaccinated, Mariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio is seeing a slight uptick in events while still playing at many funerals.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesIn Pilsen, a neighborhood of Chicago with a sizable Latino community, Enrique and Karen Leon’s circle of mariachis has waned in the past year, in part because of deaths attributed to the coronavirus.“Every mariachi represents a musical instrument, an instrument you hear in a group,” Karen Leon, the manager of the band Mariachi Mexico Vivo, said, describing what the loss of musicians means to the close community of mariachis. “Lots of people think, well, there are plenty of mariachis in Chicago, but it’s really difficult to replace someone when they have their talent. You can’t just replace someone’s life for another.”In the past four months, Enrique Leon and six members of the band played at 15 funerals, half of those for coronavirus-related deaths. Though the funerals are essential, and help pay the bills, they do not match the emotional boost of performing at an event where one can see the music lift people’s spirit like a buoy.“I want to play my guitar, compose songs, be in public singing,” Enrique Leon said. “That ambience fills me up. I’m working, and making money, but it’s not the same. It’s not the same without seeing smiles and laughter, the emotion from the crowd when they see the mariachi.”Members of Mariachi Mexico Vivo playing at a 50th birthday party in March.Samantha Cabrera Friend for The New York TimesThe party was a return to normalcy for a band whose performances at happy occasions had been disrupted by the pandemic.Samantha Cabrera Friend for The New York TimesThe guest of honor, Josefina Gonzales, center, who herself survived the virus, was surprised, and moved, by the appearance of the band.Samantha Cabrera Friend for The New York TimesMembers of Mariachi Mexico Vivo, smiling here at the birthday party, have played at 15 funerals in recent months.Samantha Cabrera Friend for The New York TimesIn Texas, back in November, Miguel Guzman of Mariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio had to put his violin and music aside when he tested positive for the coronavirus. Just days before, he was masked and inside the home of a friend who was a reliable instrument dealer, buying a violin for a student. The friend later died of the virus.Guzman fell very ill, too, and spent a month in the hospital. The virus winded him. He needed a constant stream of oxygen to breathe with his damaged lungs; he dropped 40 pounds and lost all his muscle; he needed physical therapy just to walk again.At home, his fingers were numb when he repeatedly tried picking up his violin, but it was the promise of playing in the band with his sons again and writing a composition for his wife that kept him motivated to recover.This past month, Guzman finally returned to the band and played at another round of funerals and burials. His first day back was at the funeral of a friend’s father-in-law. The week after, it was a funeral for one of his longtime clients, a tire-shop owner who had died of coronavirus-related complications.Close to the coffin at that funeral, he stood with the band playing “Te Vas Ángel Mío” or “You’re Leaving, Angel of Mine.” He could hear the crying, yes, but he also could hear his violin, carrying life forward for those who grieved, and for him.“Music is the medicine, because when I’m playing, I forget about not being able to breathe,” Guzman said. More

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      For a Night at the Theater, Bring a Negative Coronavirus Test

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      A pilot program in Berlin is reopening some of the city’s landmark cultural venues, despite surging numbers of infections and toughened restrictions in other areas of life.BERLIN — On a snowy, gray morning last Friday, as a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic in Germany was taking hold, Anna Schoras, 30, lined up outside a pop-up testing site inside a repurposed art gallery in Berlin. Cultural life in the German capital has largely shut down because of the virus, but if Schoras’s test came back negative, she would be allowed to attend the first live stage production in the city in about five months, scheduled for that evening.“I’m just really looking forward to getting out of the house and to consuming live culture,” she said, adding that before the pandemic, she would go to the theater or the opera about twice a month.Earlier that week, Schoras had been among the lucky few to secure one of 350 tickets to the show at the venerated Berliner Ensemble theater. They sold out in four minutes.The performance was part of a pilot project, coordinated by the city of Berlin, that allows its landmark cultural venues to put on a show in front of a live audience — as long as the audience members wear masks, maintain social distancing and present a negative result from a rapid test taken no longer than 12 hours before curtain. The test, which is included in the price of the ticket, must be administered by medically trained workers at one of five approved centers.Along with two nights at the Berliner Ensemble, live performances are being held at two of the city’s opera houses, the Philharmonie and Konzerthaus, and at the Volksbühne theater. Holzmarkt, a nightclub, will also host a sit-down concert. The short run of shows is intended to test whether organizers can put on cultural events safely, even as infection numbers soar.Despite an extension announced on Monday to restrictions that have been in place in Germany since October, Torsten Wöhlert, the city official in charge of the project, said he was determined to keep it running. “The pilot is designed to be safe even when infection rates are high,” he said.But given a recent surge in new cases, regional lawmakers could be called to vote on whether to continue the project, Wöhlert conceded. On Friday, Berlin surpassed the health authorities’ warning level of 100 infections per 100,000 people in a week. The Berlin Senate decided on Tuesday to move back three shows that had been scheduled for the Easter weekend, though others set to be staged before then can go ahead.Germany’s muddled national response to the virus has given way to local initiatives to keep life going, including a program to keep shopping and outdoor dining open for tested customers in some cities. As well as an epidemiological experiment, the Berlin initiative is a signal from a city that prides itself on its vibrant arts scene that — despite being shut down since October — culture still matters.“There is a big appetite for art,” said Wöhlert. “That was evidenced by the speed with which the shows sold out.”Of the 350 people who snapped up the Berliner Ensemble tickets for Friday’s performance of “Panikherz,” a gritty work examining eating disorders and featuring heavy drug use, everyone tested negative before arrival, according to the theater. (Anyone testing positive is guaranteed their money back.)The theater’s bar and coat check were closed, but in any case there was no intermission, to keep mingling opportunities to a minimum, and the compulsory empty seat between spectators, which was supposed to ensure social distancing, also made an excellent substitute coat rack.The Berliner Ensemble’s auditorium, shortly before a performance on Saturday. Spectators had to wear masks and maintain social distancing; every second seat was left empty.Gordon Welters for The New York TimesBerlin is not the only city that could benefit from the insights from the project, with findings expected in mid-April.New York is also experimenting with ways to bring back indoor live performances. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said this month that, beginning April 2, arts and entertainment venues would be allowed to reopen at a third of their regular capacity, holding up to 100 people indoors — and up to 150 if they require audience members to bring proof of a negative test. Some venues are preparing to test audiences themselves. Others will also accept proofs of vaccination.But with New York City still reporting high numbers of new infections each day, real risks remain. Plans by the Park Avenue Armory to stage a new work this week by the choreographer and director Bill T. Jones before a limited, virus-tested, socially-distanced audience were postponed after several members of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane dance company tested positive for the virus.Other European nations are running their own trials. This month, the Netherlands hosted a series of pop and dance music concerts called “Back to Live,” with up to 1,500 tested attendees and no social distancing. Britain’s government has announced plans to run several similar pilot events in April, including at a nightclub in Liverpool, England.In addition to Berlin’s performance-venue project, museums reopened around Germany last week after the federal authorities loosened the rules. At the Alte Nationalgalerie in central Berlin, each visitor — who can visit without having to present a negative test result — is allocated 430 square feet of space, meaning that only 360 preregistered guests can visit daily, about a fifth of the number the museum would usually attract on a busy day before the pandemic. Tickets are sold out for the coming weeks.Ralph Gleis, the museum’s director, said, “You realize that museums are an essential space in society, where one can go to be distracted, to occupy oneself with external things — especially during a crisis, culture is really important.”But even that respite hangs by a thread. Although museums were open on Wednesday, the rising rate of infections in Berlin could oblige them to close again on very short notice.Visitors at the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin on March 16. German museums were allowed to reopen this month after coronavirus lockdown measures were eased.Filip Singer/EPA, via ShutterstockHolzmarkt, a sprawling club complex on the Spree River, was the only nightlife venue to join the performance pilot. Although the club’s organizers said that they were happy to put on a concert for 80 people in a space where 400 people could usually cram in — with very few sitting — Konstantin Krex, the club’s spokesman, said that the management was not content with the rules that have kept the venue shuttered since October.“It’s a pretty long way from the real club feeling,” Krex said of the seated concert at Holzmarkt, planned for March 27.Even if the restricted performances lack the bustle of a packed house, the audience at the Berliner Ensemble on Friday night seemed excited to be part of the brief reopening. The actors were nervous after a five-month enforced break, said Oliver Reese, the director.After the cast took its bows, the play’s author, Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre, jumped onstage to thank the crowd for being part of the project.“It is not a superspreader event — it is culture,” he said. Judging by the applause, the audience agreed. And when the findings of the pilot program come in next month, they will know if he was right.Alex Marshall contributed reporting from London. More

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      ‘Why Are We Stuck?’ Stage Actors Challenge Their Union Over Safety

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      A dust-up in Dallas and a 2,500-person petition signal that many performers believe their representatives are keeping them from getting work.The play was announced: “Tiny Beautiful Things,” an improbably moving stage adaptation of a wildly popular advice column. Four actors were chosen: members of a company that had worked together for years. And the producer, Dallas Theater Center, had developed a 45-page plan to keep the actors safe, in part by filming and streaming their work, with no live audience.But after weeks of back and forth, Actors’ Equity, the national labor union, introduced what the theater saw as a new wrinkle. The cast would have to take 80-minute breaks every 80 minutes to make up for what the union viewed as inadequate air filtration in the rehearsal and performance halls.The theater’s leaders gave up. Early this month, just five days before rehearsals were to begin, they canceled the project, at least for now.That would have been the end of that, one of scores of abandoned theater projects during this pandemic, but for one unexpected development. The cast, furious that their own union, which represents actors and stage managers, was making it impossible for them to do the show, spoke up. One of them took to social media to express his anger. And, when he did so, actors from around the country chimed in.“The reason I spoke out is that something is deeply wrong with our union,” said the actor, Blake Hackler. “When every other industry has adapted to keep going, why are we stuck here?”Now the 51,000-member union, which for the last year has barred almost all stage work in the United States, is in the cross hairs, under fire from some of its own members as it tries to navigate a path that keeps them safe and helps them earn a living.Quietly simmering frustrations erupted publicly last week, when more than 2,500 union members signed a letter, circulated by a Broadway performer and signed by Tony winners and Tony nominees, plaintively asking, “When are we going to talk about the details of getting back to work?”The union’s leadership, while proud of its performance during the pandemic, is acknowledging the concerns.“I don’t mind people being frustrated — I’m frustrated too,” said the union’s president, Kate Shindle, an actress who, like most of her members, has been unemployed for the last year.But Shindle defended the union’s intensive focus on health. “How many people on ventilators would be OK? How many people with lifelong, career-ending lung damage would be OK?” she said. “To me, the answer is zero.”Health and safety signs posted on the door outside Dallas Theater Center.Cooper Neill for The New York Times“There is no conceivable reason our union would want to keep our members from working if working is safe,” Shindle added. “At the end of the day, it’s the virus that’s the problem.”And the virus is still obviously a problem: Just this past weekend, the Park Avenue Armory in New York was forced to postpone its first live show with a paying audience in more than a year, a new dance piece by the famed choreographer Bill T. Jones, when three members of the company tested positive for the coronavirus. And 54,000 new cases of the virus are still emerging each day in the United States.But with film and television production underway, vaccine distribution speeding up, and gathering places from schools to restaurants to sports arenas opening, many performers and producers say the union has been too slow to adapt.“What appeared to be a well-intentioned initiative to keep their membership safe has turned into a unilateral, nonresponsive and opaque process which has expanded its jurisdiction far beyond any reasonable bounds,” said David A. Cecsarini, the producing artistic director of Next Act Theater in Milwaukee.Citing air conditioning system requirements that, he said, “are more stringent than those of hospitals,” he said the union “continues to move the goal posts of safety protocol, requiring more radical standards with each edition of its guidelines.”Cecsarini is among a number of theater leaders, particularly from small and mid-sized theaters outside New York, who throughout the pandemic have had difficulty working with Equity. And, after a year in which many were afraid to voice their concerns publicly, they are now speaking up.“From the beginning I’ve been pretty disappointed in Equity’s ability to pivot with the rest of the industry,” said Ethan Paulini, who is the producing artistic director of Weathervane Theater in Whitefield, N.H.., and the associate director of Out of the Box Theatrics in New York.After protracted negotiations, Ethan Paulini, the producing artistic director of Weathervane Theater in Whitefield, N.H., got the OK from Actors’ Equity to present a show there last summer.Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist for The New York TimesPaulini, an Equity member for 18 years, has seen the union from many vantage points. His theater in New Hampshire last summer was the first to get pandemic permission for an indoor production of a multiperformer musical, and his New York company is now streaming a production of “The Last Five Years.”Pulling any of it off has been a struggle, he said. For example, his New York production was only approved the day after rehearsals were to begin. He also objected to the union’s prohibition against the use of public transportation by actors, which, he said, was not realistic in New York.“Equity was just so slow,” he said, “and even at times very obstructionist.”David Ellenstein, the artistic director of North Coast Repertory Theater in Solana Beach, Calif., said that his theater had made streaming work during the pandemic under contracts first with SAG-AFTRA, the television and film actors’ union, and then with Equity. When Equity assumed jurisdiction, “the demands were above and beyond what SAG-AFTRA asked us to do,” he said.Ellenstein, who has been an Equity member for four decades, said he is hopeful that relations may be improving, but that some of the union’s safety requirements are “over the top.” Like what? “Having to have special air purifiers in apartments where actors are staying by themselves,” he said, “and the implication that people working with the theater should not associate with anyone else while they’re working on the play. I don’t know of any other business doing that.”Actors have become unusually wiling to speak up, worried that their union is lagging.Davon Williams, an actor in New York, said the union is facing an “uprising” in part because its efforts stand in contrast to what’s happened with other entertainment industry unions. “People are antsy,” he said. “When you look to your left and your right at our sister unions, these people are working.”The union points out that television and film studios generally have more money than theater companies, which allows them to afford a higher level of testing and other safety provisions. And, they say, television and film productions are often more contained than stage productions — there is no live audience present, for one thing.The union said in a recent Medium post that over the course of the pandemic it has permitted more than 120 live shows — although it appears that only 22 theaters have been allowed to present these shows to live audiences; the union also says it has approved agreements for digital productions that have been used 700 times.Among them: the Alliance in Atlanta, which staged an outdoor production of “A Christmas Carol” with actors performing in individual shipping containers.“I am well aware that my colleagues and our colleague theaters are having real challenges,” said the Alliance’s artistic director, Susan V. Booth. “I also know that we were able to put a show up, and because of the rigor that the union and we provided, we were able to do so safely.”Elsewhere, actors say they are worried that the difficulty with negotiations could endanger theaters, especially outside New York.“I know for sure theaters are putting proposals out there and not getting responses,” said Kurt Boehm, an actor in Washington. “To me our producers and our theaters are not our enemies, they’re our friends, and if they don’t survive there’s no union to be had.”Several actors said that, by refusing to OK theater productions with detailed safety protocols, the union is forcing them to take jobs that are even more dangerous. Boehm is working as a salesman at a Williams-Sonoma store; Kristine Reese, an actress who moved from New York to Atlanta during the pandemic, is teaching.“They say they don’t want anyone to get sick doing a musical, but because I can’t do a very high-protocol musical, I have to do another job, and those jobs are way riskier than doing a show would be,” Reese said.The union has agreed to schedule a national town hall in response to the recent upset; the petition-signers, led by Timothy Hughes of “Hadestown,” are asking that they be allowed to moderate the virtual conversation.In a joint interview, Shindle, the union president, and Mary McColl, the executive director, said they would strive to be clearer about what the union is doing. But they also said that until actors and stage managers are vaccinated, vigilance is warranted.“The vaccine is the thing that is going to get us back on our feet,” McColl said, “and back on the stage.”At Dallas Theater Center, where “Tiny Beautiful Things” fell apart, the two sides don’t even agree on what went wrong; the actors say the union refused to approve the show, while the union says the theater withdrew its request for approval. (Kevin Moriarty, the theater’s artistic director, declined to comment.)Unlike most stage performers, the Dallas actors still receive a salary as members of a company. But the cancellation still stings.“This whole experience has been frustrating and disappointing,” said Tiffany Solano, who was slated to be in the cast.Now the venue is offering patrons a 40-minute outdoor walk inspired by fairy tales. It was devised by the acting company but features no live performers.Michael Paulson reported from New York and Katy Lemieux reported from Dallas. More

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      Yearning for Life on Tour, Roadies Open Up Online

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      Backstage music crews were set adrift by the pandemic. For some, a weekly Zoom group has been the answer.LONDON — William Frostman, a lighting supervisor who has toured with the Rolling Stones and Queen, has just spent a whole year at home, the longest time in his decades-long career.“I just want to wake up on a bus,” Frostman, 60, told dozens of his fellow roadies on a recent Zoom call.Nostalgic as he was for life on the road, there were a few fears at the back of his mind, he said: Would anyone employ him? How would a vaccine passport work?There was another big issue, too, Frostman added. He loved seeing his family every day during the pandemic. “Am I going to be mentally ready to wake up on a bus each morning and go, ‘They’re not here’?” he said.In the Zoom grid onscreen, several roadies nodded in agreement.In the popular imagination, those skilled crew members who make music tours work are taciturn figures, dressed in all black, who talk about music, but not much else. We don’t think of roadies opening up about their feelings. But the tour managers, sound engineers, lighting technicians and others who call into the Back Lounge support group every Wednesday couldn’t be further from that outdated image.The crew of a European tour by Katie Melua and the Gori Women’s Choir that Green organized, at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool, England, in 2018.Simon SchofieldThe group’s members weren’t there to chat about bands, but to check in on each other’s mental health.A year into the coronavirus pandemic, many are hoping that cultural life will soon restart. Concerts are set to resume in New York next month, albeit with tiny audiences. In England, the government has said entertainment events will be allowed again from May 17, if infection levels are under control.But for many roadies — who often rely on monthslong world tours to make a living — a return to full-time work feels a long way off.“My fear is being disappointed again,” said Suzi Green, a veteran tour manager who set up the group, adding that she was concerned restrictions would be reimposed.Other members had their own worries. Some were scared that they wouldn’t get work when concerts returned. One said she feared if she did find work, she’d go back to unhealthy on-the-road habits, like surviving solely on pizza.The mental health impact of the pandemic on touring crew members has been widespread. Last November, the Production Services Association and other British organizations representing live events workers surveyed its membership on the issue. Half the 1,700 respondents said they had suffered depression, and nearly 15 percent said they had experienced suicidal thoughts.Green, who has run tours for musicians including PJ Harvey and James Blake, started the Back Lounge last June after finding herself, “really depressed, in a real state” she said in a telephone interview.When events were canceled last March, she felt as if she’d lost her whole identity, she said. “As a lifestyle, you’re away nine, 10 months a year,” she said. “It’s your whole life.”One of Green’s friends, a teacher, told her that they had benefited from attending a professional support group during the pandemic, and she wondered if there was anything out there for people in her own line of work. She did a search online and found Backline, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit group that promotes mental health in the music industry.An online meeting that she attended organized by Backline Care was “a lifesaver,” she said. So Green decided to create something similar for British and European music crews who would find it difficult to join the U.S. meetings because of the time difference.The first Back Lounge — named after the area at the rear of a tour bus where staff members chill out after shows — took place one Wednesday last June, at 6 p.m. It has been running at the same time every week since, attracting attendees ranging from industry veterans who run stadium shows, to up-and-coming tour managers who drive small bands around Europe.Green has brought in guests including therapists and personal trainers, but the focus is always on the roadies talking about what’s on their mind, Green said.Clockwise from top left: Nathalie Candel, a tour manager who attends the Back Lounge, backstage in Oslo in 2019; Debbie Taylor, another regular attendee, at the Forum in Los Angeles; William Frostman, right, at a show in London with the show’s lighting designer.Rob Gwin; via Debbie Taylor; via William Frostman“I didn’t know I needed it, but I needed it,” Frostman, the lighting supervisor, said later in a telephone interview, adding that he has been working as a mail carrier to make ends meet. “It’s nice being on a call where people understand you,” he added.Simon Schofield, 52, who is usually in charge of film and graphics displays on major tours, said the Back Lounge had helped him to deal with a host of emotions during the pandemic. There was a point last year, he said, when he couldn’t listen to the radio, because he’d hear “every single band I’d toured with, and it’d be a bombardment of reminding of what my life used to be like.”As well as attending the Back Lounge, he said, he has been having therapy and taking antidepressants, but the group has been helpful, too. “It’s such a weight off your mind, off your soul, to know other people are feeling and suffering the way you are,” he said.Said Schofield: “Our industry is terrible when it comes to mental illness. You don’t talk about it until it’s too late, and we need to be more compassionate.”Nathalie Candel, 29, a tour manager who regularly attends the Back Lounge, said she hoped the group would continue to meet once the industry got back on the road. “We need to look at what we put people through on tour,” she said. Some crew members, including herself, had boasted about working 19-hour days, she added, and that clearly was not healthy.One recent Wednesday, the Back Lounge was back in session, to discuss the theme of “being left behind.”Some of the roadies said they feared that the music industry had moved on without them or that their contacts had moved into new lines of work. “The fear of being left behind is very real,” said Debbie Taylor, who manages the crew for Guns N’ Roses world tours. “It’s something I have nightmares about,” she added.The tone was serious, but then Keith Wood, a stadium tour manager, brightened the mood.“I’ll tell you a story about being left behind,” Wood said, before launching into a tale about the time one of Suzanne Vega’s tour buses drove off without him at a truck stop in Nebraska. That was before cellphones, he said, and he only made it to the tour’s next stop with the help of a friendly local pilot.Everyone laughed, and, for a moment, their worries were relieved. But then came the longing for the road.“I miss being on a bus so much,” Taylor said.“You and me both,” added Frostman. More

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      Go or No? An Indoor Theater Invitation (at Last!) Needs an R.S.V.P.

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      Two critics, hungry for live performance, weigh whether they’re ready to take a health risk for “Blindness,” which opens in New York next month.On Monday afternoon, theater critics in and around New York City received something they hadn’t seen in more than a year: an invitation to an in-person, indoor performance at an Off Broadway house. “Blindness,” Simon Stephens’s adaptation of the novel by José Saramago, directed by Walter Meierjohann and prerecorded by Juliet Stevenson, would open at the Daryl Roth Theater on April 6.The production, which played in London in August, involves no live actors, but it does invite live, masked, temperature-checked audience members to attend in pods of two. And if you are a theater fan still waiting on a vaccine, it also invites conflicting emotions — excitement, indecision, eagerness, fear — because any social interaction involves risk. Is theater (and particularly a show without actors) worth it? Two New York Times critics took to Twitter, and then to email and a Google doc, to try to sort it out. Here is their edited conversation.LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES Alexis, when you saw the invitation, what went through your mind?ALEXIS SOLOSKI Panic, basically. I’d heard about the show and I am breathlessly (wrong word, I know) excited for the return of in-person theater, but I won’t be vaccinated for months and I don’t feel ready to make this moral/professional/hygienic calculus. You?COLLINS-HUGHES When I think about returning to indoor theater, there are things that scare me and things that make me feel safe. I am terrified by anything involving poor air quality, or people eating and drinking, or people singing or playing wind instruments or otherwise breathing hard, like from dancing. “Blindness” has none of those. And when I think about the Daryl Roth Theater, I think about how airy it is. That’s huge for me.SOLOSKI I mostly think about “De La Guarda,” the longtime show it hosted, which was one big, sweaty upskirt shot. But to your point, “Blindness” involves no human actors. Why would I want to take on the associated risks of subway and lobby and the mask habits of other patrons for something that doesn’t even offer the energetic flow between performer and audience?COLLINS-HUGHES Fair point. I’m not vaccinated yet either and have no idea when I will be. To me, taking what feels like a minimal risk is partly about gathering, partly about theater design being a strong lure for me — and designers have been left out of a ton of online work. But I sensed when you raised the subject on Twitter and we started chatting (and it took our editor all of three minutes to intervene, suggesting we have that conversation here instead) that you weren’t feeling comfortable yet.SOLOSKI I wasn’t alone. A lot of our colleagues voiced mixed feelings, too, though some had already R.S.V.P.’d. And a London acquaintance piped up to say that he had seen it at the Donmar Warehouse and found the safety protocols impressive. But when I read that invitation, I felt nauseated. Which came as a huge surprise. Because I thought I’d be desperate to go. I dream about theater most nights. And even though this will probably sound insufferable, it’s something I actively mourn. I also miss the me who went to the theater, who put on hard pants and lipstick (remember lipstick?) and left my home as a functional adult who did professional stuff in the company of other apparently functional adults. I miss that almost as much as I miss the transport that theater offers. But no, I don’t feel comfortable. And then I feel like a wimp for feeling that discomfort.COLLINS-HUGHES One valuable lesson we learned right away, a year ago, is that it can be very brave to follow your gut and not do the thing that’s reflexive — like going to the theater, like keeping a show running — if it doesn’t feel safe. Theater does not work when the audience, or the artists, have to sit there and worry about something other than the show.SOLOSKI Yeah, but does it work when you’re at home and children are yelling and the temptation to check your phone or fold laundry is just overwhelming?COLLINS-HUGHES Wait, I thought you got into the online stuff?SOLOSKI I did. I do. Particularly when there’s a participatory or a gaming element. I am extremely competitive! But not when it doesn’t feel live. Then again, will something like “Blindness,” in which you listen on headphones to a prerecorded voice, feel live anyway?Signs promoting “Blindness” in New York include review excerpts of last summer’s well-received London production.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesCOLLINS-HUGHES I just hunger for the in-person element, even if there are no in-person actors. The way I think about the safety of indoor theater is that it has to have what makes outdoor theater relatively safe: people in masks (“Blindness” requires them, and mine will be doubled), at a distance from one another, in a space with excellent ventilation. But I am surprised to see, when I check on the websites for “Blindness” or the Shed, for example, that there’s no mention of contact tracing, like they have at the Park Avenue Armory or at “Frozen” in Australia. [Note: After this article was published, publicists for “Blindness” said that a fuller description of safety protocols, including contact tracing and a medical questionnaire, was on the Daryl Roth Theater’s website.]SOLOSKI Laura, why didn’t we become critics in Australia? I guess I would feel more comfortable if audience members had to show proof of vaccination or a recent negative test, like the one I had to show when I visited a television soundstage recently.COLLINS-HUGHES The Armory is requiring on-site rapid testing as well as a health questionnaire in advance, and the Shed has a testing requirement and a questionnaire. Those make me feel a little better than a temperature check.SOLOSKI Temperature checks are basically useless.COLLINS-HUGHES Over the summer, I went to a tiny indoor show, where the guy at the door asked where I’d traveled lately, and specifically inquired about a few virus hot spots in New York City. That felt reassuring.SOLOSKI What do you make of the edict that no single seats are available for “Blindness” and that people have to arrange to come in twos or purchase the extra seat?COLLINS-HUGHES I’m wildly opposed to that. I’ve spent the past year by myself, am ravenous for anything resembling ordinary life and am not thrilled to feel unwelcome as a single person at the theater. There has to be a way to make the economics of socially distanced audiences work less cruelly. But have you decided for certain not to go to “Blindness”? What would make you feel OK about going back to indoor theater?SOLOSKI I’ve mostly decided, at least insofar as my natural and wild ambivalence allows. Rapid tests would help, but the vaccine seems so close now and for an indoor performance, especially this indoor performance, I’d rather wait. I can turn off the lights and put on headphones right here at home. You’re going?COLLINS-HUGHES I am. And I will report back.SOLOSKI Good luck. Don’t get Covid! Even Juliet Stevenson isn’t worth it. More

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      Should the American Theater Take French Lessons?

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      Arts workers are protesting closings and occupying playhouses all over France. On Broadway, that drama has yet to open.The only march you’re likely to see on Broadway this year is the kind with trombones in “The Music Man.”And if you ever hear people say the Majestic Theater has been forcibly occupied, you can be pretty sure they’re referring to “The Phantom of the Opera.”Which is why the news last week that thousands of protesters were marching in France to demand the reopening of theaters there seemed so difficult to comprehend here. Our theaters draw thousands outside only if they are lining up to see the Rockettes inside.Nor were the French merely marching. Dozens of protesters also forced their way into playhouses across the country — including three, in Paris and Strasbourg, designated as national theaters — to demand that cultural institutions, shut down since October, be treated like other businesses, some of which have been allowed to reopen.Also on their agenda: an extension of tax breaks for freelance arts workers, or “travailleurs d’art.”That the phrase “arts workers” (let alone “national theaters”) barely registers in American English is part of a bigger problem here — and suggests a bigger opportunity.The pandemic has been a disaster for the theater, of course, potentially more damaging to performing arts industries than to any other. And yet, in the long run, if there is a long run, how we repair our stages could also lead to long-needed changes that would elevate the people who work on, under and behind them.Not that those workers are likely to endorse the immediate reopening the French are seeking; by a strange quirk of political culture, the push for a return to normalcy at all costs that is a calling card of our right wing seems to be a progressive position there. The protesters — mostly students and actors and other theater workers — frame art-making as a matter of both liberty and labor. They see themselves as frontline workers; one of the signs they carried read: “Opening essential.”Cultural workers protesting the government closure of arts institutions, which are deemed nonessential, during the pandemic.Ian Langsdon/EPA, via ShutterstockHere, the unions representing actors and other theater workers make the opposite argument: They worry that a too-swift reopening for the sake of the economy would expose their members to unacceptable risk. Singing, trumpeting and spitting while speechifying are occupational hazards most other professions don’t face.Which is why, even in states like Texas and Montana that have ended mask mandates and declared themselves open for business without restriction, theaters aren’t on board. The Alley Theater, in Houston, is offering only virtual performances of its new production of “Medea” this month; the season at Montana Repertory Theater, in Missoula, remains a remote one regardless of state rules.But if the specific motivation for the French protests seems unpopular here, the underlying assumptions about art are ones Americans should heed. Begin with how we look at our theater, and how it looks at itself.Even when producing work that becomes a part of the national conversation — “Hamilton,” “Slave Play,” the Public Theater’s Trump-alike “Julius Caesar” in 2017 — our musicals and dramas are too often seen as inconsequential entertainment. The frequent abuse of the phrase “political theater” to describe cheap and manipulative appeals to sentiment tells you in what regard our theater is reflexively held.But if that attitude toward content is uninformed and condescending, the attitude toward the people who create it is worse.There is no tradition in the United States, as there is in France, of treating artists as skilled laborers, deserving of the same respect and protections provided to those who work in other fields. It doesn’t help that American unions are so weak compared to those in France, where nearly all workers are covered by collective bargaining contracts. The comparable figure here has hovered around 12 percent for years.Behind the statistics is an abiding strain of prejudice, dating back to the Puritan settlement, that sees cultural work, especially stage acting, as a species of child’s play or worse. In “An Essay on the Stage,” Timothy Dwight IV, a Yale president in the early 19th century, wrote that those who indulge in playgoing risk “the loss of the most valuable treasure, the immortal soul.”Or as a German character in “Sunday in the Park With George” puts it: “Work is what you do for others, Liebchen. Art is what you do for yourself.”Both attitudes are very nearly backward, but that doesn’t mean they’re not widely maintained even today. Indeed, they are enshrined in the stinginess of American governmental support for the arts, which remains a pittance. Cultural spending per capita in France is about 10 times that in the United States.Which is one reason there are six national theaters in France, not just the three occupied last week. More than 50 other cultural spaces around the country, including the Opera House in Lyon, which students entered on Monday, have now been occupied as well, the protesters say. To occupy a building (while permitting rehearsals within it to continue) may be a misdemeanor, but it is also a sign of love and ownership.It’s hard to imagine such an occupation in the United States; for one thing, there is no national theater. And who would play the role of the actress at the French film industry’s César awards ceremony this weekend who protested her government’s lack of support by stripping off a strange costume — was it a bloody donkey? — to reveal the words “No culture, no future” scrawled across her naked torso?But ours is a country that treasures its cultural heritage without wanting to support the labor that maintains it.Perhaps that’s changing, if less dramatically than in France. Though the pandemic has left many theater artists without work — and, often, without the health insurance that comes with it — the relief bill President Biden signed last week will make it cheaper for them to obtain coverage elsewhere. The bill also includes $470 million in emergency support for arts and cultural institutions.Organizations like Be an #ArtsHero are working to expand that relief even further. And hundreds of theater makers have used their talents to raise millions for organizations, like the Actors Fund, that are helping their colleagues survive the pandemic.But arts workers shouldn’t be remembered just in emergencies and just as charity. Nor should they be remembered solely for their economic impact. It is often argued that Broadway alone contributes $14.7 billion to New York City’s economy, as if that were the point when it is really just the bonus.What the French protests challenge us to consider is that the arts are neither an indulgence nor a distraction; they are fundamental not just to the economy but also to the moral health of a country. They are worth marching for.Surely our theater artists, those highly skilled laborers, can figure out, if anyone can, how to demonstrate that idea — if necessary, in front of the Majestic Theater, with trombones and Rockettes in tow. More

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      in Music

      Met Opera’s Music Director Decries Musicians’ Unpaid Furlough

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      Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s letter to the company’s leaders urges them to “find a solution to compensate our artists appropriately.”Urging the Metropolitan Opera to compensate its artists “appropriately,” the company’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, sent a letter to leaders at the Met on Thursday saying that the many months its orchestra and chorus had gone without pay during the pandemic had become “increasingly unacceptable.”He sent the letter as the Met’s musicians were scheduled to receive their first partial paychecks since they were furloughed in April. Before this week, they had been the last major ensemble in the country without a deal for at least some pay during the pandemic. In addressing the players’ nearly yearlong furlough — and hinting at the tough negotiations ahead, in which the Met is seeking long-term pay cuts from its unionized employees — Nézet-Séguin was doing something rare for a music director: weighing in on labor matters.“Of course, I understand this is a complex situation,” Nézet-Séguin wrote, “but as the public face of the Met on a musical level, I am finding it increasingly hard to justify what has happened.”The letter was obtained by The New York Times and confirmed by its recipients, which included Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager; the leaders of the negotiating committees representing the chorus and orchestra; and members of the opera’s board of directors.“We risk losing talent permanently,” Nézet-Séguin warned in the letter. “The orchestra and chorus are our crown jewels, and they must be protected. Their talent is the Met. The artists of the Met are the institution.”The orchestra committee has said that 10 out of 97 members have retired during the pandemic as the ensemble has gone unpaid, a stark increase from the two to three who retire in an average year.“Protecting the long-term future of the Met is inextricably linked with retaining these musicians, and with respecting their livelihoods, their income and their well-being,” Nézet-Séguin wrote.The Met said in a statement that “we share Yannick’s frustration over the lengthy closure and the impact it has had on our employees,” and added that the company was pleased that its orchestra and chorus and others were now receiving bridge pay. The Met said all involved were “working together for new agreements that will ensure the sustainability of the Met into the future.”The Met, the nation’s largest performing arts organization, has said that since the pandemic forced it to shut its doors it has lost an estimated $150 million in earned revenue, and that it was seeking pay cuts from its workers, as many arts institutions have. The Met has been trying to cut the payroll costs for its highest-paid unions by 30 percent — the change in take-home pay would be more like 20 percent, it has said — and has offered to restore half the cuts when ticket revenue and core donations return to prepandemic levels.Months into the furlough, the Met offered partial paychecks to its workers if they agreed to those cuts, but the unions resisted. At the end of the year, the Met offered partial paychecks on a temporary basis for simply returning to the bargaining table. Members of the American Guild of Musical Artists, which represents chorus members, dancers and others, accepted at the end of January and have been receiving paychecks for more than a month. The orchestra musicians voted to accept the offer this week. (The Met has locked out its stagehands, whose contract expired last year.)Nézet-Séguin wrote in his letter that he was relieved that both the musicians and the chorus members are now being paid, but added that “this is just a start.” The deal allows for temporary payments of up to $1,543 a week, less than half of what the musicians are typically paid.Nézet-Séguin was named the Met’s music director in 2016, when he was tapped to succeed James Levine, who led the company for four decades (Mr. Levine, who stepped down to an emeritus position because of health problems and was then fired two years later after an investigation into sexual abuse allegations, died earlier this month.)“I implore the fiduciaries of this incredible house to urgently help to find a solution to compensate our artists appropriately,” Nézet-Séguin wrote. “We all realize the challenges, economic and otherwise, that the Met is facing, and therefore I ask for empathy, honesty and open communication throughout this process.” More