More stories

  • in

    ‘Macbeth’ Plans to Restart Broadway Performances on Tuesday

    A new production of “Macbeth” starring Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga resumed performances on Tuesday night, 11 days after it shut down because of positive coronavirus tests among company members.The resumption comes as four Broadway shows, as well as several Off Broadway productions, that have canceled performances as coronavirus cases rise in New York City are all attempting to get back on their feet, in some cases after those who test positive recover, and in some cases even sooner by deploying understudies.“Macbeth” got through just three preview performances before shutting down on April 1, citing a positive test in the company; the next day, it said Craig too had tested positive. But on Tuesday, “Macbeth” returned; the production suggested earlier in the day that both principals were healthy, posting on Twitter that “Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga return to their throne.”Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga return to their throne. Performances resume tonight. pic.twitter.com/llcjZAf7rh— Macbeth on Broadway (@macbethbway) April 12, 2022
    Meanwhile, a revival of the Neil Simon comedy “Plaza Suite” starring the married couple Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick planned to resume performances Thursday, with Broderick performing opposite Parker’s standby, Erin Dilly, while Parker continues to isolate. (Both she and Broderick tested positive for the virus, and the show has been canceled since April 7.) The production said Wednesday that it expected Parker to rejoin the cast on Saturday.A new musical called “A Strange Loop,” which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2020 after an Off Broadway production, hopes to begin performances Thursday, according to the production. The show had been scheduled to start previews April 6, but postponed the start of its run, citing positive virus tests in its company.“Paradise Square,” a new musical that opened April 3 but then canceled performances starting April 7, citing virus cases, is now planning to resume April 19.“Macbeth” and “A Strange Loop” face particular pressure because they have not yet officially opened, and must do so by April 28 to qualify for this year’s Tony Awards. But the cancellations are costly to all shows, which must continue to pay running costs without box office revenue and which are losing opportunities for Tony nominators and voters to attend.Off Broadway, the new musical “Suffs,” about the American women’s suffrage movement, also resumed performances Tuesday, after canceling performances starting April 5 because of virus cases. The show’s author and lead performer, Shaina Taub, is still recuperating, so the central role of Alice Paul is being played by Taub’s standby, Holly Gould.Both “Plaza Suite” and “Suffs,” which had been selling very strongly, have extended their limited runs to accommodate ticket holders affected by the cancellations. More

  • in

    Will the Virus Cooperate With Broadway’s Spring Rebound?

    Listen to This ArticleTo hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.After a gloomy winter in which the Omicron variant shriveled Broadway’s lucrative holiday season, New York’s vaunted theater industry has been betting on a big spring, nearly doubling the number of shows on offer as the pandemic-battered business thirsts for a rebound.Adding all those plays and musicals — 16 new productions plus three returning from hiatuses are opening over a five-week stretch — was always going to be a gamble, since no one knows, in this not-yet-post-pandemic era, whether there are enough tourists and theatergoing locals to sustain that many shows.And now the stubborn persistence of the coronavirus is complicating matters even further. A rising number of cases in New York City, coinciding with the arrival of the virus’s BA. 2 subvariant, has once again rocked Broadway, infecting some of its biggest stars, including Daniel Craig, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and forcing four shows to temporarily cancel performances.“Our hope is that this isn’t a moment, but rather this is the way we will function now,” Parker said as she reflected on the high number of spring Broadway openings.OK McCausland for The New York Times“What we thought we were entering into this spring, which was always going to be busy and crowded, over the last week has changed dramatically,” said Greg Nobile, the lead producer of a new farce, “POTUS,” which, while still in rehearsals, has had to adapt as four of its seven actresses tested positive for the coronavirus. “Somehow it feels like, ‘This again?’ The answer is yes, but this time, we need to ask the question, how do we truly keep the show on, and what are the ways we are adjusting to what is a new normal?”Broadway’s big spring began on a cold night in late March with the opening of a revival of “Plaza Suite,” a Neil Simon comedy starring Parker and Broderick that was initially scheduled to start performances on March 13, 2020. Broadway shut down for the pandemic the day before that performance, and the Hudson Theater remained vacant, with the married co-stars’ names on the marquee and the set on the stage, for two full years before they returned to try again.“Every time I can walk a red carpet, I know it’s going to bring green currency to our city,” Mayor Eric Adams of New York said at the “Plaza Suite” opening.OK McCausland for The New York Times“Our hope is that this isn’t a moment, but rather this is the way we will function now,” Parker, in a pink satin gown with a beaded tulle overlay, said opening night at the end of an 80-foot-long preshow red carpet. “We have restaurants waiting to reopen still, we have hotel employees waiting to come back, we have delis that have been hit, we have ushers who are wanting to work the front of the house.”The crowd that came out to cheer her on, which included Mikhail Baryshnikov, Laura Linney, Cynthia Nixon and Martin Short, was buoyant.Broderick, finished with the gauntlet of camera crews arrayed inside a translucent tent, remarked how much he had enjoyed returning to the theater as an audience member, and now as a performer. “We’re learning to live with the pandemic or endemic — whatever you want to call it now — so the stronger theater and everything New York gets, the more normal life is,” he said. “This is part of the world coming back.”But eight days later, he tested positive, and two days later, so did she.Broadway openings remain starry, even in an era of few parties. Among those at the “Plaza Suite” opening: Anna Wintour, the longtime Vogue editor. OK McCausland for The New York TimesThe crowd that came out to cheer Parker and Broderick on included Mikhail Baryshnikov and his wife, Lisa Rinehart.OK McCausland for The New York Times“Plaza Suite” has been closed since Thursday, as has “Paradise Square,” a new musical which was already struggling at the box office and can ill afford the lost revenue. Craig’s show, a revival of “Macbeth,” canceled 10 days of its preview period. And “A Strange Loop,” a new musical which won the Pulitzer Prize based on its Off Broadway run, has postponed the start of its previews. All cited positive coronavirus tests among company members as the reason; all hope to resume performances this week.The latest virus-related cancellations were all at new shows; shows that have been running longer had more time to prepare for cast absences, and have been able to soldier on with understudies. Most notably, a revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” that opened last December temporarily lost six of its principals to positive coronavirus tests in April, including its lead actress, Katrina Lenk, but the show went on. (Its best known performer, Patti LuPone, was not among those stricken, possibly because she had tested positive in late February and missed 10 days then.)And the effects are not limited to Broadway: Off Broadway, shows including “Suffs,” at the Public Theater, and “At the Wedding,” at Lincoln Center Theater, have also temporarily canceled performances.The industry is undergoing a stress test of sorts, as the annual crush of Broadway openings, which tend to cluster just before an end-of-April deadline to qualify for the Tony Awards, is even bigger than usual because some productions postponed their start dates in the hopes of avoiding the peak of the Omicron variant. This month features the highest number of Broadway openings in any April for more than a decade.So many shows are opening that Times Square rehearsal space is scarce, so the farce “POTUS” turned to Union Square. Among those in the cast are Julianne Hough, front left, and Vanessa Williams, front right.OK McCausland for The New York TimesBroadway is always a risky business, in which far more shows fail than succeed. Some producers acknowledge that having a glut of new shows vying for attention and audience at the same fraught time is less than ideal, but they tend to be optimists, and each seems to believe that theirs is the show audiences have been waiting for.“You can play a bit of chicken-and-egg,” said Jordan Roth, the president of Jujamcyn Theaters, which runs five Broadway houses. “Should we wait until every tourist is in town? But why is every tourist going to be in town if we wait? At some point we have to decide that we’re going to live.”This is actually Broadway’s second attempt at a rebound. The first began gradually last June, with the return engagement of Bruce Springsteen’s wildly popular evening of songs and storytelling. The first play began performances last August, and in September, with a moment of hope and celebration, the biggest musicals returned.Julie White, right, was among the members of the “POTUS” cast who tested positive during rehearsals. On White’s first day back, still coughing and wearing a mask, the play’s director, Susan Stroman, helped silence prop watches.OK McCausland for The New York TimesEarly box office grosses and attendance were encouragingly robust. But then the Omicron variant arrived in New York, contributing to the premature closing of nine shows and crushing attendance at the worst possible time of year: Only 62 percent of Broadway’s seats were occupied during the week ending Jan. 9.Through late winter, there were only 19 shows running in Broadway’s 41 theaters. With little competition, many of those left standing — mostly established hits or shows with famous titles — did quite well. By the week ending March 20, 92 percent of seats were occupied.Now, as the number of shows grows, and untested titles join the hits, average attendance is slipping, with 85 percent of seats filled during the week ending April 3. Overall, 224,053 people were at the 31 shows running that week, which is the highest number of ticket holders this year, but is substantially lower than the 315,320 who attended the 38 shows running during the comparable week in 2019.“The reopening of these shows is a real celebration of moving forward,” said Tom Harris, the president of the Times Square Alliance, which is marking this busy spring with a display of 10-foot-tall Playbill monoliths erected on a theater district pedestrian plaza. He noted that while Times Square was growing livelier, it is still quieter than it used to be: In March there were about 255,000 people passing through the neighborhood on an average day, he said, down from about 365,000 daily visitors before the pandemic.The play did not miss a day of rehearsals, despite cast absences; in this scene, Anita Abdinezhad, seated, filled in for Rachel Dratch. OK McCausland for The New York TimesUntil the pandemic, Broadway was booming, with 14.8 million ticket holders spending $1.8 billion at the box office during the 2018-19 season, which was the last full season before the coronavirus. But travelers to New York City, who before the pandemic accounted for two-thirds of the Broadway audience, have not returned in prepandemic numbers; the city’s tourism agency is projecting 56.4 million visitors this year, down from 66.6 million in 2019.That helps explain why Mayor Eric Adams had been celebrating Broadway at every opportunity — showing up at the openings of “The Music Man” and “Paradise Square” and attending a student performance of “Hamilton” in recent weeks.“Every time I can walk a red carpet,” Adams said in an interview at the “Plaza Suite” opening, “I know it’s going to bring green currency to our city.”On Sunday, he too tested positive for the coronavirus.The play is a comedy by Selina Fillinger about seven women who try to shore up a problematic president. OK McCausland for The New York TimesNow, as the city has dropped vaccine mandates at restaurants and other public spaces, Broadway must decide whether to do the same. Its current safety protocols, which require that all ticket holders show proof of vaccination to enter theaters and remain masked while inside, except when eating or drinking, are in place through April 30. Theater owners and operators had planned to announce by April 1 whether they would extend those rules, but they postponed that decision until April 15 as case counts rose.At the same time, the new shows keep coming. So many are opening this month that “POTUS,” whose stars include Julianne Hough and Vanessa Williams, wound up rehearsing at the Daryl Roth Theater, in Union Square, because the production could not find suitable space in the theater district.On a recent Saturday, the cast gathered to work on scenes on a makeshift White House set. One of the stars, Rachel Dratch, was still out with the coronavirus, so her part was rehearsed by an understudy, Anita Abdinezhad, while another star, Julie White, was back for the first time since finishing her isolation period. White, who had kept an eye on rehearsals via video while recuperating, was still coughing beneath a mask, but had her lines down cold, and she leaned in to the comedy.As she arrived, she was visibly delighted to be back at work. She noted her relief at finally seeing negative results on her daily coronavirus test, saying, “It was so good to see that single line this morning.”Audio produced by More

  • in

    Nebula, a Big New Club, Wants Manhattan to Dance Again

    Yang Gao, a newcomer to the nightlife business, took a gamble when he spent $12 million in the middle of a pandemic to carve out a 10,000-square-foot space in the heart of Midtown.Two years ago, Yang Gao and Richie Romero were watching over a very noisy and very expensive construction project: Digging down, down, down, beneath the floor of an old building on West 41st Street, just off Times Square.Mr. Gao, an entrepreneur, and Mr. Romero, a nightlife impresario, were carving out Nebula, a giant dance club. By blasting into the bedrock, the ceilings could be that much higher — 27 feet above the dance floor.Known in the tabloids as a “club king,” Mr. Romero had definite ideas about what Nebula should and should not be. The main thing was, it had to be the kind of place where people would actually dance, rather than lounge the night away in banquettes.That’s how it used to be when he started going into Manhattan from Queens as a teenager, eager to show off his moves at Tunnel, Palladium and Club USA. Everybody went out on the floor back then. You mingled. You sweated. You got into it. By age 18, Mr. Romero was working as a promoter of parties at Limelight. He was armed with a beeper and a list of more than 2,000 names and numbers. If your name was the list, Richie waved you in.Yang Gao, left, and Richie Romero in one of the V.I.P. rooms in the basement of the club.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York Times“Manhattan was the king of the world back then,” Mr. Romero, 46, said. “The stages were bigger than the DJs. Every DJ wanted to play them.”He was sitting in Nebula’s balcony during off hours. The place was empty and quiet. He recalled an early success he had, taking on the challenge of Monday nights at the China Club and just packing the place.“I was 19 years old,” he said. “I was so excited. I thought I was a big shot.”Manhattan may still be the epicenter of finance and media, but the club scene has moved elsewhere — Miami, Berlin, Las Vegas, even Scottsdale, Ariz. These days, New York is “the little stepsister,” Mr. Romero lamented. And although Marquee is going strong on Tenth Avenue, New York’s nightlife energy has moved on to Brooklyn.With Nebula, Mr. Romero and Mr. Gao are hoping to return Manhattan to its glory nights. Mr. Gao said he plowed some $12 million into the project, a huge gamble to take in the middle of a pandemic, when nightlife was on lockdown.“Dealing with the uncertainty of it all scared the hell out of me,” Mr. Romero said.At 10,000 square feet spread over three levels, Nebula was the largest new nightclub in the city when it opened last September. The main dance floor is 5,000 square feet. A D&B sound system pumps out the beats. Six LED projection screens descend from the ceiling to enclose guests in trance-like visuals.The multimedia aspect has appealed to the tech crowd. “Every NFT company wants to come here and do something,” Mr. Romero said.Nebula has also become a go-to place for newly minted 13-year-olds: “Funny,” he added. “We’re like the king of the bar mitzvahs now.”The private events, which take place on weeknights, are a lucrative sideline to the main attraction: weekend dance parties with top DJs from around the world, including Jamie Jones, Artbat and Eric Prydz, all of whom are scheduled to perform at Nebula this month.A clubber at Nebula.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesAs New York’s clubs have become more lounge-like in recent years, with a focus on bottle service for high rollers who lay out $10,000 to $20,000 for a private table, Nebula is decidedly old school.“I want to capture the people that are artistic, that are able to go into the club and appreciate the music,” said Mr. Gao, Nebula’s owner.Mr. Gao, 42, is new to the nightlife industry. A classically trained oboist who once played in the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, he said he has a hand in several businesses, including a wine store in Astoria and East River party boats. About five years ago he started looking for club space in Manhattan, insisting the ceiling height be at least 21 feet. After signing the lease in late 2018, he sought out Mr. Romero.Nebula’s location has a long history in clubland. It was formerly Saci, Show and Arena. Most recently, it housed Circle, a Korean American spot that defined going out for a generation of the Asian and Asian American communities in New York until it closed in 2018. Mr. Romero promoted parties at all of those venues, except Circle. In recent years, he drifted out of nightlife and got into quick-service restaurants, opening a pizza chain, Zazzy’s, only to be lured back by Mr. Gao.“I believe in good bones. And this room always had good bones,” said Mr. Romero, who speaks at 200 beats per minute. “Sat down. Saw the vision. Came in here. We started putting it all together and made Nebula Nebula.”Business boomed in the brief window between opening and Omicron, Mr. Romero said. Since then, supply chain problems have led to shortages of Don Julio 1942, the club’s most popular tequila. The banquettes meant for the edges of the main dance floor didn’t arrive until last week.For those who remain wary of big crowds, Mr. Gao designed private rooms at the basement level, each with its own sound system, lights and bathroom. Despite reports of coming Covid-19 waves, he said he is optimistic.“I know that people want to come out,” Mr. Gao said. “People long for human interactions. That’s when I decided that this sector isn’t going away.”Saturday night at Nebula.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesAt 12:30 a.m. on a recent Tuesday, Nebula’s main dance floor was nearly full. As images flashed on the LED screens, several hundred clubgoers were dancing to Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.” The event was Tuesday Baby Tuesday, a night set aside for people who work at nightclubs.“It’s an industry night,” Jonas Young-Borra, 37, a musician and former male model who described himself as the “left-hand, right-hand” to Mr. Romero, said over the music. “You get people from other clubs who can’t go out on the weekends, plus the 21 and up crowd.”Mr. Romero, who stood watching the action on the dance floor, said that, in terms of the crowd, this was a bit slow for a Tuesday. He promised a bigger turnout the following week, when 50 Cent would be making an appearance. But after two years of social isolation, it was incredible all the same to see hundreds of bodies so close together, without masks or discernible phobias. Hostesses brought Champagne bottles topped with sparklers to the V.I.P. section.New York has changed since Mr. Romero’s Limelight youth, but he was determined that some things would not.“It’s important,” he said, “that we keep Manhattan thriving.” More

  • in

    The Boston Symphony cancels its European tour over virus concerns.

    The Boston Symphony Orchestra announced on Monday that it was canceling a four-city tour of Europe because of concerns about the spread of the coronavirus in Europe and the United States.The orchestra said the tour, which was to have included stops next month in Germany, Austria and France, was not feasible because of the potential for the virus to disrupt travel. The orchestra has recently reported a surge in cases among players and members of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.“Given the ongoing presence of Covid, brought home by its unfortunate impact on a significant number of our own artists, we must keep as our first priority the health and safety of everyone involved with the Boston Symphony Orchestra,” Gail Samuel, the orchestra’s president and chief executive, said in a statement. “Sadly, the only prudent and responsible course of action is, with deep regret, to cancel the European tour.”Many classical music ensembles hoped to resume global tours this year after the long hiatus brought by the pandemic. But the persistence of the Omicron variant has continued to complicate plans.The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra recently announced it was canceling a tour of Japan and South Korea in June because of concerns about the virus.Orchestra tours have been a staple of classical music going back decades, when the biggest ensembles in the United States and Europe began leading whistle-stop visits to global capitals. In those days, tours served not just artistic purposes but also commercial ends, giving orchestras exposure to new markets and, occasionally, lucrative sponsorships.Tours are no longer the moneymakers they used to be, except for a small number of elite ensembles like the Vienna Philharmonic. But they bestow international prestige on orchestras — an attractive prospect for donors — and give ensembles an opportunity to build cohesion.Overseas trips came to a halt at the outset of the pandemic, when classical touring was one of the first industries to shut down. (At the end of January 2020, before the disruptions caused by the coronavirus were widely felt in the United States, the Boston Symphony announced that it was canceling a tour of Asia.)Other ensembles have plans to go overseas in the coming months. The New York Philharmonic is planning a residency at a festival in Usedom, Germany, next month. The Philadelphia Orchestra is planning a tour of Europe in late summer. More

  • in

    Sarah Jessica Parker Tests Positive for Coronavirus

    Sarah Jessica Parker, who is currently starring on Broadway in a revival of the Neil Simon comedy “Plaza Suite,” tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday, according to a spokesman for the production.Parker’s co-star, Matthew Broderick, who is also her husband, had tested positive earlier this week, and has been out of the show since Tuesday. The show had continued with his understudy, Michael McGrath, but will be canceled Thursday night, and it was not clear when it will resume.“Plaza Suite” is now one of four Broadway shows currently shuttered by the resurgent coronavirus in New York City, an increase in cases powered by the Omicron subvariant known as BA.2.A revival of “Macbeth” canceled more than a week of performances after its star, Daniel Craig, and other members of the company tested positive, and a new musical called “A Strange Loop,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2020, postponed the start of its preview performances, also citing positive tests. Both shows are hoping to be back onstage on Monday.And “Paradise Square,” a new musical that opened last weekend, canceled its Thursday night performance, citing “Covid cases in the company.”Off Broadway, a much-anticipated musical, “Suffs” at the Public Theater, has also canceled its performances this week, including its scheduled opening night, because of virus cases. More

  • in

    Matthew Broderick, Starring in Broadway’s ‘Plaza Suite,’ Tests Positive

    Matthew Broderick, who is now starring on Broadway in a revival of the Neil Simon comedy “Plaza Suite,” has tested positive for the coronavirus. He did not perform Tuesday night, and it is not clear when he will return to the show.Broderick’s co-star, Sarah Jessica Parker, who is also his wife, has tested negative, and went on Tuesday night opposite Michael McGrath, who is Broderick’s Tony Award-winning understudy. (McGrath won in 2012 for a production of “Nice Work if You Can Get It” that starred Broderick.)Broderick’s positive test result comes as coronavirus cases have once again been rising in New York City, and a number of Broadway shows have been affected.Last Saturday, the actor Daniel Craig was among several members of the company of a new Broadway production of “Macbeth” to test positive, and that show has since canceled all performances until Monday. More

  • in

    Glass Animals Miss the Grammys After Lead Singer Tests Positive for Covid

    The lead singer of the British alternative-pop band Glass Animals — a nominee for best new artist — tested positive for the coronavirus, and all of its members have decided to not attend the awards show, the group said in an Instagram post on Sunday.Dave Bayley was the only one of four band members to test positive, but the entire group will stay back, the post said.“I am so overwhelmingly heartbroken,” Bayley wrote. “Not just within myself, but for everyone who has worked so insanely hard with us over the past couple of chaotic years, and for every one of you who supported and believed in this project enough to get us here through thick and thin.”The band’s song “Heat Waves” is currently the No. 1 song in the country, sitting atop Billboard’s singles chart for the past four weeks. More

  • in

    ‘Macbeth’ performances on Broadway pause after Daniel Craig tests positive for the coronavirus.

    The show, which just began previews on Tuesday, hopes to resume on April 8.Daniel Craig, who is starring in the title role of a new Broadway production of “Macbeth,” tested positive for the coronavirus on Saturday, forcing the show to cancel most of next week’s performances.The show, which just began previews on Tuesday and is scheduled to open April 28, had already canceled Friday night’s performance, citing another positive coronavirus test among cast members, when on Saturday it canceled both the matinee and an evening performance, citing Mr. Craig’s positive test. Then, late Saturday night, the production said that it was canceling all performances until April 8 “due to the detection of a limited number of positive covid test results within the company.”Coronavirus cases have recently been rising in New York City, and several Broadway performers have tested positive. In most instances, shows have been able to turn to understudies to keep going, but because “Macbeth” had just begun performances, it had not yet fully rehearsed the understudies.All Broadway actors — in fact, all workers in Broadway theaters — are required to be fully vaccinated. Broadway also currently requires that ticket holders be fully vaccinated and wear masks except when eating and drinking; on Friday, the theater owners and operators said that those rules would remain in place at least through April 30, and that they would decide by April 15 whether to retain, alter or drop the audience protocols after the end of the month.“Macbeth,” of course, is a well-known and much-loved tragedy by William Shakespeare, and this revival has been one of the most anticipated productions of the spring on Broadway. Mr. Craig, who is fresh off his long run playing James Bond on film, had repeatedly said he wanted to be part of Broadway’s efforts to rebound after the industry’s long pandemic shutdown.Mr. Craig is starring opposite Ruth Negga, as Lady Macbeth, in the production, which is directed by Sam Gold. The show does not have much leeway — it is already scheduled to be the last production to open this season, and its opening night is on the final day when shows can open to qualify for this year’s Tony Awards. More