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      Cultural Venues’ Quest for Billions in Federal Aid Is Halted by Glitch

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      On the first day nightclubs, movie theaters and other arts organizations hurt by the pandemic could apply for $16 billion in federal aid, the system malfunctioned. No applications got through. As the government prepared on Thursday to start taking applications for a $16 billion relief fund for music clubs, theaters and other live event businesses, thousands of desperate applicants waited eagerly to submit their paperwork right at noon, when the system was scheduled to open.And then they waited. And waited. Nearly four hours later, the system was still not working at all, sending applicants into spasms of anxiety.“This is an absolute disaster,” Eric Sosa, the owner of C’mon Everybody, a club in Brooklyn, tweeted at the agency. Shortly after 4 p.m., the Small Business Administration — which runs the initiative, the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program — abandoned its effort to salvage the broken system and shut down it down for the day. No applications were processed. “Technical issues arose despite multiple successful tests of the application process,” Andrea Roebker, an agency spokeswoman, said in a written statement. After discussions with the vendors that built the system, the agency decided “to shut down the portal to ensure fair and equal access once reopened, since this is first-come, first-serve,” Ms. Roebker said. “This decision was not made lightly as we understand the need to get relief quickly to this hard-hit industry.”In social media forums and Zoom calls, frustrated applicants vented and shared their anger. “It’s hard to keep hearing ‘help is on the way’ and then not be able to apply,” said Tom Weyman, the director of programing at the Columbus Theater in Providence, R.I. “I don’t think any of us thought the application process would be totally smooth, but this is life and death for our venues.” The meltdown echoed problems the agency had last year in taking applications for the Paycheck Protection Program, which it also oversees. When that program opened, the agency’s overwhelmed systems seized up — and the same thing happened again, weeks later, when a new round of funding became available. Applicants for the grant program were incredulous that the agency was not better prepared — especially because the funds are to be distributed based on the order in which people apply. Those who get their applications in early have the best chance of getting aid before the money runs out. “It pits venues against each other because we’re all mad-dashing for this,” Mr. Sosa, the Brooklyn club owner, said in an interview. “And it shouldn’t be that way. We’re all a community.” For businesses like Crowbar, a music club in Tampa, Fla., getting a grant is a matter of survival. Tom DeGeorge, Crowbar’s primary owner, took out more than $200,000 in personal loans to keep the business afloat after it shut down last year, including one using its liquor license as collateral.More than a year later, the club has reopened with a smattering of events at reduced capacities, but the business still operates in the red, Mr. DeGeorge said.“We lost an entire year of concerts in the blink of an eye, which was close to $1 million in revenue,” Mr. DeGeorge said. “That’s why we need this grant so badly.”The aid was authorized by Congress late last year after months of lobbying by an ad hoc coalition of music venues and other groups that warned of the loss of an entire sector of the arts economy.For music venues in particular, the last year has been a scramble to remain afloat, with the proprietors of local clubs running crowdfunding campaigns, selling T-shirts and racking their brains for any creative way to raise funds. For the holidays, the Subterranean club in Chicago, for example, agreed to place the names of patrons on its marquee for donations of $250 or more.“It’s been the busiest year,” Robert Gomez, the primary owner of Subterranean, said in an interview. “But it’s all been about, ‘Where am I going to get funding from?’”As it struggled to make ends meet, the Chicago club Subterranean decided to place the names of patrons on the club’s marquee for donations of $250 or more. Robert Gomez, its primary owner, said, the year has “all been about, ‘Where am I going to get funding from?’”Lyndon French for The New York TimesEven before Thursday’s fiasco, the opening of the shuttered venue program was riddled with complexity and confusion.The Small Business Administration posted a 58-page guide for applicants late Wednesday night, then quickly took it offline. A revised version of the guide was posted just minutes before the portal opened on Thursday. (An agency spokeswoman said the guide had to be updated to reflect “some last-minute system changes.”)And less than two hours before the agency was supposed to start accepting applications, its inspector general sent out an alert warning of “serious concerns” with the program’s waste and fraud controls. The Small Business Administration’s current audit plan “exposes billions of dollars to potential misuse of funds,” the inspector general wrote in a report. Successful applicants will receive a grant equal to 45 percent of their gross earned revenue from 2019, up to $10 million. Those who lost 90 percent of their revenue (compared to the prior year) after the coronavirus pandemic took hold will have a 14-day priority window for receiving the money, followed by another 14-day period for those who lost 70 percent or more. If any funds remain after that, they will then go to applicants who had a 25 percent sales loss in at least one quarter of 2020. Venues owned by large corporations, like Live Nation or AEG, are not eligible.The application process is extensive, with detailed questions about venues’ budgets, staff and equipment.“They want to make sure you’re not just setting up a piano in the corner of an Italian restaurant and calling yourself a music venue,” said Blayne Tucker, a lawyer for several music spaces in Texas.Technical glitches marred the beginning of the first day of submitting applications for the grant program. Empty chairs were seen in Crowbar.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesEven with the grants, music venues may be facing many dry months before touring and live events return at anything like prepandemic levels. The grant program also offers help for Broadway theaters, performing arts centers and even zoos, which share many of the same economic struggles.The Pablo Center at the Confluence, in Eau Claire, Wis., for example, was able to raise about $1 million from donations and grants during the pandemic, yet is still $1.2 million short on its annual fixed operating expenses, said Jason Jon Anderson, its executive director.“By the time we open again, October 2021 at the earliest, we will have been shuttered longer than we had been open,” he added. (The center opened in 2018, at a cost of $60 million.)The thousands of small clubs that dot the national concert map lack access to major donors and, in many cases, have been surviving on fumes for months.Stephen Chilton, the owner of the 300-capacity Rebel Lounge in Phoenix, said he had taken out “a few hundred thousand” in loans to keep the club afloat. In October, it reopened with a pop-up coffee shop inside, and the club hosts some events, like trivia contests and open mic shows.“We’re losing a lot less than we were losing when we were completely closed,” Mr. Chilton said, “but it’s not making up for the lost revenue from doing events.”The Rebel Lounge hopes that a grant will help it survive until it can bring back a full complement of concerts. And if its application is not successful?“There is no Plan B,” Mr. Chilton said. More

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      Tanglewood Is Back This Summer, With Beethoven and Yo-Yo Ma

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      Closed last year, the Boston Symphony’s warm-weather home in the Berkshires will host an abbreviated six-week season.There won’t be the traditional, grand closing-night performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with its stage full of singers. In fact, to reduce the risk of aerosol transmission of the coronavirus, there will be no vocal music at all at Tanglewood this summer.But there will still be a lot of Beethoven, along with crowd-pleasing tributes to the composer John Williams and familiar guests like Emanuel Ax, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Joshua Bell and Yo-Yo Ma.Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s warm-weather home in the Berkshires, announced in March that after remaining closed last year because of the pandemic, it would open this summer for a six-week season — about half the usual length — with limited crowds and distancing requirements. On Thursday, the orchestra filled in the programming: heavy on appearances by its music director, Andris Nelsons, and with a focus on Beethoven, whose 250th birthday last year was muted because of widespread concert cancellations.Nelsons will lead eight orchestral programs, including a Beethoven opener on July 10 featuring the “Emperor” Piano Concerto, with Ax as soloist, and the Fifth Symphony. On July 23, the Boston Pops will honor Williams, who turns 90 next year and is the Pops’ laureate conductor; the following evening, Mutter gives the premiere of his Violin Concerto No. 2, and on Aug. 13 Williams shares the podium for a night of film music. On July 30, the violinist Leonidas Kavakos does Beethoven trios with Ax and Ma, who also plays with the Boston Symphony under Karina Canellakis on Aug. 8. (Details are available at bso.org.)Throughout the summer, performances will last no longer than 80 minutes, without intermissions, and all concerts will take place in the Koussevitzky Music Shed, which is open on the sides. The space, which usually holds thousands, will have a reduced capacity, as will the lawn that surrounds it — a favorite spot for picnicking. Tanglewood is waiting to announce what might go forward in late summer of its well-loved series of pop performers like James Taylor.Students at the Tanglewood Music Center, the orchestra’s prestigious summer academy, will play chamber concerts on Sunday mornings and Monday afternoons, and programs are planned for the Tanglewood Learning Institute, a series of lectures, talks and master classes that began with great fanfare in 2019. The orchestra will host a two-day version of its annual Festival of Contemporary Music, July 25-26.The Knights, a chamber orchestra, will be joined on July 9 by the jazz and classical pianist Aaron Diehl for Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and selections from Mary Lou Williams’s “Zodiac Suite.” Among the Boston Symphony’s guest conductors will be Thomas Adès (the orchestra’s artistic partner), Alan Gilbert, Anna Rakitina and Herbert Blomstedt; soloists include the pianists Daniil Trifonov, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Kirill Gerstein, and the violinists Baiba Skride and Lisa Batiashvili.The Tanglewood season is part of the nationwide thawing planned for this summer of a performing arts scene that has been largely frozen for over a year. The Public Theater has announced that its venerable Shakespeare in the Park will go forward, as will Santa Fe Opera and the Glimmerglass Festival in upstate New York. On Thursday, the Aspen Music Festival and School in Colorado said it would move forward with a nearly two-month season.But as they reopen, institutions are reckoning with sharp losses. As it celebrated the return of Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony said its current operating budget was $57.7 million, down from its prepandemic budget of over $100 million. The orchestra estimated that it has lost over $50 million in revenue in the last year. More

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      Williamstown Festival Will Take the Shows Outside

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      After a lost live 2020, the theater will stage a musical at a museum’s reflecting pool and an immersive show, all over town, based on real events.The Williamstown Theater Festival, which was forced by the pandemic to convert its 2020 season into a series of audio plays, will present live performances again this summer, though not in its indoor venues.Instead, the festival announced on Wednesday three shows that will be staged outdoors throughout the festival’s college-town home. Alongside new plans for scaled-down seasons at Tanglewood and at the Jacob’s Pillow dance festival, it marks a tentative step toward business as usual for the culture-rich region of Massachusetts.The Williamstown season will open on July 6 with “Outside on Main: Nine Solo Plays by Black Playwrights,” to be staged on the front lawn of its main venue. The series, curated by the writer and director Robert O’Hara (“Slave Play”), includes short works by the writers Ngozi Anyanwu, Charly Evon Simpson, Ike Holter and Zora Howard, among others.The world premiere of the musical “Row,” with songs by Dawn Landes and a book by Daniel Goldstein, will be staged at the reflecting pool of the nearby Clark Art Institute starting July 13. The show, directed by Tyne Rafaeli, is about a woman who intends to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean.Initially slated to be produced last summer, “Row” was recorded as part of the festival’s deal with Audible, and will be released April 8 on that platform.The third show, “Alien/Nation,” is a world premiere immersive production that asks audiences to journey through Williamstown by foot or car and “plunge themselves into the center of stories inspired by real events that took place in Western Massachusetts in 1969,” according to a news release.Scheduled to run from July 20 to Aug. 8, it is the brainchild of the Tony Award-nominated director Michael Arden and a company called the Forest of Arden, who devised it along with the playwrights Jen Silverman and Eric Berryman. Early last summer, Arden and some of his collaborators created a similar, experimental piece called “American Dream Study” in New York’s Hudson Valley.The festival typically presents seven shows per summer; according to a publicist, digital-only productions are still to be announced.The Berkshires ended up a national center of attention last summer when Berkshire Theater Festival’s “Godspell,” staged outdoors in a tent next to its main venue, became the first musical production in the country to get approval by the leading actors’ union since the theater shutdown.This summer Berkshire Theater Festival has announced outdoor productions of “The Importance of Being Earnest” and “Nina Simone: Four Women,” while Shakespeare & Company will open its season with Christopher Lloyd in the title role of “King Lear.”Barrington Stage Company, another notable theater in the region, promises a seven-show season that features a Gershwin revue and the comedy “Boca” outdoors and four shows indoors, including two world premieres and a solo play about Eleanor Roosevelt. More

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      A Theater Photographer Senses a Broadway Bloom

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      For Sara Krulwich, who has shot productions for The New York Times for more than two decades, a series of recent assignments hinted at an industry revival.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.On the first evening in April, Sara Krulwich, a New York Times photographer, visited the Kraine Theater in the East Village, where Mike Daisey, an actor and monologuist, was rehearsing a show for which the seating capacity would be limited to 22. The restriction, Mr. Daisey said, reminded him of his earliest days as a performer, when he was thrilled if even a handful of people were in the audience.For about 20 minutes, Ms. Krulwich photographed Mr. Daisey, adjusting her shutter, she later said, to ensure that “the theater lights and my camera were going to talk to each other in a kindly way.”The next day, Ms. Krulwich photographed part of a performance at the Daryl Roth Theater at Union Square. And on Saturday, she shot a 36-minute performance at the historic St. James Theater in Midtown. Those assignments added up to her busiest stretch of theater work in more than a year.Theatrical productions, dormant since last spring, are resuming in New York City, the first tentative steps toward what actors, directors and others hope will be a strong comeback by the fall. And many in the theater world may see Ms. Krulwich’s presence as a reassuring sign.For more than two decades, she has been a Broadway and Off Broadway fixture, photographing about 100 shows a year, a body of work that led to her receiving a Tony Honor in 2018.After a yearlong absence, Ms. Krulwich began photographing performances and rehearsals, feeling her way back into familiar tasks and reflecting on early traces of a theatrical revival, which, she said, mirrored the stirrings of spring.“The blooms are beginning,” she said by phone. “Even if we’re not seeing the full flowering just yet.”Ms. Krulwich joined The Times as a staff photographer in 1979, working for the Metro, National and Sports desks before becoming the paper’s first culture photographer in 1994.At that time, she said, it was common for news organizations to run theater photographs handed out by producers that tended to present reality in the light most favorable to them. Ms. Krulwich, however, wanted to cover theater with the same journalistic approach that the paper employed while reporting on other events.Ms. Krulwich said that her approach was direct, telling producers that theater was looked upon as news inside The Times and should be documented that way. Eventually, she obtained access to almost every production in the city.Over the years, Ms. Krulwich has captured moments that have become a part of theater lore. She photographed developmental work on the Broadway production of Tony Kushner’s masterwork, “Angels in America.” In 1996, she took what is believed to be the last picture of Jonathan Larson, the writer and composer of “Rent,” hours before his death the night before the show’s first Off Broadway preview.Her Tony, in 2018, made her the first journalist recognized for excellence in the theater, an honor given to people, organizations and institutions that have contributed to the industry but are not eligible to win in other Tony categories.Returning to work inside venues she’s accustomed to, Ms. Krulwich said she took delight in seeing people she has known for many years and looked forward to a time when everyone connected to productions will, once again, be able to make a living.“It’s a small group of people,” she said. “Almost an extended family.”The day after photographing Mr. Daisey, Ms. Krulwich wore an N-95 mask and climbed a ladder at the Daryl Roth while shooting about 20 minutes of a performance of “Blindness,” an audio adaptation of the dystopian novel of the same name by the Portuguese writer José Saramago.And then, the following day, at the St. James, she photographed the dancer Savion Glover and the actor Nathan Lane at the 36-minute event they performed in front of a masked audience of 150.It was, noted Michael Paulson, a Times theater reporter, the first time in 387 days that there was activity inside a Broadway house.Ms. Krulwich said the performance was not the same as one that would have taken place before the coronavirus pandemic, but she added that she felt at home back inside the St. James and appreciated the hints of what is to come.“I must say, it felt familiar to me,” she said. “It’s just a little bit. It’s a tiptoe. It’s the doors opening a crack.” More

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      Broadway Reopened. For 36 Minutes. It’s a Start.

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      Before a masked, distanced and virus-tested audience of 150, the dancer Savion Glover and the actor Nathan Lane performed, celebrating theater and testing safety protocols a year after the pandemic caused theaters to close.Three hundred and eighty-seven days after Broadway went dark, a faint light started to glimmer on Saturday.There were just two performers — one at a time — on a bare Broadway stage. But together they conjured up decades of theater lore, invoking the songs and shows and stars that once filled the grand houses in and around Times Square.The 36-minute event, before a masked audience of 150 scattered across an auditorium with 1,700 seats, was the first such experiment since the coronavirus pandemic caused all 41 Broadway houses to close on March 12, 2020, and industry leaders are hoping it will be a promising step on what is sure to be a slow and bumpy road to eventual reopening.Mr. Glover, a renowned tap dancer, performed an improvisational song-and-dance number in which he seemed to summon specters of productions past.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe dancer Savion Glover and the actor Nathan Lane, both of them Tony Award winners, stood in for a universe of unemployed artists and show-starved fans as they performed a pair of pieces created for the occasion.Mr. Glover, a renowned tap dancer, performed an improvisational song-and-dance number in which he seemed to summon specters of productions past. He walked onstage, removed the ghost light that by tradition is left on to keep spirits away from an unoccupied theater, and began to sing lyric samples, accompanied only by the sound of his bright white tap shoes. “God I hope I get it,” he began, citing the yearning theme of “A Chorus Line.”And from there, he was off, quoting from “The Tap Dance Kid,” “Dreamgirls,” “42nd Street” and other shows that he said had influenced him, often celebrating the urge to dance, while also acknowledging the challenges of the entertainment industry. (“There’s no business like show business,” he sang, before adding, “Everything about it is eh.”) He also made a pointed reference to Black life in the U.S., interpolating the phrase “knee-on-your-neck America” into a song from “West Side Story.”“I was a little nervous, but I was elated, and happy, and there was nostalgia, and I was sentimental — it was everything,” he said in an interview afterward. “And I felt very safe. I want to be rubbing elbows and hugging — we’re looking for that eventually — but there’s no more safe place than right in the middle of that stage.”Mr. Lane, a three-time Tony winner, performed “Playbills,” a comedic monologue written for the occasion by Paul Rudnick.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesMr. Lane, one of Broadway’s biggest stars, performed a comedic monologue by Paul Rudnick, in which he portrayed a die-hard theater fan (with an alphabetized Playbill collection) who dreams (or was it real?) about a parade of Broadway stars, led by Hugh Jackman, Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald, arriving at his rent-controlled apartment and vying for his attention while dishily one-upping one other. (“Have you ever heard of a little show called ‘Evita’?” Ms. LuPone, Broadway’s original Eva Perón, asks Mr. Jackman, to which he retorts, “I loved the movie with Madonna,” at which point Ms. LuPone grabs a steak knife.)In an interview after the event, Mr. Lane said: “These are baby steps toward a real reopening. It’s a way of signaling to everyone that we’re coming back.”And did he feel safe? “I felt as safe as anyone who has been vaccinated and tested 123 times,” he said. “I’ve been swabbed. I’ve been hosed down. There were a lot of precautions and protocols, so yes, I felt safe.”The event’s safety measures included the limited audience, mandatory masks and socially distanced seating. Plus, all attendees were required to show proof of a negative coronavirus test or a completed vaccination regimen and to fill out a digital questionnaire attesting to an absence of Covid-19 symptoms or recent exposure; attendee arrival times were staggered; there was no intermission, food or drink; and although bathrooms were open, attendees were encouraged to use a bathroom before arriving to reduce potential crowding.The 150 attendees sat spaced apart in the 1,700-seat theater, and had to provide proof of a negative coronavirus test or a completed vaccination regimen in order to enter.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe St. James, a city historic landmark built in 1927, was chosen in part because it’s big — one of the largest theaters on Broadway — and empty. The theater also has a modern ventilation system, which was installed when the building was expanded in 2017, and its air filters were upgraded during the pandemic in an effort to reduce the spread of airborne viruses.The theater’s owner, Jordan Roth, teared up in the lobby before the event, moved by the moment. “It’s the first step home — the first of many,” he said. “This is not, ‘Broadway’s back!’ This is ‘Broadway is coming back!’ And we know it can because of this.”The event, while free, was by invitation only, and the invitations went mostly to workers for two theater industry social service organizations, the Actors Fund and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Among them was a Broadway Cares volunteer, Michael Fatica, who is an actor; he was in the ensemble of “Frozen,” which was the last show at the St. James, and which has announced that it will not reopen on Broadway. “They were fantastic,” he said afterward. “And it’s incredible that people are performing. But it’s so far away from commercial theater, and tens of thousands of actors are still out of work.”The event was also a chance to bring back the theater’s employees. Tony David, a porter, was there wearing his black suit and a tie and hat with the logo of the Jujamcyn theater organization, plus latex gloves and a face shield over a mask. “It’s nice to be back and doing something,” he said. “Hopefully this is the beginning.”Jordan Roth, left, the theater owner, greeted the event’s director, Jerry Zaks. “It’s the first step home,” Mr. Roth said of the show. “The first of many.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe event was directed by Jerry Zaks, a four-time Tony winner, who over the years has both acted and directed at the St. James. “This has been the longest I have not been inside a theater in 50 years,” he said. “I don’t want to sound giddy, but I’m excited, and I feel like a kid. There is a pulse — it’s faint, but there is one, and it augurs well for the months ahead.”The performance was sponsored by NY Pops Up, which is a partnership among the state government, the producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal and the artist Zack Winokur. Empire State Development, which finances the state’s economic development initiatives, has set aside $5.5 million from its marketing budget to pay for 300 performances through August; the purpose, the state says, is to lift the spirits of New Yorkers and to jump-start the entertainment industry.The organizers said they would confer on Monday morning about lessons learned from the Saturday event, and they anticipate nine other programs in Broadway houses over the next 10 weeks. But most producers expect that full-scale plays and musicals will not return to Broadway until the fall; commercial theater producers have said they do not believe it is financially feasible to reopen at reduced capacity, and the state is hoping to increase occupancy limits and reduce restrictions over time.“I don’t have a crystal ball — none of us do, but we have shows scheduled to reopen in September, October and November,” said Charlotte St. Martin, the president of the Broadway League. Ms. St. Martin, who attended the Saturday event, said the Pops Up performances could be helpful steps toward reopening.“It will give the health department the opportunity to see how the theaters work, and hopefully to learn what it will take for us to be declared OK to open at 100 percent,” she said. “And it’s also a great opportunity to remind us all of what makes New York so special.” More

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      Itchy to Perform Again, Musicians Eye Return to Touring

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      For now, there may be just a trickle of events (a Dinosaur Jr. tour, the lineup for Bonnaroo in September), but many artists are said to be planning live announcements soon.Like many musicians, J Mascis, the leader of the stalwart alt-rock band Dinosaur Jr., has struggled through a year without touring.“I’ve never been home this long since, like, high school,” Mascis said in a phone interview from his home in western Massachusetts. “To have no idea when or if you can do anything again, just sitting around,” he added, trailing off. “My mental health has definitely suffered.”But a few weeks ago, Dinosaur Jr. took a step toward normalcy by announcing an extensive fall tour, with a handful of warm-up dates booked for as early as May.“We’re not naïve; we know we might have to reschedule,” Mascis said. “But just to have something on the books somehow makes things a bit more hopeful.”After a grueling year, blocked from what is often their most vital income stream, musicians are impatient to get back on the road, and fans are eager to experience live music again. While large-scale shows at arenas and stadiums may not come back full-throttle until 2022, promoters and talent agents, encouraged by the speed of vaccinations, have begun laying the groundwork for what may be a surprisingly busy summer and fall of concerts at clubs, theaters and outdoor spaces.Rhett Miller performing at the City Winery in Manhattan in 2019. He is set to play there again this weekend.Al Pereira/WireImage, via Getty ImagesCity Winery moved its tables in accordance with New York State’s rule that will allow entertainment venues to reopen with limited capacity starting Friday.Emon Hassan for The New York TimesFor now, there may be just a trickle of events. Starting Friday, New York State will allow entertainment venues to reopen at 33 percent of their regular capacity, up to 100 people for indoor spaces. Throughout the country, rules from local governments have kept many clubs and theaters closed, or allowed them to operate at reduced capacities — which for many of those places does not allow enough business to cover the basic costs of operating and of paying artists and employees, said Audrey Fix Schaefer of the 9:30 Club in Washington.“The only thing worse than being totally shuttered is being partially reopened,” said Fix Schaefer, who is also the communications director for the National Independent Venue Association.But many artists are said to be planning tour announcements soon, and hungry venue owners — buoyed by the prospect of $16 billion in federal relief through the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant fund, which they can apply for starting April 8 — are eager for the business.The relative handful of clubs and theaters set to reopen in the spring are doing so with altered seating plans, temperature checks and adjusted financial deals with performers. A recent rock concert in Spain, with extensive Covid-19 protections, drew 5,000 fans. These events are being watched closely by the concert industry, which went into 2020 anticipating its biggest year ever but ended up losing nearly $10 billion in box office revenue, according to data collected by Pollstar, a trade publication.Lizzo performing in Miami early last year. She’s among the artists on the bill for Bonnaroo, in rural Tennessee, now planned for September.Scott Roth/Invision, via Associated PressCity Winery, a restaurant and concert venue on Pier 57, on the West Side of Manhattan, is reopening Saturday with a performance by the singer-songwriter Rhett Miller; it has been gradually filling out a calendar of socially distanced shows, confirming some just days ago. (Rufus Wainwright, Steve Earle, Patti Smith and Stephin Merritt of Magnetic Fields are among those on the calendar.) Tables have been arranged to allow space between parties, and patrons, who must wear masks when not seated, will get their temperatures checked upon entry.“Even if it’s for 100 people, it takes on such a significance to be putting on a show,” said Michael Dorf, the venue’s founder. “It feels like a sacred job, putting on culture.”Miller, a regular performer at the dozen City Winery spots around the country, said that he had struggled with the forced grounding from Covid-19, though he also noted the silver lining of spending more time with his family. The idea of playing live again, he said, both excites and terrifies him.“I’ve been dreaming about it night after night, climbing up on a stage in front of people,” Miller said. “The dreams are fraught and weird. Half the time I’m trying to sing through a mask, or I’m in trouble for not wearing a mask.”Major tours, which typically require months of planning and the hiring of a large crew of workers, have largely punted to next year or even 2023. That should make the next couple of years an extraordinary time for live music, with dozens of superstar acts planning to reschedule postponed tours and make up for lost time. But it may also be a test of touring infrastructure and of fans’ willingness to buy tickets to multiple high-profile shows.“The amount of stadium activity in 2022 is something I’ve never experienced,” said Jay Marciano, the chairman of AEG Presents, one of the industry’s biggest promoters and venue operators. “Over a dozen major artists are actively holding real estate for next year.”Josh Lloyd-Watson, left, and Tom McFarland of the British electronic duo Jungle. They’ve announced fall tour dates.Anna Victoria BestThe fate of summer festivals, an important bellwether, is still uncertain. Some, like the Newport jazz and folk festivals, in Rhode Island, are planning to go on this year, with reduced capacities. Bonnaroo, in rural Tennessee, is planned for September, with Megan Thee Stallion, Lizzo, Foo Fighters and others; Summerfest in Milwaukee, a major urban concert series, is also planned for September. But whether Lollapalooza in Chicago will go forward is unclear.In New York, a smattering of clubs are also planning shows, like Bowery Electric and the Bitter End. But the majority are holding out for when they can reopen at full capacity, or close to it, many proprietors said. The industry has been placing its bets on summer or fall for that.Still, many artists and promoters report watching every news blip about infection spikes and virus variants with trepidation.The British electronic duo Jungle has announced a fall tour at large clubs like Avant Gardner in New York and the Anthem in Washington. Sam Denniston, the group’s manager, said that all signs have pointed toward that being feasible, as millions more people get vaccinated and more venues fully reopen. Yet uncertainty about the pandemic means that anything could happen.“It’s kind of like penguins sitting on the edge of a cliff, and they push one in to see if there’s a killer whale in the water,” Denniston said. “I kind of feel like we’re that first penguin. But someone’s got to take the risk.”While stadium-sized artists are counting on the pandemic coming under control and the full revival of a mothballed industry by the time they hit the road, for many others below the superstar level, a year without shows has simply been long enough.“I don’t know if I can wait another six months to a year,” Miller said, “to do my job again.” More

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      Film Forum Is Reopening With a Classic: Fellini’s ‘La Strada’

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      The newly restored masterpiece, about an itinerant clown, is part of the Manhattan movie theater’s in-person lineup.“La Strada,” the 1954 movie that made Federico Fellini’s international reputation and won the first competitive Oscar for best foreign film, is exemplary pop modernism — an existential parable with affinities to “Waiting for Godot,” featuring an appealingly sad clown, haunted by a forlorn musical phrase and set in the timeless landscape of windswept beaches, tattered carnivals and deserted piazzas that Fellini made his own.It’s also a crowd pleaser, appropriately chosen as one of the movies that, newly restored, will reopen the Film Forum on Friday.Fellini is out to break your heart from the get-go, as the wide-eyed waif Gelsomina (the director’s wife, Giulietta Masina) is sold by her impoverished mother to the itinerant carnival strongman Zampano (Anthony Quinn) as his stooge, servant and concubine.Gelsomina’s childlike innocence is amplified by her master’s brutish behavior. While he is largely stuck with repeating a single, unimaginative stunt — ironically, it’s bursting a chain that encircles his chest — simple-minded Gelsomina delights in fantasy and spontaneous performance. In one scene, she entertains the guests and children at an outdoor wedding with an impromptu dance; in another she enchants the sisters in a convent that gives her shelter (and Zampano considers robbing).Masina’s performance is nearly silent; unmistakably Chaplinesque with her derby, oversized coat and makeshift cane, she also evokes Stan Laurel, Harpo Marx and, as a little woodenhead, Pinocchio too. Fellini is said to have received scores of offers to make further vehicles for the character, including one from Walt Disney. E.T. may be considered among her descendants.The New York Times hailed “La Strada” (The Road) as “a tribute to the Italian neo-realistic school of filmmaking,” even though, for all its desolate locations, it is far more allegorical than naturalistic. Indeed, Fellini’s metaphoric intentions are made apparent with the introduction of the itinerant tightrope walker called the Fool (Richard Basehart) who performs wearing a pair of cardboard angel wings.Despite his annoyingly dubbed giggle, the Fool fascinates Gelsomina. When all three characters are engaged by a threadbare circus, the Fool mocks Zampano and encourages Gelsomina to join his act. That she cannot do, bound to Zampano by a mystical force that can only be termed “love.” Instead, the Fool leaves her with the poignant Nino Rota melody that becomes her theme.Like that refrain, “La Strada” belongs to Masina. Still, before the movie ends it becomes apparent that Quinn (who took over Marlon Brando’s role in the Broadway production of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” a precursor of roughneck masculinity) has given a career performance. Indeed, the last five minutes, a coda set five years after the two part ways, are his.“La Strada” is often sentimental and not always convincing but the ending packs a wallop. I was told the story, as a small child, by my mother who had just seen and perhaps been devastated by the movie. Although I did not fully understand it, the final scene — Zampano wading into the sea — has stayed with me all my life.La StradaApril 2-8 at Film Forum, Manhattan. 212-727-8110; filmforum.org. Also streaming on the Criterion Channel, Kanopy and other platforms. More

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      ‘Diana’ Musical Sets Netflix Run — and Broadway Opening Night

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      In an unprecedented move, a recording of the show will start streaming in October, while audiences can see it live (if theaters reopen) in December.“Diana,” a new musical about the idolized but ill-fated British princess, managed to get through nine preview performances before Broadway shut down last March.Now, one year, one pandemic, and one Oprah interview later, the show is ready to try again, with a new strategy and a new context.In a first for a Broadway show, a filmed version of the stage production will start streaming before the musical opens. “Diana,” which was shot over a week last September in an audience-less Longacre Theater, will begin streaming on Netflix on Oct. 1, and then two months later, on Dec. 1, will resume previews on Broadway.The musical’s producers announced Tuesday that they intend to open Dec. 16, which is 625 days after its originally scheduled, but pandemic-postponed, opening night. The producers are putting their Broadway tickets on sale now, and counting on the Netflix film, which will have an open-ended run, to boost interest in the stage production.“I think people will see the movie and will say, that’s a show I want to see in person,” said Frank Marshall, a prominent filmmaker who is one of the musical’s lead producers. Another lead producer, the Broadway veteran Beth Williams, acknowledged that the plan involves “a slightly more complicated rollout,” but added “we feel like it’s an incredible opportunity to put ‘Diana’ in front of the global Netflix audience, and then give them an opportunity to see it live.”Broadway, of course, remains closed in an effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus, and producers expect that most full-scale plays and musicals won’t attempt to start performances until after Labor Day. “Diana,” which chronicles the life and death of the Princess of Wales, who was the first wife of Prince Charles, is among the first shows to put tickets on sale and to choose a specific date for a target opening.The scheduling, Marshall said, was a matter of trying to anticipate how the country’s post-pandemic reopening will unfold, and trying to coordinate the two projects to strengthen them both. “We wanted to make sure our marketing plans aligned,” he said. “I’m very optimistic about the fall, for both movies and for Broadway.” (A spokesman for the show declined to say how much Netflix paid for the streaming rights.)The musical, featuring Jeanna de Waal in the title role, is directed by Christopher Ashley and choreographed by Kelly Devine, who previously collaborated on “Come From Away”; it was written by Joe DiPietro and David Bryan (the Bon Jovi keyboardist), who created the Tony Award-winning “Memphis.”Through virtual and in-person work, the show, which had a pre-Broadway production at La Jolla Playhouse, was revised early in the pandemic. The producers said they do not expect further revisions, and expect their cast to remain intact.Diana has remained an object of public fascination in the years since her death in a 1997 car crash. But her story also has a contemporary sequel, as her younger son, Harry, and his wife, Meghan, stepped away from their royal duties, and, in an interview this month with Oprah Winfrey, he said that “my biggest concern was history repeating itself.”The lives of Diana’s children are not the subject of the new show. “You see Diana become a mother, but her children are not in the musical,” Williams said. “We’re telling the story of a complicated marriage, and at the same time we’re telling a coming-of-age story, and we’ve always seen it as a celebration of Princess Diana, whose legacy will live forever.”The producers said they don’t yet know what sort of safety protocols might be required for cast, crew, or ticket holders at the in-person production. Will there even be an opening night party? “There will be a celebration,” Williams said. “It’s too soon to know what that will look like.” More