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      ‘Waitress’ Is Returning to Broadway. So Is Sara Bareilles.

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      The popular musical secured a limited engagement at the Ethel Barrymore Theater this fall. The singer and songwriter will reprise her role for six weeks.She used to be Broadway’s. Now she’s back.The singer and songwriter Sara Bareilles — who wrote the music and lyrics for the musical “Waitress” — will return as the protagonist, Jenna Hunterson, from Sept. 2 through Oct. 17.The show will continue to run after that, at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, through Jan. 9, 2022. After a wildly successful debut at the Brooks Atkinson Theater in April 2016, the show spent four years on Broadway, closing in January 2020.Over the course of the show’s run, Bareilles has periodically played the starring role of Jenna, a baker and waitress stuck in an abusive relationship who sees a pie-baking contest as a way out. In a statement, she drew parallels between the hope and resilience within the show and that of the theater community during the pandemic.“With this change comes powerful motivation to bring what we have learned and experienced this past year to make something even more beautiful and more intentional,” Bareilles said. “Broadway is grit and grace, magic and mayhem, and I can’t wait to feel the electricity that pulses through all of us as the curtains rise once again.”“Waitress” was the first Broadway musical to feature four women in the top four creative spots, Bareilles added. (Its book was by Jessie Nelson, choreography by Lorin Latarro and direction by Diane Paulus.)“Broadway is returning as the engine that drives New York City’s recovery, drawing audiences from around the world to be wowed, to celebrate, to cry and to laugh again,” Barry and Fran Weissler, who are among the show’s producers, said in a statement. More

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      Disney, With Benefit Concert, Makes an Early Return to Broadway

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      Disney stage alumni will give four performances at the New Amsterdam Theater, two months before the curtains rise on “The Lion King” and “Aladdin” in New York.For the first time in what certainly feels like forever, classics from the Disney songbook will once again — and sooner than expected — ring out from a Broadway stage.The New Amsterdam Theater, usually home to “Aladdin,” will briefly welcome audiences back for four concerts benefiting the Actors Fund in late July, with a handful of Disney stage alumni performing numbers from “The Lion King,” “Frozen,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin” and others.The concert series, “Live at the New Am,” is somewhat of a soft reopening for Disney’s theatrical division in New York, albeit without the more elaborate production elements and massive companies that its stage adaptations typically entail. “The Lion King” and “Aladdin,” along with nearly a dozen other Broadway shows, start back up in September.“We have a concert unit, and we have a theater that’s sitting there waiting to be opened, and so it made sense to ‘what if,’” Thomas Schumacher, the president of Disney Theatrical Productions, said in a Zoom interview from London’s Lyceum Theater. (“The Lion King” is set to begin performances there later this summer, as is “Frozen” down the street.)As of Wednesday, Covid-19 protocols for “Live at the New Am” were still in flux: Disney hasn’t yet settled whether masks will be required. Audience members will need to show proof that they are fully vaccinated; attendees under 12 are exempt but must be with a vaccinated adult. (A couple of blocks away, “Springsteen on Broadway” has similar vaccination requirements but no mask mandate.)The Disney concert isn’t so much a test run of Covid-19 protocols ahead of the September reopenings, Schumacher said, since the latest guidance will continue to evolve. Logistically, after 16 months without an audience, it’s primarily a chance to get the theater’s entire ecosystem back up and running.“It’s very difficult to imagine, just on a practical level, bringing the entire company of ‘Aladdin’ — orchestra, cast, crew, everybody, ushers — all back in the theater and bang, just starting back in with the show,” Schumacher said. “We need the theater to get back up to speed before it starts.”It’s a process that involves reopening the box office, getting ticket-takers and other front-of-house staff back to work and examining the traffic patterns of how patrons move through the building. Not to mention one of the more underrated needs: “To hear laughter and applause and joy in the space is valuable — gives everyone confidence,” Schumacher added. “People need confidence to come back.”For the past decade or so, Disney has staged retrospective concerts of its Broadway hits around the world, from Japan to Orlando, Fla., and even alongside a full orchestra at Royal Albert Hall, in London. Michael James Scott, the most recent (and the next) Genie in Broadway’s “Aladdin,” has performed in several: “I’m telling you, it’s like 11 o’clock number after 11 o’clock number.”Scott is joined in this iteration by Ashley Brown, the original Mary Poppins on Broadway; Kissy Simmons, who has played Nala in “The Lion King” on Broadway; and Josh Strickland, Disney’s original Tarzan on Broadway.There will be three evening performances of “Live at the New Am,” from July 22-24 at 7:30 p.m., and a 2 p.m. matinee on July 25.“It’s a much more intimate feel,” Scott added in a phone interview, “but yet still all of that amazing music that people love.” More

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      With Venues Reopening Across New York, Life Is a Cabaret Once Again

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      “Thank you all for risking your lives by coming out tonight,” Joe Iconis quipped, welcoming a socially distanced crowd to the June reopening of the cabaret venue Feinstein’s/54 Below in Manhattan.Iconis, a composer, lyricist and performer beloved among young musical theater fans, was joking, but before diving into an alternately goofy and poignant set with the actor and singer George Salazar — a star of Iconis’s first Broadway production, “Be More Chill” — he added, earnestly, “It’s the most incredible thing to be able to do this show for real human beings, not computer screens.”Moist-eyed reunions between artists and fans have been taking place across the city as Covid-19 restrictions are gradually relaxing. “I hope you’re prepared for how emotional it will be when you’re onstage, because it will be emotional for us, supporting artists we love again,” a fan told the band Betty. In the intimate spaces that house these shows, interaction between artists and those who love them is integral to what the downtown fixture Sandra Bernhard called “the in-the-moment, visceral experience.”Storied establishments like the jazz clubs Birdland and Blue Note, newer spots such as the Green Room 42 and City Winery at Hudson River Park (which both reopened in April), along with the East Village alt-cabaret oases Pangea and Club Cumming are once again offering food, drink and in-the-flesh entertainment, as cabaret veterans — along with other jazz and pop acts, and drag performers — return to the work that is their bread and butter.Fans at Feinstein’s/54 Below snap a selfie before Joe Iconis and George Salazar took the stage.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesAn emotional Salazar onstage at Feinstein’s/54 Below.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesSalazar mingles with fans after the June show.Justin J Wee for The New York Times“To see people physiologically responding to music again — toes tapping, heads bopping — that’s almost better than applause,” said the pianist and singer Michael Garin, one of many who used social media to stay connected with fans during the pandemic, and among the first to resume performances for live audiences.But, Garin noted, “It’s not like we’re flipping a switch and bringing everything back to normal.” Particularly in the spring, not everyone was ready to pick up where they left off. “There were some musicians who were ready to book as soon as possible, and others who said, ‘Let me see — I don’t know if I want to be in an indoor space right now,’” said Steven Bensusan, the president of Blue Note Entertainment Group.The producer and host Scott Siegel, creator of the virtual “Scott Siegel’s Nightclub New York,” said that trepidation is still shared by some patrons: “Everybody’s hopeful, but I hear people say they’re nervous. There are also many who come in from outside the tristate area, and it’s more of an effort to get in.”Iconis rehearsing for his return to the live stage.Justin J Wee for The New York Times“It’s the most incredible thing to be able to do this show for real human beings, not computer screens,” Iconis said.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesWith regulations still in flux, both vigilance and adaptability are key. Before Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s mid-June announcement that the state could almost fully reopen, Birdland had planned to return at just 50 percent capacity on July 1. Instead, all 150 of its seats have been accessible from the start, with returning variety-show hosts Jim Caruso and Susie Mosher featuring theater and cabaret luminaries such as Chita Rivera and Natalie Douglas in the first week back. (The club’s downstairs space, Birdland Theater, will remain closed until September.) The Blue Note, which reopened in mid-June at roughly two-thirds capacity, has since made all of its 250 seats available. Proof of vaccination against the coronavirus is not required at either club, though masks are recommended for the unvaccinated at Birdland.By contrast, at 54 Below, where the plan is to build gradually back to a full crowd of about 150, proof of vaccination is necessary, as it is in the 60-seat cabaret room at Pangea, still limited to 80 percent capacity. Both venues were among those that developed streaming series while shuttered. “We originally got into it to remain active, but it became a way to pay staff, and expand the audience,” said Richard Frankel, one of the owners of 54 Below, which will kick off the new series “Live From Feinstein’s/54 Below,” offering live streams direct from the venue, on July 11. “Right now we’re focused on reopening live, but it’s definitely something to continue exploring after the dust settles.”Streaming a performance “broadens the spectrum of who’s able to see things, and that’s so important,” said the singer and actress Lilli Cooper.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesRyan Paternite, director of programming at Birdland, has been similarly encouraged by the response to “Radio Free Birdland,” though he added, “My feeling is that people are pretty burned out on watching shows on their computer or phone — especially if they have to pay for tickets.”Artists generally remain bullish on the opportunities posed by technology. “I’m very pro-streaming,” said the Tony Award-nominated singer and actress Lilli Cooper, who is set to appear at 54 Below on July 28 and August 15. “It broadens the spectrum of who’s able to see things, and that’s so important.” Caruso plans to continue streaming his “Pajama Cast Party” weekly; he noted that the virtual program has allowed him to diversify both his audience (“It has become more colorful, literally and figuratively”) and his talent pool (“I’ve delved into TikTok and Instagram and discovered some thrilling new artists”).Many are hopeful that diversity and inclusivity will be further emphasized in an art form that counts artists of color like Mabel Mercer and Bobby Short as historical icons. “My art is often based on what I’ve gone through, and being a Black man is part of that,” said the Broadway veteran Derrick Baskin, who packed R&B classics into his set list for recent dates at 54 Below.Garin, seen from above performing at the piano at the Roxy Hotel.Justin J Wee for The New York Times“It’s not like we’re flipping a switch and bringing everything back to normal,” Garin added.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesJustin Vivian Bond, scheduled to reopen Joe’s Pub in October, said, “The brilliant thing about cabaret is that you can react, if you’re capable, to what’s going on in the world.” For Bond, the pandemic posed challenges as sobering, albeit in a different way, as those faced by the L.G.B.T.Q. community during another plague: “When AIDS was happening, even when people were dying, you could be with them. What we’ve just been through was a very isolating trauma. I don’t know if I’ll have any brilliant insights about it, but hopefully what I’ll say will resonate with the audience.”Bernhard, who will return to Joe’s Pub in December for the annual holiday engagement she had to skip in 2020, still isn’t sure what insights she’ll be offering. “The head space that I’m in, I don’t even know what the next two months are going to bring,” she said. “I just want to perform, like everybody else does right now.”“My art is often based on what I’ve gone through, and being a Black man is part of that,” Derrick Baskin said.Justin J Wee for The New York Times“I cannot imagine any artist now taking any moment of what we do for granted,” Michael Feinstein said.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesPerformers and fans will be greeted with renovations at certain venues, and other enticements. Birdland has reduced its ticket price to 99 cents in July, the fee when the club originally opened in 1949. 54 Below is offering a new menu, created by the “Top Chef” winner Harold Dieterle. The West Bank Café’s Laurie Beechman Theater is getting a “face lift,” said its owner, Steve Olsen — fresh paint, new carpet and bar equipment, upgraded sound and lighting — in preparation for a reopening after Labor Day. The Triad Theater also used its forced downtime to “improve the furnishings, repaint and get new equipment,” said the booking director Bernie Furshpan.But it is the love of performing itself, and the perspective gained after a year of lost shows, that is driving many artists’ emotional responses to returning to the stage. Michael Feinstein, the multitasking American songbook champion and namesake for clubs in San Francisco and Los Angeles as well as New York, believes “that anyone who is a performer is coming out of this in a very different place, with a deeper sense of connection and joy and gratitude.”“I cannot imagine any artist now taking any moment of what we do for granted,” he added. More

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      Retooling ‘La Bohème’ for Pandemic Performances

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      Opera has been forced to forgo its love of packed stages, large orchestras and sold-out crowds, for now.LONDON — It’s an evening of drinking and revelry at Café Momus. A group of young men chatter away as a femme fatale tries to get their attention, jumping on tables and tossing undergarments. But the night spot is not as crowded as usual. There are few waiters in attendance, and by the windows in the back three patrons dine alone.It is Act II of a pared-down production of Puccini’s “La Bohème” at the Royal Opera House. In light of pandemic restrictions, the orchestra has 47 players, down from the usual 74. The act opens with only 18 of 60 chorus members onstage, the rest singing from the wings, and 10 (not 20) children onstage. There are four, not 10, waiters in the cafe.“The cafe scene feels less ‘bustling belle epoque cafe’ and more ‘lonely-hearts establishment’ at the moment, simply because there’s a limited number of people that we can have in the Cafe Momus,” Oliver Mears, the house’s director of opera, said a few days before the June 19 premiere. “It’s just adapting to the circumstances that we were faced with.”Andrew Macnair as Parpignol, with members of the Royal Opera Chorus, in a scene from Act II. Tristram Kenton/Royal Opera HouseMr. Mears said opera is an art form that breaks every social-distancing rule, relying on “crammed pits,” large and dense onstage crowds, moments of intimacy between performers, singing (which can spread viral particles) and a sellout audience. “All of these things really work against us,” he said.“If you were someone who hated opera and you wanted to devise a disease that hit opera particularly hard, then you’d probably come up with something rather like Covid,” he added.The global coronavirus outbreak has had a drastic effect on the performing arts, and opera, which is expensive, has suffered hugely. Many of Europe’s major houses have received government help — in addition to annual taxpayer-funded grants — to avoid insolvency.The Royal Opera House, which was closed for 14 months, received a government loan of 21.7 million pounds (about $29 million) in December, part of a recovery package for arts organizations. The house attracts an average of 650,000 people a year and presents films and screenings in Britain and in 42 countries around the world.Last October, it sold a 1971 David Hockney portrait of its former general administrator, David Webster, for £12.8 million (about $18 million). But even that was not enough to avoid cuts, and 218 staff members were let go.The Royal Opera decided to sell a David Hockney portrait of its former general administrator, David Webster, for £12.8 million to help make up for losses. Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA, via ShutterstockSince the house reopened on May 17, it has been operating at roughly a third of capacity to ensure socially distanced seating — just over 800 spectators, down from 2,225, Mr. Mears said. He described the mood in-house as “enthusiasm tempered with caution.” (Pandemic restrictions are in place until at least July 19.)The Paris Opera, which also incorporates a world-renowned ballet company, has faced similar threats in the pandemic. In an interview, Alexander Neef, its director, said the opera house had received €41 million (about $47 million) in aid for 2020, leaving it with a €4 million deficit.This year, the Paris Opera is due to receive another €15 million in state aid, he said, to help offset a projected annual loss of €45 million.“Everybody’s exhausted from more than a year of crisis,” Mr. Neef said. The Paris Opera reopened May 19, and since early June has required all audience members to show a “pass sanitaire” (health pass) proving vaccination, a negative test or one proving post-Covid immunity.There was “great appetite when we reopened,” he said on June 22, but “it’s been a little bit flat now,” whether because of the health pass requirement or the good weather and the reopening of cafe terraces.“There’s still a lack of perspective as to how this can actually come to an end,” he said. The hope was that by the fall, “we will be back to whatever this new normal will be. But there’s no guarantee for that right now. We don’t have visibility.”Opera houses in the United States, which depend mainly on private philanthropy and ticket sales for survival, are suffering even more. The Metropolitan Opera in New York, which plans to reopen in September, announced on its website that it had lost $150 million in earned revenue because of the pandemic.Ms. de Niese said pandemic restrictions meant having “to do all of our rehearsals with a mask on, and that is a killer.”Tristram Kenton/Royal Opera HouseFor the cast members of “La Bohème,” which ends live performances on Tuesday but can be streamed online through July 25, the pandemic has only compounded the art form’s challenges.Danielle de Niese, who plays Musetta, the femme fatale, said in an interview during rehearsals that without a pandemic it was hard enough to do “the drunken tabletop thing” — having to hop from one tabletop to another in a long, heavy gown while singing at the top of her lungs. The coronavirus, she said, also meant having “to do all of our rehearsals with a mask on, and that is a killer.”“It is incredibly challenging to sing into a material mask,” she said. “It basically kills your sound, and it feels like you’re singing into a pillow.”Ms. de Niese, a soprano, pulled out her special opera-singer mask: a protruding face covering with an extra wire that ensured it wouldn’t “go up my nostrils” at each breath. Masks were worn throughout the rehearsal period, she said, and instead of the “natural camaraderie between colleagues” and between acts, performers had to sit on strictly distanced chairs.Ms. de Niese said she was concerned about “singers who are just starting to get into it, who aren’t yet making the big bucks,” and who, struggling financially during the pandemic, had to take “a job packing boxes at Amazon.”“We need to make sure that the next generation will still put their skin in the game,” she said.The Royal Opera’s next big show is directed by Mr. Mears himself: a new production of Verdi’s “Rigoletto,” opening in the fall. In its favor during a pandemic? It doesn’t have a chorus, he pointed out.Despite the prolonged shutdown and logistical and financial headaches, Mr. Mears said there was a silver lining to the difficulty: a regained appreciation for opera.“We always thought that this was something that would always exist, and now I think there’s a tremendous sense of gratitude for the work that we are able to make,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll ever take opera for granted again, and that can only be a good thing.” More

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      Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Hudson Set for Central Park ‘Homecoming’

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      Paul Simon will also perform at this summer’s concert on the Great Lawn as part of a weeklong celebration of the city’s reopening.Bruce Springsteen! Jennifer Hudson! Paul Simon!Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday announced the first batch of headliners for the city’s planned “homecoming concert” in Central Park this summer, which is being booked with the 89-year-old music producer Clive Davis.During a video news conference, de Blasio confirmed that those three artists would be part of the show, which is planned for the park’s Great Lawn as part of a weeklong celebration of the city’s reopening.“This is going to be one of the greatest Central Park concerts in history,” de Blasio said. “This is something for the ages.”But many details have yet to be announced, including the event’s date. When de Blasio first revealed plans for the show, three weeks ago, it was provisionally set for Aug. 21. But in his comments on Thursday the mayor gave no date and said that there were still “a lot more details to come” about the event.Gossip about Springsteen’s involvement has been circulating through the entertainment world for weeks, and seemed uncertain once the singer announced the return of his show “Springsteen on Broadway,” which reopened Saturday and will run through Sept. 4. But while his show is running on some Saturdays, an Aug. 21 performance is conspicuously absent from the posted schedule.“He is beloved in New York City in an extraordinary way,” de Blasio said of Springsteen, “even though he happens to come from Jersey — no one’s perfect.”At the Central Park show, Springsteen is expected to perform a duet with Patti Smith, according to a person briefed on the plans. The mayor did not mention Smith’s involvement in his announcement, and a representative of the singer declined to comment.The performers announced so far have long been associated with Davis, whose career as a top music executive began in the late 1960s when he took over Columbia Records. He signed Springsteen to Columbia in 1972, and worked with Simon & Garfunkel and Simon as a solo artist during his years at that label. Later, he signed Hudson — who had been a contestant on “American Idol” — to J Records. More

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      ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ to Slim Down Before Broadway Return

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      Reducio! The play, which had been performed in two parts, will be condensed and restaged in one part when it returns this fall.“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” the sprawling stage play that imagines Harry and his friends as grown-ups and their children as wizards-in-training, will be substantially restructured before returning to Broadway this fall.The play, which had been staged in two parts before the pandemic, will return as a single show on Nov. 16.The show was widely acclaimed, winning the Olivier Award for best new play when it opened in London, and the Tony Award for best new play when it opened in New York. But it was costly to develop, costly to run, and costly for theatergoers, who had to buy tickets to two shows to experience it fully.The play’s lead producers, Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender, in a joint statement attributed their decision to “the challenges of remounting and running a two-part show in the U.S. on the scale of ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,’ and the commercial challenges faced by the theater and tourism industries emerging from the global shutdowns.”The show will continue to run in two parts in London; Melbourne, Australia; and Hamburg, Germany, but will be a single part in New York, San Francisco and Toronto. It was not immediately clear how long that single part would be; the two parts have a total running time of about 5 hours and 15 minutes.Structured essentially as a stage sequel to J.K. Rowling’s seven wildly popular “Harry Potter” novels, the show was the most expensive nonmusical play ever to land on Broadway, costing $35.5 million to mount, and another estimated $33 million to redo Broadway’s Lyric Theater. Before the pandemic, the play was routinely grossing around $1 million a week on Broadway — an enviable number for most plays, but not enough for this one, with its large company and the expensive technical elements that undergird its stage magic.The play, a high-stakes magical adventure story with thematic through lines about growing up and raising children, was written by Jack Thorne and directed by John Tiffany, based on a story credited to Rowling, Thorne and Tiffany. Thorne and Tiffany said they had been working on a new version of the show during the pandemic, which, they said, “has given us a unique opportunity to look at the play with fresh eyes.”The writers did not say what kind of changes they would make, but the production promised that the new version would still deliver “all the amazing magic, illusions, stagecraft and storytelling set around the same powerful narrative.”“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” began its stage life in London, opening in the summer of 2016, and winning nine Olivier awards — the most of any play — in 2017. It arrived on Broadway in 2018, picked up six Tony Awards, and initially sold very strongly, grossing about $2 million a week. But the sales softened over time, as average ticket prices fell, apparently because of a combination of the lengthy time commitment and the need to buy two tickets to see the whole story, which made it particularly expensive for families.The show has been expanding globally — adding productions in San Francisco and Australia, and planning its first production in a language other than English for Hamburg — making restructuring complicated. But the producers have apparently decided to go to a one-part structure in North America, while maintaining the two-part structure elsewhere in the world, as they try to find the formula for long-term global success. According to the production, the play has already been seen by 4.5 million people.Tickets for the Broadway production will go on sale July 12; ticket prices have not yet been announced. The San Francisco production is scheduled to resume performances at the Curran theater next Jan. 11, and the Toronto production is to begin performances next May at the Ed Mirvish Theater.The two-part play is already running in Melbourne and is scheduled to reopen in London on Oct. 14 and to resume previews in Hamburg on Dec. 1. More

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      Bruce Springsteen Is Back on Broadway. The Workers Are Coming Back, Too.

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      Broadway took its first steps back with the return of Bruce Springsteen’s show, and no one is happier than Jim Barry, an usher at the St. James Theater for 20 years.Jim Barry, masked and ready, perched at the top of the theater stairs, cupping his hands around the outstretched smartphones so he could more easily make out the seat numbers.“How you doing? Nice jacket.”“Go this way — it’s an easier walk.”“Do you need help sir? The bathroom’s right there.”It was Saturday night at the St. James Theater.Bruce Springsteen was back on the stage.Fans were back in the seats.And, 15 months after the pandemic had shut down Broadway, Barry, who has worked as an usher at the St. James for 20 years, was back at work, doling out compliments and reassurance as he steered people toward the mezzanine, the restroom, the bar.“Springsteen on Broadway” is essentially a one-man show, but its return has already brought back work for about 75 people at the St. James — not only Barry, but also another 30 ushers and ticket-takers, as well as merch sellers, bar staff, porters, cleaners, stagehands, box office workers, a pair of managers and an engineer.The return of “Springsteen on Broadway” has already brought back work for about 75 people at the St. James Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesMore shows, and jobs, will return in August and September as Broadway’s 41 theaters slowly come back to life. Ultimately, a Broadway rebound promises to benefit not just theater workers but hotel clerks and bartenders and taxi drivers and workers in the many industries that rely on theater traffic, which can be considerable: in the last full season before the pandemic, 14.8 million people saw a Broadway show.Barry, a gregarious 65-year-old Staten Island grandfather, loves theater, for sure, but also depends on the job for income and basic health insurance.“This job is not for everybody, but I made it my own,” he said. Barry, a solidly built man with white hair who is often mistaken for a security officer, takes pride at being punctual, and jovial, and polite. “I can tell somebody tapping me on the back where the bathroom is, while telling somebody in front of me where their seats are, and also waving to somebody in the corner. It’s controlled insanity.”As he returned to work following the shutdown, there were a few changes to master. He had to wear a mask — they are required for employees, but not patrons — and struggled to feel comfortable making small talk through the fabric. And tickets were now all digital, which meant his signature move, which involved passing tickets behind his back as he accepted, scrutinized, and handed back the proffered stubs, was no longer useful; instead he needed to figure out how to quickly decipher all those different screen fonts.Still, he was thrilled to be back.“No matter what happens, nothing can make me feel bad, because I’m back at my house, and the Boss is at my house,” he said. “It’s where I want to be.”“No matter what happens, nothing can make me feel bad, because I’m back at my house, and the Boss is at my house,” Barry said.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBarry, originally from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, took an unusual path to the theater industry. For 27 years, he had worked in banking, first as a teller, and then as a bank officer in Times Square.He saw theater, occasionally, and loved it. As a teenager he saw Danny Kaye in “Two by Two,” and later he saw “Jesus Christ Superstar.” (“I couldn’t believe it was so fantastic.”) But the production he most excitedly remembers seeing is “Grease,” at the Royale Theater; a friend got him access to walk onto the stage before the show. “It gave me the bug,” he said.So when he decided he needed to earn more money, and began looking for a second job, he reached out to one of his customers at the bank, a woman who worked in payroll at Jujamcyn Theaters, which operates five Broadway theaters, including the St. James. She asked if he’d be open to ushering.That was in 2001. The first shift he worked was at a dress rehearsal for “The Producers,” which was about to open. “You know you belong when your body just gets enveloped in euphoria,” he said.He was hooked. For years, he continued working full-time at the bank, while also working nights and weekends at the theater; in 2016 he left the bank for good, and now he works six days a week at the theater (the shifts are short — a full usher shift is 4.5 hours, but at each show half the staff gets to leave 30 minutes after curtain, which is two hours after their start time).It’s a union job, for which standard pay is $83.78 per show; Barry has the higher rank of director, so he makes about $710 a week, and supplements his income with Social Security and a small bank pension. He was kept afloat during the pandemic by unemployment; although he missed the theater, he also was glad to have more time to spend with his girlfriend.He has a bear of a commute — it can take up to two hours to get to work, depending on whether he drives or takes a bus, and how bad the traffic is. He arrives early, changes into his Jujamcyn uniform (black suit, black shirt, black tie, with a red J on the chest), and sits in a theater doorway on West 44th Street that he calls “my stoop,” enjoying coffee and a roll and greeting passers-by, sometimes posing for a picture with a passing actor.Barry has a long commute — it can take up to two hours to get to work.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAlthough he loves the theater, seeing shows other than the ones he’s working is hard — he’s generally on duty when other shows are running. But he usually gets to the big ones.At his own theater, he’s seen a mix of hits and flops. With the latter, he said, “you just feel bad for everybody.” And what if he doesn’t like a show he’s working? “We have the luxury of lobbies.”There are, of course, headaches to manage — intoxicated patrons, and insistent videographers — but he prides himself on doing so with civility. For the cellphone scofflaws, whose ranks have swelled since he began, he will sometimes simply hover, which usually shames people into compliance; other times he will use a flashlight or a headshake to get someone’s attention, and once in a while he’ll say something like, “Please don’t do that. If they see you, I’m going to get in trouble.” (At “Springsteen on Broadway,” no photos or videos are allowed until the bows.)How much does Barry love being part of the business? In March, sad not to be at work for his 20th anniversary at the theater, he and his girlfriend drove into Times Square, and he posed for a photograph in front of each of the 41 Broadway theaters.“There’s that old adage — when you love what you do, you never work a day in your life,” he said. “I am so lucky — I love to make people feel good about coming to our house.” More

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      Review: At Caramoor, a Concert Signals Return and Remembrance

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      The performance, by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, felt like normal again, while the music looked back on a year of upheaval.KATONAH, N.Y. — Before a concert by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s on a steamy Sunday afternoon here at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, a jubilant James Roe, the ensemble’s executive director, told the audience that these musicians had not presented a live, in-person performance in 472 days.This return meant more than a mere visit from a Caramoor fixture. In recent months I’ve attended orchestral concerts around New York City. But these events played to very limited, mask-wearing audiences. At Caramoor the capacity wasn’t restricted to a mere 150 or so people. Hardly any of the 400 people in attendance wore masks (only the unvaccinated were asked to do so).It felt like a real return to normal for classical music.With its bucolic grounds and open-air Venetian Theater, where most programs are being presented, Caramoor is an ideal venue for summer concerts, especially during this still-challenging time. And it has planned an adventurous summer season, running through Aug. 8. This Orchestra of St. Luke’s program was conducted by Tito Muñoz, the Queens-born music director of the Phoenix Symphony, and offered works that spoke to the larger social issues of the past year.The afternoon began with the premiere of Valerie Coleman’s “Fanfare for Uncommon Times.” The idea for the piece, as Coleman explained recently in a video interview on the Caramoor site, came from Roe, who invited her to write a piece that grappled not just with the pandemic, but the tumultuous “political landscape,” as she put it.Yet, hanging over every American composer who writes a fanfare, Coleman said, is Aaron Copland’s iconic 1942 “Fanfare for the Common Man.” In an inspired idea, this 75-minute program, after opening with Coleman’s fanfare, ended with Copland’s, and included, in the middle, Joan Tower’s plucky “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman” (1987). In a nod to Copland and Tower, Coleman also scored her piece for brass and percussion.Yet, while writing something that offered affirmation to people emerging from unimaginably “uncommon times,” Coleman said, as a Black woman she wanted to “bring the Black experience in,” the “turmoil, the upheaval,” the complexity of recent conversations about race in America.These threads — and the emotions entwined with them — come through vividly in Coleman’s six-minute piece. It begins not with a typical fanfare salute, but a quizzical, searching line for solo trombone that soon is cushioned by pungent, soft-spoken brass chords. Unrest amid determination stirs as the music shifts into agitated episodes for percussion. The mood seems at once reflective and restless, uplifting and ominous. The elements of the Black experience during a challenging time that Coleman described come through during a passage alive with riffs for mallet percussion instruments, hints of dance and bursts of anxious frenzy. By the end, with spurts of four-note brass motifs, echoes of Coplandesque affirmation arise, but also a breathless flurry that feels bracing yet challenging.The program included a premiere by Valerie Coleman that was put in conversation with Joan Tower’s “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman” and Aaron Copland’s famous “Fanfare for the Common Man.”James Estrin/The New York TimesIt made for a surprisingly good contrast to follow the Coleman with Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “The Lark Ascending,” a “romance,” as the composer described it, for violin and orchestra, with the superb Tai Murray as soloist. This glowing, pastoral, somewhat bittersweet piece is enormously popular, but it doesn’t turn up as often as it should in concerts. Murray’s playing abounded in radiant sound, arching lyricism and delicacy. During moments when the violin writing turns intricate with evocations of fluttering birds, she dispatched the passagework with effortless grace.Tower’s short, feisty “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman,” dedicated to the pioneering female conductor Marin Alsop, the outgoing director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, is the first in a series of six such fanfares she has written. This short but packed, muscular piece is like a respectful retort to Copland.Muñoz then led an elegant account of Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” Suite, capturing the melancholy of the music while letting the players cut loose in dancing, near-frantic episodes. And Copland’s fanfare on this day proved the fitting conclusion: a way to usher in a moment that signals a return in more ways than one.CaramoorThe festival continues through Aug. 8 in Katonah, N.Y.; caramoor.org. More