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      A New Improv Theater Tries to Be the Anti-U.C.B. Is That a Trap, Too?

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      A diverse board of comics is trying to build an inclusive, accessible institution. But knowing what they don’t want to be may not be enough.When the Upright Citizens Brigade permanently closed its New York operations last year, the news hit Corin Wells like a death in the family. She moved to the city because of U.C.B., invested time and money, evolving from a student to a teacher and in the uncertain early months of the pandemic, the theater represented an anchor to the past and hope for the future. “When I got the email, I cried,” she said in a video call. “I didn’t have anything to go back to.”Then a sense of betrayal sank in, one shared by many improvisers, particularly since U.C.B. had held onto its theater in Los Angeles, where its founders are mostly based. “We were the bastard child,” Wells said. “Decisions were being made for us that did not serve us, almost like taxation without representation.”In recent years, U.C.B. had moved its popular Del Close Festival from New York to the West Coast, closed its East Village theater and exited its longtime space in Chelsea. But for Michael Hartney, the last artistic director of U.C.B. New York, the final straw came when the institution took out a Paycheck Protection Program loan worth hundreds of thousands of dollars before closing his theater. He felt “very gamed,” sparking an epiphany and a call to Wells to propose starting their own improv theater. She immediately agreed. They brought other U.C.B. veterans to form a board that met remotely every week last summer.“We wanted to reinvent what the improv theater looked like,” Wells said.The challenge: How do you hold onto the good parts of the Upright Citizens Brigade but avoid the flaws that made it so susceptible to collapse?Squirrel Comedy Theater is trying to reinvent how an improv institution is run.Gus Powell for The New York TimesOf all the art forms hurt during the pandemic, none was disrupted as much as improv comedy. Legacy institutions like Second City and iO in Chicago were sold after economic turmoil and a racial reckoning. In New York, the vanishing of U.C.B., a longtime juggernaut, left a vacuum that many are now competing to fill. It’s a moment of remarkable flux, turmoil and opportunity. Relative newcomers to New York like Asylum NYC (currently in U.C.B.’s old 26th Street home) and the Brooklyn Comedy Collective (which recently moved into a new space in Williamsburg), are both offering classes and putting on shows. And staples like the Pit and Magnet (which both scaled down in the pandemic) have started to reopen, producing shows and offering classes, virtually and in person.And what began with Hartney’s phone call is now the Squirrel Comedy Theater, the name a wry reference to the term for people who practice Scientology outside of the official organization. Even though the Squirrel was born in part from disenchantment, it still distinguishes itself by its faith in the aesthetic of the Upright Citizens Brigade. “The U.C.B. taught us a method of creating comedy that works,” Hartney said. “Those other theaters are amazing and valuable, but they don’t teach that. We feel like it has to keep going.”The Squirrel started as a residency in June at the Caveat, a theater on the Lower East Side. Hartney and his board, which includes the improvisers Lou Gonzalez, Patrick Keene, Maritza Montañez and Alex Song-Xia, are looking at real-estate options.The Squirrel has started a residency at the Caveat theater on the Lower East Side.Gus Powell for The New York TimesThe board members quickly came to a consensus on principles that would put them in contrast with their former home. Squirrel would be nonprofit (which until recently was very unusual for improv theaters), pay onstage talent (U.C.B. did not), and in an effort to remove barriers of entry, open classes to any student, regardless of level. Because it’s nonprofit, the Squirrel’s long-term sustainability may depend not just on ticket sales and class fees, but on its ability to raise money, too.Its mission statement emphasizes a commitment to diversity, inclusion and representation. U.C.B. also claimed to value inclusion, instituting a diversity scholarship, but that often didn’t translate to the stage. In June 2020, it came under considerable criticism for its diversity efforts, leading its founders to announce they were giving power to a “board of diverse individuals.”So how will Squirrel be different?Hartney and Wells say it starts with leadership. In contrast to the U.C.B.’s founders — Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh — this board includes no straight white men or women and are majority Black, Indigenous or people of color. Hartney described himself as “a de facto artistic director,” which he said he was very hesitant about because of the appearance of continuity, but added that because of his experience, others insisted. Whereas programming decisions at U.C.B. were made by himself alone, now the group decides.When asked if they would program a troupe like the Stepfathers, a popular, talent-rich company that ran at U.C.B. for many years with performers like Zach Woods and Chris Gethard, he shakes his head: “I’m not excited about an all-white weekend team.”Michael Hartney, in red, is the de facto artistic director, a job he held at U.C.B.Gus Powell for The New York TimesOn Sunday, the Squirrel did premiere a weekly show with a diverse cast, Raaaatscraps, that was hosted by two former members of the Stepfathers, Connor Ratliff and Shannon O’Neill, also veterans of the most famous U.C.B. show, Asssscat. Without mentioning the old theater, O’Neill went onstage and described the show as a “renamed, rebranded” version of Asssscat, and it relied on the same format: A monologue by a surprise guest (Janeane Garofalo this time) inspires a long-form improv.How the Squirrel navigates its relationship to the U.C.B. is going to be an evolving process that Wells said will depend to some degree on trial and error: “What’s going to sell tickets: An old U.C.B. team with a recognizable name or a new group of artists who will bring their friends? “It’s a hard balance,” she said, adding that they need to do both. “Always be testing.”But one guiding principal is a skepticism of permanence, of shows that run indefinitely, even of founders who stay too long. “We designed this to be taken over,” said Hartney, who doesn’t see himself at this job in 10 years. “We want the next people to address the changing needs of this community.”U.C.B. built its reputation in part as an incubator of stars like Kate McKinnon, Ilana Glazer and Donald Glover, and the Squirrel wants to be a competitive environment for ambitious comics as well as a warm, welcoming community. Hartney recognizes that there can be a tension. Of the board members, “I am probably the one most interested in hosting an ‘S.N.L.’ showcase,” he said.Wells is, too. It will surely help the Squirrel get attention from people in comedy that last week, Wells was named one of the new faces at Just For Laughs, the industry festival. It’s an irony not lost on her that building a theater in opposition to U.C.B. can tie you to it. “In a perfect world, we could separate ourselves,” she said, but in every conversation they’ve had, U.C.B. “has always been a part. I think to be able to fix a system that U.C.B. set in place, you kind of had to live in it.” More

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      Lincoln Center Names Shanta Thake as its New Artistic Leader

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      Shanta Thake, a theater executive, faces challenges that include helping the center embrace new genres and attract virus-wary audiences.Feeling the pressure to attract new audiences and rethink its offerings even before being upended by the coronavirus pandemic, Lincoln Center announced on Tuesday that it had chosen a theater executive with a reputation for working across disciplines as its next artistic leader.Shanta Thake, most recently an associate artistic director at the Public Theater, will assume the role of chief artistic officer at the center, the nation’s largest performing arts complex, as it works to broaden its appeal beyond classical music and ballet into genres such as hip-hop, poetry and songwriting.Thake — who at the Public spent a decade managing Joe’s Pub, a cabaret-style venue, and more recently began overseeing Under the Radar, Public Works and other programs there — said she was eager to bring more popular and world music to Lincoln Center.“The goal is expansive reach,” Thake, 41, said in an interview. “What’s missing? What have we left out? What stories aren’t we telling that feel like they’re demanding to be told in this moment?”Lincoln Center is the landlord of the Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, New York City Ballet and other independent institutions, which are responsible for their own programming. But it is also a presenting organization in its own right, putting on hundreds of events each year and running the Mostly Mozart and White Light festivals, which have been primarily devoted to the classical arts. The center and its constituent organizations have competed, sometimes tensely, for rehearsal and performance space, ticket sales and donations.Thake will oversee the work Lincoln Center presents, and said in the interview that its robust classical offerings would be maintained. “We’re not looking to erase history here,” she said.But center officials say they are still working out the future of Mostly Mozart, which was put on hold amid the pandemic, other than a few small events this week. In 2017, as it grappled with budgetary constraints, the center dissolved the Lincoln Center Festival to focus on reinventing Mostly Mozart, its summertime sibling.Thake, who starts next month, replaces Jane Moss, who played a key role in programming for nearly three decades and stepped down as artistic director last year — and who also came from a theater background. (The chief artistic officer title is a new one.) Thake joins the center at one of the most challenging moments since it opened in 1962. Its woes predate the coronavirus: It struggled for years from leadership churn and money problems.Then the pandemic wiped away tens of millions in revenue and forced the cancellation of hundreds of events. About half of Lincoln Center’s staff of 400 was furloughed or laid off, and its top leaders took pay cuts.While many workers have been rehired and indoor performances are set to resume in the fall, the center will likely be grappling with the financial fallout for years. It remains to be seen whether audiences will return at prepandemic levels, especially given the recent spread of the Delta variant of the virus.Henry Timms, Lincoln Center’s president and chief executive, said the organization had turned to Thake for her experience programming creatively across genres. “We wanted someone who could kind of help us think about some new territory,” he said.Timms said the virus would continue to pose a challenge for the center’s artistic ambitions, but added that he believed audiences were eager to return. “There will be a great deal of demand for what we do and there will be a great deal of re-imagination,” he said.As infections have eased in recent months and vaccines have become widely available, Lincoln Center has started to come back to life, building several outdoor stages and transforming its plaza into a summer gathering place by covering it in a synthetic lawn. When indoor performances resume, the center plans to require vaccines for audience members, production staff and artists. Children under 12 will not be permitted to attend performances since they are currently not eligible for vaccines.Thake said she saw her mission as, in part, to “lift up the city that is still reeling from the ongoing trauma” of the pandemic. She said Lincoln Center could play a role in helping smaller arts organizations, for example by sharing best practices for reopening venues.“Hopefully we can make it to the other side all together,” she said.Thake, whose mother is Indian and whose father is white, said she was committed to presenting artists who represent a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. Cultural institutions have in general been slow to respond to demands for a reckoning over racial justice in the United States. But Lincoln Center is one of the few arts organizations to show substantial progress in bringing more diversity to its upper ranks. People of color now make up about half of its leadership team. More

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      New York City Awards $3 Million for Latino and Puerto Rican Theater

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      The Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater will use the funds, along with $7 million from the city over the last eight years, for an expanded South Bronx space.The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs announced on Friday that the city had awarded $3 million to Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, which champions Puerto Rican and Latino artists and produces original bilingual plays and musicals.The new funding, provided by the mayor, the City Council and the Bronx borough president, is in addition to about $7 million from the Department of Cultural Affairs already devoted to the theater company in the last eight years — bringing the total to $10.2 million. The funds will be used to build a new cultural and administrative headquarters in the South Bronx.“Arts and culture will be at the heart of this city’s recovery,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. “And this theater will give young Bronxites more opportunities than ever to build a more inclusive cultural future for our city.”An addition to one of the company’s existing theaters, on Walton Avenue between 149th and 150th Streets, will serve as the headquarters for the organization. (The theater also has a space in Midtown and shows will continue to be produced at both locations.) The expanded space will allow for more education and other programming, said Rosalba Rolón, the founding artistic director of Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater.“I can’t tell you the excitement our neighbors have,” Rolón said in an interview on Friday. “This is the kind of service Bronx artists need. The community might be able to use the space in other ways as well, for town halls and community meetings.”A large portion of the building, in the Mott Haven neighborhood, will also be used for pre-professional training for performing artists, she said.The project, which is the organization’s first major capital one since its theater in the Bronx opened in 2005, had been in the works for eight years. The $3 million in new city support added as part of the budget for fiscal year 2022 put the project over its finish line. It does not yet have a target opening date.Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater was created in 2014 in a merger of the Pregones Theater in the Bronx and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater in Manhattan. The Pregones was founded in 1979 by a group of artists led by Rolón to create new works in the style of Caribbean and Latin American “colectivos” or performing ensembles. The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater was founded in 1967 as one of the first U.S. bilingual theater companies.For a theater that has nurtured the development of Latino artists and long been invested in community engagement in Mott Haven, the new home is an exciting next step.“It is meaningful that we come to full funding at the exact same time when New Yorkers are taking bold steps toward recovery from pandemic, and when enduring inequities in arts funding are an ongoing conversation,” Arnaldo J. López, the organization’s managing director, said in a statement. More

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      For U.K. Bands, Touring Europe Is Now a Highway to Brexit Hell

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      It’s not just that musicians need visas. Band merchandise is now a complicated export, and most tour vans are only allowed to make three stops.LONDON — When the British rock band Two Door Cinema Club began playing shows across Europe a decade ago, the group’s three members would jump in a van, throw their instruments in the back and drive from their then hometown, Belfast, Northern Ireland, to sweaty clubs in Amsterdam, Berlin, and Paris.“We did that hundreds of times,” Kevin Baird, the group’s bassist, said recently by phone. “Everything was at a moment’s notice,” he added.Now, it’s not so simple for Two Door Cinema Club — or any British act — to tour Europe. Last Friday, the band headlined the Cruïlla music festival in Barcelona, Spain, playing to an audience of 25,000 screaming fans. But because of Britain’s 2020 departure from the European Union, known as Brexit, the band spent weeks beforehand applying for visas and immersing themselves in complicated new rules around trucking and exporting merchandise like T-shirts.Visas and travel within Britain to apply for them cost 7,500 pounds, about $10,400, for the band, two extra musicians, and an eight-person crew, Baird said. New rules mean that a British tour van carrying audio and lighting equipment, or merchandise, can only make three stops in mainland Europe before it must return home.Before Britain left the E.U., Two Door Cinema Club would head off on tour at a moment’s notice. Samuel Aranda for The New York Times“It’s proved a headache when there was never a headache before,” Baird said. “If we were a band starting out, we wouldn’t have done it,” he added.For much of this year, Brexit has been an even bigger talking point in Britain’s music industry than the coronavirus pandemic. Since Jan. 1, when a trade deal between Britain and the European Union came into force, hundreds of British musicians — including Dua Lipa and Radiohead — have complained that the deal makes touring the continent more costly for stadium acts, and almost impossible for new bands.The new rules are “a looming catastrophe” for young musicians, Elton John wrote on Instagram in June. “This is about whether one of the U.K.’s most successful industries, worth £111 billion a year, is allowed to prosper and contribute hugely to both our cultural and economic wealth, or crash and burn,” he added.Even musicians who supported Brexit have complained. Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer of Iron Maiden, told a TV interviewer in June that, although he welcomed Britain’s departure from the European Union, he found the new rules unreasonable. He then addressed Britain’s government: “Get your act together,” he said.The furor over the regulations has led to a blame game between Britain’s government and the European Union over which side is responsible for the new barriers, and who made viable offers when negotiating the trade deal.Regardless of who is responsible, the issue has become an embarrassment for the British government. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said his government is working “flat out” on the issue. “We must fix this,” he told lawmakers in March.Yet so far, there hasn’t been enough progress to appease musicians. In June, Britain agreed to new trade deals that the government said would allow musicians to tour easily in Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. This was met with disdain: “Ah those infamous tours of mountainous Liechtenstein with its total lack of airport,” Simone Marie of the band Primal Scream wrote on Twitter.“We’re all becoming increasingly despondent,” said Annabella Coldrick, the chief executive of the Music Managers Forum, a trade body. In June, she helped launch Let the Music Move, a campaign for the government to compensate artists for the new extra costs and renegotiate the tour rules.Rebecca Swann drove her truck from Britain to Spain, carrying the band’s equipment.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesThe band’s equipment, which now can make only three stops in mainland Europe before it must return home.Samuel Aranda for The New York Times“The problems are only just starting to become clear,” as the coronavirus pandemic eases and bands start booking tours, Coldrick said. The biggest sticking point was the regulation that vans and trucks can only stop three times before they must return to Britain, she added.Several British music trucking businesses have already moved some of their operations to Ireland to get around the rules. But Coldrick said this was not a viable solution: Trucks would also have to make longer journeys to pick bands up, increasing costs. It also seemed like a poor outcome for Britain, she said, because the country was losing companies and workers.For Two Door Cinema Club, the main issue was visas, said Colin Schaverien, the band’s manager. In June, a member of the band’s crew was rejected for a visa on a technicality related to his job title, so he had to reapply. Another band member, based in Belfast, was told they had to fly to Scotland for a visa appointment.Despite the band’s problems before traveling to Spain, Two Door Cinema Club’s show last Friday went off without a hitch.“All the things we were worried about didn’t materialize,” said Baird, the bassist. The band’s equipment, traveling in a truck from London, cleared customs on the British side in 25 minutes; checks at the border in France took only 10. The band, whose members flew to Barcelona, had no problems at the airport.Once in, the group was so excited to be playing a show after months sitting at home during the coronavirus pandemic, they took selfies of every moment, Baird said.Fans, mostly in face masks, enjoying Two Door Cinema Club’s show at the music festival.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesThe crowd was equally excited, said Marc Loan, 36, a fan who was in the audience. “I made sure I didn’t drink much, so I didn’t have to miss anything,” he added.“It was amazing,” Baird said of the night.Brexit was the last thing on his mind during the gig, Baird added, but it reared its head the next day when the band and crew headed to the airport to fly home. Members of the group with Irish passports, which everyone born in Northern Ireland can hold as well as a British one, breezed through passport control; those with British passports were stuck in line for only an hour.The band was pleased with the trip but Baird was worried about how a more complicated schedule would work. “We’re all well aware this was a one-off concert,” he said. “What we’re apprehensive about is next year when we’re playing three different countries in three days. I expect that will be a lot harder.” More

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      17 New York Arts Organizations Are Among Those Receiving $30 Million

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      The Queens Museum, Harlem Stage and 44 other groups were chosen to receive aid from Bloomberg Philanthropies for digital innovation.The Queens Museum is among 46 cultural nonprofit organizations selected for a new $30 million program by Bloomberg Philanthropies that is intended to support improving technology at the groups and helping them stabilize and thrive in the wake of the pandemic. A Bloomberg Tech Fellow is being appointed at each organization, the philanthropies announced Tuesday.Heryte Tequame, assistant director of communications and digital projects at the museum, was chosen as its fellow in what is known as the Digital Accelerator program and will be in charge of developing a digital project of her choice. In an interview she said that in 2020, the museum “realized where we needed to expand our capacity and invest more.”“I think now we’re really taking the time to see what we can do that has longevity,” Tequame said. “And not just being responsive, but really being proactive and having a real future-facing strategy.”The organizations don’t know exactly how much of the $30 million each will receive yet, but Tequame said she wants to use at least some of it on the museum’s permanent collection.Another recipient, Harlem Stage, selected Deirdre May, senior director of digital content and marketing, as its tech fellow.That performing arts center — which largely focuses on artists of color — aims to use the assistance in part to increase accessibility, Patricia Cruz, its chief executive and artistic director, said in an interview. “People who cannot leave their homes, for example, would be able to see some of the finest artistic performances that could be made,” Cruz said, because “that’s the core of what we do.”The 46 organizations selected for the program include nonprofits in the United States and Britain. Among them are 26 in the United States, and 17 of those are in New York City, including the Apollo Theater, the Ghetto Film School and the Tenement Museum. The chief executive of Bloomberg Philanthropies, Patricia E. Harris, said in a statement that when the pandemic hit, cultural organizations had to get creative to keep their (virtual) doors open.“Now we’re excited to launch the Accelerator program to help more arts organizations sustain innovations and investments,” Harris said, “and strengthen tech and management practices that are key to their long-term success.”As Cruz from Harlem Stage put it, “We’re ready to be accelerated.” More

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      Emerging From Covid, Small Theaters in Los Angeles Face a New Challenge

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      A state law threatens to drive up labor costs for the city’s hand-to-mouth small theater scene as it tries to emerge from the pandemic.LOS ANGELES — “And here she is, in all her glory.”With a clank of a switch, Gary Grossman, the artistic director of the Skylight Theater Company in Los Angeles, turned up the lights over the 99 seats of his shoe box of a theater in Los Feliz the other morning. The Skylight looked pretty much the way it did when it abruptly shut down in March of 2020. Planks of scenery from its last production, “West Adams,” were gathering dust, leaned up against the rear of the stage.Concert halls, arenas, movie houses, baseball stadiums and big theaters are reopening here and across the country as the pandemic begins to recede. But for many of the 325 small nonprofit theater companies scattered across Los Angeles, like the Skylight, that day is still months away, and their future is as uncertain as ever.“How long will it be until we get back to where we were?” Grossman asked, his voice echoing across the empty theater that was founded in 1983. “I think three to five years.”This network of intimate theaters, none bigger than 99 seats, is a vibrant subculture of experimentation and tradition in Los Angeles, often overlooked in the glitter of the film and television industry. But it is confronting two challenges as it tries to climb back after the lengthy shutdown: uncertainty as to when theatergoers will be ready to cram into small black boxes with poor ventilation, and a 2020 state law, initially intended to help gig workers such as Uber drivers, that stands to substantially drive up labor costs for many of these organizations.The new gig worker law mandates that all theaters, regardless of size, pay minimum wage — which is ramping up to $15 an hour in California — plus payroll taxes, workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance. While some unionized theaters paid a minimum wage before, many had exemptions from Actors’ Equity which allowed them to pay stipends that typically ranged from $9 to $25 for each rehearsal or performance.Producers say the new state law means expenses for many small theaters will climb steeply at an exceptionally fragile moment for the industry.“Small performing arts organizations are on the verge of disappearing in California,” said Martha Demson, the board president of the Theatrical Producers League of Los Angeles. “It’s an existential crisis. We had the 15 months of Covid. But also now the California employment laws; to remain good employers we have to hire all of our employees as full-time employees.”Many organizations have survived these past months with government grants, support from donors and breaks from landlords. But Demson said some theaters that were forced to turn off the lights may never be able to return in this difficult environment.The Fountain Theater held outdoor performances of “An Octoroon.”Philip Cheung for The New York TimesIt has all added to an atmosphere of anxiety for a part of Los Angeles that has often felt a bit like a cultural stepchild. For all its growth and accolades, and its importance to actors looking for a place to work or stay sharp between roles in movies or on television, the theater scene has been too often overlooked. There is no central district of small theaters, as there is in many cities: They are scattered across North Hollywood, Atwater Village, Westwood, a stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, Culver City and downtown Los Angeles.“Reminding the public that intimate theater not only exists but is essential to a well-balanced life in L.A. has been a challenge for decades,” said Stephen Sachs, the co-artistic director of the Fountain Theater. “We are always up against the goliath of the film and television industry.”Danny Glover, an actor who began his career on small stages in Los Angeles and San Francisco and was a co-founder of the Robey Theater Company in Los Angeles, described the theater scene as central to his own success.“Something happened in those small places with 50 people in there that opened me up in different ways, that made me realize there was something I could say in front of a camera or in front of a stage,” Glover said in an interview. “I’ve seen actors in a small theater, whether it’s in San Francisco or L.A., the next thing they are on their way to a career. That doesn’t often happen with the kind of pressures that are there when you are in a theater for profit.”Intimate theaters operate hand-to-mouth. Only 19 of the 325 small theaters have budgets over $1 million, and those account for 83 percent of the combined revenue of the entire sector, according to the Theatrical Producers League.“We are always underfunded,” said Taylor Gilbert, the founder of the Road Theater Company. “Live theater is not the best of models for making money.”Many theaters operated on the margins even before the pandemic; now producers worry about when audiences will feel safe returning. With the highly contagious Delta variant spreading, Los Angeles County health authorities recently recommended that people resume wearing masks at indoor venues.Demson, the producing artistic director of the Open Fist Theater Company, estimated the new law, which took effect just before California shut down, would add $193,500 in labor costs to her company’s annual budget, which now varies between $200,000 and $250,000.Many industries have responded to the bill, known as AB5, by lobbying Sacramento for exemptions. But there is little support for that in this theater community, which tends to be politically progressive.“It puts another financial burden on already strapped small companies,” Gilbert said. “At the same time we all support the idea that an artist should get a living wage. That’s the conundrum.”Actors’ Equity has come out strongly against exempting its members from the law, instead pushing for financial assistance from state and federal government to help theaters get back on their feet.“We think it’s a bad idea to have an exemption,” said Gail Gabler, the western regional director of Actors’ Equity. “We all want the same thing, We want the theater to open. It’s important for our economy and it’s important for our souls and it’s important for the actors who work in theater. But we want our actors to be fairly paid and work in safe conditions.”As a result, theater leaders are pressing lawmakers in Sacramento for legislation that would provide aid to help theaters cover the explosion of costs. There are two main initiatives: A one-time $50 million subsidy included in the state budget for struggling small theaters, and another that would set up a state agency to handle the cost of processing the new payroll requirements.But some small theater operators say that those bills would not do enough.“The financial subsidies would be great if they were written as a long-term sustaining line item in the California state budget,” said Tim Robbins, the Academy Award-winning actor and artistic director of the Actors’ Gang, a small theater in Culver City. “The real question is what happens next year when there are no financial subsidies left and the new precedents for nonprofits has been established?”The Fountain transformed its parking lot into an outdoor theater.Philip Cheung for The New York Times“For me the essential question is how AB5 went from a bill meant to address the nonprotection of gig workers (Lyft and Uber, etc.) to a bill that is bullying nonprofit theater companies?” he asked in an email.Susan Rubio, the Democratic California senator who is sponsoring the bill to set up a state agency and pushing for the $50 million subsidy, argued her approach would help the industry survive these challenging times.“Many have concerns and will continue to have concerns,” she said in an interview. “But California prides itself in taking care of its workers.”Grossman said he is hopeful that the Skylight will begin live performances by the fall. But other theaters are not as optimistic.Jon Lawrence Rivera, the founding artistic director of Playwrights’ Arena, which only produces the work of Los Angeles writers, said he was resigned to a difficult few years. Before the crisis, the Arena would fill 90 percent of its 50 seats. “Now, I’m thinking 30 to 40 percent capacity at the most,” he said.Most ominously, he worries that emergency grants will dry up as things return to normal.“The resources that we have been able to accumulate will disappear within two or three shows,” he said.The pressure to open is intense. The Hollywood Bowl staged its first public shows at the beginning of July, and in August, “Hamilton” is coming back to the Pantages Theater, with 2,700 seats, in Hollywood.Some theaters took advantage of the California climate and headed outside. The Wallis Center for Performing Arts in Beverly Hills recently reopened with a show on a pop-up outdoor theater it built on a terrace — “Tevye in New York!”The Fountain Theater, which has 80 seats, transformed its parking lot into an outdoor theater, and opened last month with “An Octoroon.” Bright red bushes of blooming bougainvillea offered a lush wall on one side of the seating area as cars buzzed by on Fountain Avenue and the occasional helicopter rumbled overhead. “Mufflers!” grimaced Rob Nagle, one of the actors, without breaking out of character, as a particularly deafening motorcycle roared by.There seems to be a resignation that many small theaters will face a hard time. “We know once the smoke clears some of them won’t be reopening,” said Mitch O’Farrell, a member of the Los Angeles City Council whose district includes many of the theaters.But Grossman said for all the concern — and the likelihood that some theaters would not reopen — he was confident that in the end, this scrappy culture would survive. “We are like cockroaches,” he said. “You’re never going to get us. We are going to sustain. But it’s going to be tough.” More

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      Hit Hard by Pandemic, Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center to Merge

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      By joining forces, the two institutions hope to bounce back from the severe losses brought by the coronavirus.The pandemic forced many American arts organizations to resort to mass layoffs and deep pay cuts as ticket sales vanished for more than a year.Now one of the nation’s most prominent ensembles, the Philadelphia Orchestra, is trying another tack as it seeks to recover from the crisis: It announced plans Thursday to merge with its landlord, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.“We knew we needed a big move,” said Matías Tarnopolsky, the president and chief executive of the orchestra, who is set to lead the new organization, which will be called the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Kimmel Center, Inc. “The only way forward is collaboration.”Facing severe shortfalls, cultural groups across the country are looking for ways to streamline operations and establish new sources of revenue. American orchestras, including Philadelphia’s, are particularly vulnerable after years of rising costs.The Philadelphia Orchestra, one of the nation’s best ensembles, has struggled financially. Its music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, led them in 2017 at Carnegie Hall.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesThe orchestra and the Kimmel Center are betting that by pooling resources, they can better navigate the financial and artistic challenges of the post-pandemic era.The orchestra has won accolades for its artistry under the music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who also serves in that role at the Metropolitan Opera, but it has long struggled financially. After a year of mostly streaming concerts, the orchestra will begin a new season in October with a performance by the cellist Yo-Yo Ma.The merger will give the orchestra, which has tried for years to rebuild after declaring bankruptcy a decade ago, a leading spot at one of the country’s largest performing arts centers, and allow it to save on rent. (When the orchestra filed for bankruptcy in 2011, it cited the high cost of rent at the Kimmel Center, which then totaled $2.5 million a year, as contributing to its woes; it subsequently got a rent reduction.)The arrangement will allow the Kimmel Center, which is almost entirely dependent on ticket sales, the added support of the orchestra’s $266 million endowment. That endowment, which was bolstered by a $50 million gift in 2019, is now among the largest for an American orchestra.Both institutions have made painful cuts as they seek to recover from the pandemic. The orchestra lost about $26 million in ticket sales and performance fees after canceling more than 200 concerts. The orchestra’s leaders took pay cuts and its musicians agreed to reduce compensation temporarily by 25 percent.The Kimmel Center, which depends heavily on touring artists, Broadway shows and appearances by authors and public intellectuals, canceled more than 1,100 events and lost more than $42 million in ticket revenue. The center furloughed many of its 126 employees and led an emergency campaign to raise $10 million.The pandemic accelerated conversations about a possible merger, said Anne Ewers, the president and chief executive of the Kimmel Center, who initiated talks with Tarnopolsky last fall.“When the pandemic hit, every single earned revenue line was gone,” Ewers said. “I realized that our philanthropic base was not as deep and as broad as it needed to be.”The orchestra has called Verizon Hall, one of three venues at the Kimmel Center, its home since the center’s opening in 2001, playing more than 100 concerts a year there.But behind the scenes, the orchestra and the Kimmel Center sometimes clashed over schedules and programming choices, Tarnopolsky said.By merging with the Kimmel Center, he said, the orchestra would be able to expand its offerings, hosting classical music festivals, collaborating with Broadway performers and jazz artists, and taking part in outreach events and other live offerings.“It’s about seizing those opportunities rather than watching them go by,” Tarnopolsky said.The orchestra has balanced its budget in recent years as it has worked to recover from a financial crisis that drove it into bankruptcy in 2011. Despite cutting its expenses in bankruptcy, rebuilding has not been easy: In 2016, its musicians held a brief strike that began on the night of the orchestra’s season-opening gala.The pandemic has led many arts organizations to reconsider questions of structure and management, and some have come to see benefits in joining together during a time of uncertainty. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music last fall acquired Opus 3 Artists, a leading agency that was struggling with steep losses as venues around the world shut down.Ewers said she hoped the merger in Philadelphia would serve as a model for other institutions facing economic pressures.“Many people tell us there needs to be more of this kind of collaborative effort,” she said. “I’m hoping that we inspire that.” More

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      Renovating Its Hall, New York Philharmonic Plans a Roving Season

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      With David Geffen Hall under construction, the orchestra will spend most of 2021-22 at two other Lincoln Center venues.For any major music ensemble, planning a season of concerts as a pandemic stretches on is daunting. For the New York Philharmonic, there is an added challenge: The orchestra’s home, David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, is in the midst of a $550 million renovation.That will leave the orchestra roving for the next year as it tries to recover from the pandemic, which resulted in the cancellation of its 2020-21 season and the loss of more than $21 million in ticket revenue, forcing painful budget cuts.But the Philharmonic won’t travel too far. On Tuesday, it announced its 2021-22 season: a slate of about 80 concerts, compared to 120 in a normal year, spent mostly at two other Lincoln Center venues, Alice Tully Hall and the Rose Theater, with four forays to Carnegie Hall and a holiday run of “Messiah” at Riverside Church.“People are starved for live entertainment,” Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic’s president and chief executive, said in an interview. “There may be some slight hesitancy at the beginning, but I think people are going to come flocking back.”The season opens Sept. 17 with the pianist Daniil Trifonov playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 at Tully. Other prominent artists on the schedule include the pianists Yuja Wang and Leif Ove Andsnes; the violinists Hilary Hahn and Joshua Bell; the saxophonist Branford Marsalis, who will play a concerto by John Adams; and the conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who will lead Schumann’s four symphonies and two world premieres over two weeks in March. The Philharmonic’s principal clarinetist, Anthony McGill, will be featured in Anthony Davis’s “You Have the Right to Remain Silent.”Soloists appearing for the first time with the orchestra include the cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who will play Dvorak’s concerto and also participate in a Young People’s Concert; the soprano Golda Schultz; the pianist Beatrice Rana; and the conductors Jeannette Sorrell and Dalia Stasevska.In its fourth year with the conductor Jaap van Zweden as its music director, the Philharmonic will also premiere a variety of works, including by the American composers Joan Tower and Sarah Kirkland Snider. Those two premieres are part of Project 19, a multiyear initiative to commission works from 19 female composers to honor the centenary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which barred the states from denying women the right to vote.A few of the concerts will be at an unusual time: The orchestra will present three Sunday matinees, the first time it has done that since the 1960s, in an effort to broaden its audience.The Philharmonic has been at the center of the recent revival of the arts in New York. The orchestra appeared at the Shed in April, its first indoor concert in 13 months. And it performed at Bryant Park last week, the first time its musicians had played together without masks since the start of the pandemic.The orchestra is taking precautions in its planning to ease fears about the virus. There will be no intermissions at least through December, to prevent crowds from gathering. Borda said the orchestra would follow guidance from the state and federal authorities in deciding other public health measures, like requiring masks or proof of vaccination.“What it will be like in September is anybody’s guess,” Borda said. “We have to remain flexible.”The Philharmonic had to make a series of painful cuts as more than 100 of its concerts were canceled. The orchestra reduced its administrative staff by about 40 percent, largely through layoffs. In December, its musicians agreed to a four-year contract that included a 25 percent cut to the players’ base pay through August 2023, with compensation gradually increasing after that, though remaining below prepandemic levels.There were some bright spots amid the turmoil. Donations increased 11 percent last year, totaling $31.5 million. The orchestra also worked to deepen its connections with city residents through two series of Bandwagon concerts, bringing first a pickup truck and then a 20-foot shipping container with a foldout stage to neighborhoods across the city, and giving local artists an opportunity to perform.Several of the organizations that took part in Bandwagon concerts, including National Black Theater, a nonprofit arts group in Harlem, and El Puente, a social justice organization in Brooklyn, will be featured in the 2021-22 season. Those collaborations will be organized by Anthony Roth Costanzo, a countertenor who produced the Bandwagon series and is also the orchestra’s artist-in-residence next season; he has also helped prepare a two-week festival focusing on identity, “Authentic Selves: The Beauty Within.”The coming season will be the first time in recent decades that the orchestra has not had access to its own hall. Its administration and Lincoln Center decided to use the shutdown to accelerate the renovation of Geffen Hall, which is set to reopen in the fall of 2022, a year and a half earlier than planned. The hall will feature state-of-the-art acoustics and a more intimate feel, with seats that wrap around the stage.Borda said much of the coming season would be devoted to preparing for the orchestra’s return to Geffen.“This hall provides an opportunity to transform ourselves,” she said, “but also to paint on an even larger palette.” More