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      If Remote Work Empties Downtowns, Can Theaters Fill Their Seats?

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      Since the pandemic, San Francisco has embraced work-from-home policies. Now venues and concert halls are wondering if weeknight audiences are a thing of the past.SAN FRANCISCO — As live performance finally returns after the pandemic shutdown, cultural institutions are confronting a long list of unknowns.Will audiences feel safe returning to crowded theaters? Have people grown so accustomed to watching screens in their living rooms that they will not get back into the habit of attending live events? And how will the advent of work-from-home policies, which have emptied blocks of downtowns and business districts, affect weekday attendance at theaters and concert halls?Nowhere is that last question more urgent than here in San Francisco, where tech companies have led the way in embracing work-from-home policies and flexible schedules more than in almost any other city in the nation. Going to a weeknight show is no longer a matter of leaving the office and swinging by the War Memorial Opera House or the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall.“As people work from home, it is going to change our demographics,” said Matthew Shilvock, the general director of the San Francisco Opera. “It’s something that could be a threat. We’re all trying to wait and see whether there’s a surge of interest in live activity again or is there a continuation of just being at home, not coming into the city from the suburbs.”Arts groups are trying to gauge what the embrace of more flexible work-from-home policies will mean for their ability to draw audiences in a city whose housing crunch has already driven many people to settle far from downtown. Close to 70 percent of the audiences at the San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Symphony — two nationally recognized symbols of this city’s vibrant network of performing arts institutions — live outside the city, according to data collected by the two organizations.“As people work from home, it is going to change our demographics,” said Matthew Shilvock, the general director of the San Francisco Opera, which presented a new production of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” this fall.Cory Weaver/San Francisco OperaSome economists see the trend of remote work persisting. “It’s likely we are going to have more people working from home than other places,” said Ted Egan, the chief economist for the city and county of San Francisco. “The tech industry seems to be the most generous for work-from-home policy, and employees are expecting that.”Twitter announced in the early months of the pandemic that it would allow almost all of its 5,200 employees, most based at its San Francisco office, to work at home permanently. At Salesforce, which has 9,000 employees, employees will only have to come to work one to three days a week; many will be allowed to work at home full time. Dropbox, which has its headquarters in San Francisco, also has adopted a permanent work-from-home policy. Facebook and Google, both of which have a significant presence in San Francisco, have implemented work-from-home policies.Egan said that the trend might pose more of a problem for the city’s bars and restaurants than for its performing arts institutions. “My suspicion is that performing arts are going to be less sensitive to working from home than other sectors,” he said. “It’s not the kind of purchase you do after work on a whim, like going for happy hour.”Attendance has been spotty as this city’s art scene climbs back. Just 50 percent of the seats were filled the other night for a performance of “The Displaced,” a “gentrification horror play” by Isaac Gómez, at the Crowded Fire Theater. “We had sold-out houses on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and much lower participation on Wednesday and Thursday night,” said Mina Morita, the artistic director. “It’s hard to tell if this is the new normal.”There were some patches of empty seats across the Davies Symphony Hall the other night, as the San Francisco Symphony presented the United States premiere of a violin concerto by Bryce Dessner, even though it was the third week of the long-delayed (and long-anticipated) first season for Esa-Pekka Salonen, its new music director. The concerto, with an energetic performance by Pekka Kuusisto, the Finnish violinist, was greeted by repeated standing ovations and glowing reviews.Attendance in October was down 11 percent compared to before the pandemic, but the symphony said advance sales were strong, suggesting normal audiences might return in spring.Twitter announced in the early months of the pandemic that it would allow almost all of its 5,200 employees, most based at its San Francisco office, to work at home permanently.Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency, via Getty Images“The audience is back,” Salonen said in an interview before he took the stage. “Not what it was, but they are back. Some nights have been a little thinner than others. By and large, the energy is good. Our worst fears have been dispelled.”The San Francisco Opera also began its new season with a splashy new hire: a new music director, Eun Sun Kim, who in August became the first woman to hold the position at one of the nation’s largest opera companies. She conducted a new production of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” this fall that incorporated chain-link fences and flickering video screens to update the story of the liberation of a political prisoner.Even so, the opera, which can seat 2,928 with Covid restrictions, sold an average of 1,912 tickets per show for “Fidelio,” its second production of this new season. That’s better than its second production in 2019, Britten’s “Billy Budd,” a searing work that does not always attract big crowds. But it drew fewer people than the opera’s second production in 2018, “Roberto Devereux,” which sold an average of 2,116 tickets a performance.“The urgency to be bold, to be innovative, to be compelling to get audiences to come back or give us a try for the first time has never been stronger,” Shilvock said. “There will be a hunger for things that have an energy, that have a vitality, that give a reason to come into the city.”Even before the pandemic, cultural organizations were dealing with challenges that threatened to discourage patrons, including a stressed public transportation system, traffic, parking constraints and the highly visible epidemic of homelessness. And many institutions were struggling to make inroads in attracting audiences and patrons from the tech industry, which now accounts for 19 percent of the private work force.Now, facing an uncertain future as they try to emerge from the pandemic shutdown, arts organizations are embracing a variety of tactics to fill seats..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Hope Mohr, the co-director of Hope Mohr Dance, said that her organization was spending $1,400 per night to livestream performances, so audiences could choose between coming into San Francisco or watching from their living rooms.“A hybrid experience — I have to do that from now on,” she said. “My company usually performs in San Francisco, and I have audience coming from all over the bay.”These calculations are taking place in an atmosphere of uncertainty and anxiety. It is not clear how much these early attendance figures represent a realignment, or are evidence of audiences temporarily trying to balance their hunger for live performances against concerns about the spread of the Delta variant — even in a city where 75 percent of the eligible population is fully vaccinated. Lower attendance figures have been reported by performing halls across the country.“The audience is back,” Esa-Pekka Salonen, the music director of the San Francisco Symphony, said. “Not what it was, but they are back. Some nights have been a little thinner than others. By and large the energy is good. Our worst fears have been dispelled.”Christopher M. Howard Opening nights have found performers relieved to be playing to real crowds again and audiences delighted to be back. “The convenience of at-home entertainment has made it not as desirable for some folks, ” said Ralph Remington, the director of cultural affairs for the San Francisco Arts Commission. “But that being said, even though the density of the numbers isn’t as great as it was prepandemic, the audiences that are coming are really enthusiastic.”Advance sales for “The Nutcracker” at the San Francisco Ballet, with one-third of the tickets going for just $19 a seat to help bring in new patrons (the average ticket price is $136), have been moving briskly.Danielle St. Germain-Gordon, the ballet’s interim executive director, said she hoped that working from home had made people eager to break out of their increasing isolation. “I would do anything to get out,” she said. “I hope that’s a good sign for our season.”At the height of the pandemic, about 85 percent of San Francisco-based employees worked from home; that number is about 50 percent now, said Enrico Moretti, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley.“I think it’s possible that people are not going to commute from Walnut Creek at night to go to downtown San Francisco for the opera to the same extent,” he said. “But I don’t expect those office buildings will sit empty. There will be other people moving into them.”The Magic Theater, a 145-seat-theater in Fort Mason, just beyond Fisherman’s Wharf, has been experimenting with different kinds of programming, such as a poetry reading, and pay-what-you-can seats to lure patrons who live — and now work — far from the theater.“This is going to be an interesting year for everyone,” said Sean San José, its artistic director. “Are people going to come back? The zeitgeist is telling us something. Maybe we should listen. This ain’t a pause. We have got to rethink it.” More

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      Kristina Wong’s Pandemic Story: Sewing With Her Aunties

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      The performance artist ran a mask-making operation during the pandemic. That inspired her new comedy at New York Theater Workshop.Kristina Wong is an in-your-face performer who, until this month, hadn’t performed for an in-person audience since March 2020. The thought of looking into dozens of eyes, not just the little green light on her laptop, made her feel, well, weird.So her stage manager, Katie Ailinger, came up with a plan to ease her back into the rhythms of live performance: She taped stock photos of people’s faces around the rehearsal room at New York Theater Workshop, where in September Wong began to prepare “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord,” a one-woman show about running a sewing group during the pandemic.“Just turning my head and having a range of motion is a whole thing — and having eye contact again is huge!” Wong, 43, a comedian, performance artist and community activist, said recently during a phone interview from her dressing room. She was about to run through an afternoon technical rehearsal of the 90-minute production, a hybrid of stand-up, lecture and performance art that is scheduled to open Nov. 4.“I feel like I got more done for the world by running a mutual aid group than as an elected official,” Wong said, who is also a member of the Wilshire Center Koreatown Neighborhood Council.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesWhile Wong was stuck at home in Los Angeles, she stayed busy leading the Auntie Sewing Squad, a volunteer group of mostly Asian American women she founded in March 2020 to make face masks for health care workers, farm workers, incarcerated people and others. She recruited 6-year-old children, her 73-year-old mother and others for the operation, which ballooned to more than 800 “Aunties,” a cross-cultural term of respect and affection for women, as well as “Uncles” and nonbinary volunteers in 33 states. Together, they distributed more than 350,000 masks.“I feel like I got more done for the world by running a mutual aid group than as an elected official,” said Wong, a third-generation Chinese American from San Francisco. (She’s served as an unpaid elected representative of the Wilshire Center Koreatown Neighborhood Council in Los Angeles since 2019, an unusual electoral journey that is the subject of her one-woman show “Kristina Wong for Public Office,” whose national tour was interrupted by the pandemic.)After disbanding the sewing squad (she hosted a retirement party for the Aunties in Los Angeles in September), Wong shifted her focus to bringing the tale of her 504 days leading the group to the stage in a production directed by Chay Yew. And a streaming version of the show ran at New York Theater Workshop in May.In a conversation a few days before previews began, Wong discussed her journey from an out-of-work artist to the leader of hundreds of volunteers, her mother’s changed opinion of her performing arts career and how she hoped the show would reshape people’s perceptions of Asian Americans. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.In March 2020 your tour for “Kristina Wong for Public Office” was postponed. What made you want to start a mask-making group?I was home without income feeling sorry for myself, and I stumbled across some articles that said there was a need for homemade masks. It started with me taking my Hello Kitty sewing machine and fabric and making a naïve offer to the internet: “If you need masks and don’t have access to them, I will help you!” But my ego wrote a check my body couldn’t cash, and within four days I was inundated with requests, so I started a Facebook group of people whom I knew could sew. We had Aunties cutting the elastic off their fitted sheets, the straps off their bras. It was a Robinson Crusoe situation.Why did you call yourself a “sweatshop overlord”?My first volunteers were all Asian women, and I was like, “Oh, my God, this is the sickest moment, we are a modern-day sweatshop.” Our mothers and grandmothers did garment work — my grandmother and grandfather did laundry work as part of their rite of passage to America — and now we find ourselves doing this work again, for free, because the government hasn’t prepared us for this moment. So it was this gallows humor joke that I was the sweatshop overlord — also humor about child labor because I was ordering children around.At what point did you realize this was a show?Within the first 40 days, one of the Aunties — my first mentor, Leilani Chan of TeAda Productions [a Los Angeles-based theater company] — was like, “We’re going to try to figure out how to make work online.” So I’d get a booking from a college or a theater and then would just create new sections up to that point in the pandemic.The shows, which were all [streamed] live, became an event for the Aunties. I would post in our Facebook group “I’m doing a performance about us now,” and they would all change their name to “Auntie So and So” in Zoom. They’d openly chat with audience members during the performance and be there for the Q. and A. afterward, usually at their sewing machines. So it was me half-entertaining them, but also trying to bring our story into existence.“With this show,” Wong said, “I wanted to find a way to tell the story that’s more than us just being beat up, beat up, beat up, but also about how we survived.”Calla Kessler for The New York TimesWhat changes did you make for the in-person production?Doing the show from my home on Zoom — and the fact that we were all in a pandemic — was a great shorthand for the audience, but now I’m moving into a neutral space that is a representation of my home. So I realized I’d have to spend more time laying out context that we might’ve forgotten, and also trying to think about the bigger meaning of all this, rather than just putting moments to memory.You use comedy as a way of talking through micro- and macro-aggressions against Asian Americans. How did anti-Asian sentiment affect you personally?The great irony is that I didn’t even wear a mask for the first few weeks I was sewing them, because I felt like the mask I permanently wear on my face was already a sign to the world: “I’m a foreigner. I’m an immigrant. I brought the virus here. Come get me.” With this show, I wanted to find a way to tell the story that’s more than us just being beat up, beat up, beat up, but also about how we survived.Were you concerned that people wouldn’t want to relive the pandemic?We need to figure out how to visibly see Asian Americans and culture. During the pandemic, I saw Asian American women not as quiet, subservient virus passers but as warriors behind sewing machines doing the work of protecting Americans. If there’s a museum one day about this moment in history, please let there just be a little footnote that remembers our work. And I’ve learned that, especially as an artist of color, I can’t wait for someone else to write that footnote, so this show is really me screaming at people to know how to respect our labor.As recently as 2015, your mother was still sending you newspaper articles with the average pay for careers like doctors and government officials to try to dissuade you from pursuing a performing arts career. Is she more supportive now?My mom called me when I first started this and told me, “You’ve got to stop making those masks; stay inside!” I got really mad at her, but then she completely surprised me — she was like, “OK, mail me some fabric, get me the patterns.” Then she recruited all her friends and got really into it. I think she feels really proud.Is she coming to see the show?She was really scared to come to New York because of hate crimes and the Delta variant, but she and my dad are coming to watch the show. I’m really happy she gets to see it, and I think she’ll be surprised because she doesn’t know how much she’s in it. My shows have been my way to have honest conversations with my parents from a distance — they learn more about me from watching my shows than us sitting at the dining room table, where I’m mostly just lying to them and hiding stuff. And I think they know this!How much of the show is just you, Kristina Wong, on that stage, and how much is you playing a character?This is my great dilemma! I play a character named Kristina Wong who’s mostly me, but highly dramatized. Did I really crawl on my belly to go to the post office? No, but it did feel like life or death a lot of the time. More

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      The NY Cat and Dog Film Festivals Return After Pandemic Hiatus

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      After a pandemic-induced hiatus, these celebrations of human-animal bonds are screening in Manhattan and beyond.Two annual cinematic celebrations invariably attract impassioned ticket buyers, even though they lack car chases, explosions, alien invasions or Daniel Craig as a pouty James Bond.What they do have: whiskers, wildness and no small amount of wit.They’re the NY Cat Film Festival and the NY Dog Film Festival, which are returning to Manhattan after a pandemic-induced hiatus. The cat festival, screening at noon on Saturday — Global Cat Day — at the Village East by Angelika theater, comprises 21 short works that run for a total of around 90 minutes. The nearly two-hour dog festival, which arrives at the same theater on Oct. 24, features 20 short films. (Animal lovers outside New York can see the festivals, too: They will tour for several months, both nationwide and in Canada.)“I think it’s the highest-quality year, possibly, for both,” said Tracie Hotchner, an author and radio host in Vermont who founded the dog festival in 2015 and the cat edition two years later. In a telephone interview, she explained that in the early days of lockdown in 2020, “people couldn’t find toilet paper, but they were making beautiful movies.”Not surprisingly, the pandemic is featured in both festivals. In “Will You Be My Quarantine?,” a feline comedy, the actress and director Susku Ekim Kaya shows herself and her pet, Lady Leia, in split screen, engaged in typically obsessive lockdown activities like grooming, TV watching, cellphone scrolling and FaceTime calling. They lead harmonious parallel lives, whereas the feline protagonists of Jasmin Scuteri-Young’s “Quarantine Diary” and Asali Echols’s “House Cats” complain of their owners’ constant presence in human-supplied voice-overs.The dog festival’s subjects, on the other hand, never seem to long for social distancing. “You don’t believe in personal space,” Kyle Scoble says tenderly to Darla, his Labrador retriever-pointer mix, in “The Second Time I Got to Know My Dog,” a documentary that acts as a tribute to how Darla got him through 2020.But cats may have a reason for their apparently aloof attitudes. “If it’s an indoor cat, it’s enduring a perpetual state of lockdown,” Kim Best, a director from Durham, N.C., said in a phone conversation.That observation fuels Best’s “The Great Escape,” in which a cat named Monkey makes concerted attempts to exit the household, even consulting the digital assistant Alexa, which he bats around and meows at. In Best’s other festival entry, “Cat Capitalization,” her pet, Nube, turns to the internet to market his artistic talent, pretentiously thanking — in thought bubbles — mentors like the artists Mark Rothko and Vincent van Gogh. (Nube is missing a bit of one ear.)Best said she aimed for “a satire of not only capitalism but also of academia.”Such humor is very much a theme of the cat festival, in which films like Nevada Caldwell’s “Feline Noir” and Priscilla Dean’s “Catfight at the O’Kay Corral” parody old Hollywood clichés.But while the canine film slate is not without laughs — David Coole’s animated “Go Fetch” is a pointed two-minute revenge comedy — it has far more of the in-depth examinations of the human-animal bond that characterized both festivals previously.“Affection in the Streets,” for instance, a Brazilian documentary by Thiago Köche, captures the lives of Pôrto Alegre’s homeless, who often take better care of their dogs than themselves. The loyal pets also attract concern from passers-by, who frequently ignore the suffering of the animals’ owners.“People who love dogs just look right past the humans,” Hotchner said. “I would love more movies about that, because I think it’s the thing we don’t want to look at.”“The Comfort Dogs” also shows the power of pet ownership. Made by Matthew Salleh and Rose Tucker, an Australian couple who live and work together in Brooklyn, the film is an excerpt from their feature documentary “We Don’t Deserve Dogs.” The segment focuses on the Comfort Dog Project, which provides pets to young people who were forced to become child soldiers in Uganda’s civil war.With the dogs at their side, the former soldiers can share “quite harrowing” experiences, Salleh said in a joint phone call. “The dogs almost become part of the storytelling method itself.”Another documentary, Zach Putnam’s “Nicola,” illustrates how its subject, a yellow Lab from Canine Companions, a service program for people with disabilities, transformed not only the life of the college student who received her. She also delivered a strong lesson in trust and sacrifice to the student who devotedly trained her but ultimately, tearfully, had to give her up.Both festivals, however, remind viewers that these animals need people as much as people need them. Hotchner, who organizes the programs as a labor of love — tickets to each are $20 — always contributes part of each screening’s sales to a related local charity. The cat festival in New York will help support Bideawee’s Feral Cat Initiative, while this year, all dog festival showings will benefit the nonprofits associated with Saving Senior Dogs Week (Oct. 25-31).“There is a growing awareness,” Covid aside, “that senior dogs are delightful to adopt and the most quick to be put to sleep in a shelter,” Hotchner said. In Gary Tellalian’s “Legends of Comedy Share Love for Old Dogs,” you’ll hear this message in a public service announcement from celebrities who are seniors themselves: Carol Burnett, Bob Newhart and Lily Tomlin, along with Carl Reiner, who died last June at 98.The plight of dogs that aren’t cuddly puppies also surfaces in documentaries like “Not Broken: Freedom Ride,” by Krista Dillane, Emma Lao and Dylan Abad, about a long journey to transport 53 rescued dogs from Louisiana to a pet adoption fair in Rhode Island. In “Chino,” another excerpt from “We Don’t Deserve Dogs,” its aging subject, a street mutt in Santiago, Chile, survives simply because concerned residents provide care.“The street dog culture there is completely different,” Tucker said, adding that the animals are a way to “just bring an entire community together” — a goal for these festivals, too.NY Cat Film FestivalOct. 16 at the Village East by Angelika, Manhattan; catfilmfestival.com.NY Dog Film FestivalOct. 24 at the Village East by Angelika, Manhattan; dogfilmfestival.com. More

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      James Bond Returns and Theaters See Reason for Hope

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      “No Time to Die” has taken in more than $300 million worldwide. The overall box office remains fragile, however, and the future for films that aren’t part of big-budget franchises is unsure.LOS ANGELES — Movie theaters are finally bouncing back from the pandemic, with solid turnout over the weekend for the latest James Bond spectacle, “No Time to Die,” giving Hollywood its third box office success in the span of a month. For coronavirus-battered multiplex chains, it’s reason for a celebratory martini.But the box office is still extremely fragile, analysts say, and one of the doomsday scenarios about the pandemic’s lasting impact on theatergoing has been coming true: The only movies attracting sizable attention in cinemas are big-budget franchise films. The audience for smaller dramas and comedies seems — at least for now — to be satisfied with home viewing, either buying films through video on demand or watching them on streaming services.“Superhero, action and horror movies are performing well in theaters, particularly when they are offered exclusively and not simultaneously available to stream,” said David A. Gross, who runs Franchise Entertainment Research, a film consultancy. “But parts of the business remain down. Dramas, character-driven and art-house movies were under pressure before the pandemic, and the bar is going to be even higher now.”“No Time to Die,” billed as the 25th installment in the Bond franchise and with Daniel Craig in his fifth and final turn as 007, took in an estimated $56 million from 4,407 theaters in the United States and Canada, according to Comscore. In partial release overseas, “No Time to Die” collected an additional $257 million, according to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and its overseas distribution partner, Universal Pictures International. (Amazon bought MGM for $8.5 billion this year.)“No Time to Die,” featuring Daniel Craig’s final turn as James Bond, was originally scheduled to come out in April 2020.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesBecause of the pandemic, more moviegoers have been holding off on ticket-buying decisions until the last minute, analysts say, making it difficult for studios to predict how a movie will perform. Going into the weekend, domestic estimates for “No Time to Die” ranged from $36 million to more than $70 million, depending on what research firm was doing the prognosticating. The film’s franchise predecessor, “Spectre,” took in $70.4 million in North America over its first three days in 2015.“No Time to Die,” which received strong reviews and an A-minus grade from ticket buyers in CinemaScore exit polls, was the first major movie to be affected by the pandemic. It was originally scheduled to roll out in theaters in April 2020. MGM and the London-based producers who control the franchise, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, pushed back the release to November 2020 and then again to this month.Theaters keep roughly 50 percent of total ticket sales, which means the expensive “No Time to Die” is unlikely to turn a profit for MGM. The film cost an estimated $250 million to make and a further $150 million to market worldwide. But the film sold enough tickets over its first three days in theaters to qualify as a success, in part because of interest from older ticket buyers, who have been avoiding theaters over coronavirus concerns.About 36 percent of the weekend audience in North America was over the age of 45 and roughly 57 percent was over 35, according to Erik Lomis, president of distribution at United Artists Releasing, an MGM affiliate. Mr. Lomis said that exit polls indicated that 25 percent of ticket buyers had not been to a theater in 18 months.“That is a very big deal that shows the power of Bond,” Mr. Lomis said. “This movie is going to remind a lot of people how fun it is to go to the movies, and that will hopefully help the whole industry. We need a more mature audience to return.”Greg Durkin, the founder of Guts and Data, a film research firm, said that “No Time to Die” had a “fantastic” opening weekend, “especially given the audience composition and how older moviegoers have been more hesitant to return to theaters.” Mr. Durkin estimated that, without the pandemic, “No Time to Die” would have opened to about $62 million in domestic ticket sales.“No Time to Die” arrived after the superhero sequel “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” (Sony) generated $90 million at North American theaters between Oct. 1 and 3 — the highest opening weekend of the pandemic era. The global total for “Let There Be Carnage” now stands at $186 million. Another superhero movie, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings” (Disney-Marvel) sold about $75 million in tickets over its first three days in theaters in early September, setting a Labor Day weekend record (pandemic or otherwise). It has since collected $400 million worldwide.“Venom: Let There Be Carnage” also had big ticket sales in its opening weekend this month.Sony Pictures Entertainment, via Associated PressBut films that are not fantasies or part of existing franchises have been struggling, adding to worries that cinemas in the post-pandemic era will offer much less variety. The concern is that old-line studios will reroute most dramas, comedies, documentaries and foreign films to streaming services, as they have been doing during the pandemic, leaving cinemas to become even more of a movie-as-theme-park-ride business.Recent theatrical disappointments have included “Dear Evan Hansen,” a big-screen adaptation of the Broadway musical; “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” about the overly emotive televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker; “Respect,” an Aretha Franklin bio-musical starring Jennifer Hudson; and the art-house drama “Blue Bayou.” Clint Eastwood’s latest film, “Cry Macho,” and the period mob drama “The Many Saints of Newark” both arrived to muted ticket sales, in part because Warner Bros. released them simultaneously in theaters and on the HBO Max streaming service.So far this year, the art film distributor Magnolia Pictures has released 17 films that have collected roughly $1 million at the North American box office combined, according to the database IMDb Pro. In 2019, Magnolia released 16 films that generated about $6 million.The next weeks and months will either add to worries or ease them, as studios begin to release a more steady stream of non-franchise films, including sophisticated offerings with Oscar aspirations. “The Last Duel,” a historical drama directed by Ridley Scott and starring Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Jodie Comer and Adam Driver, will roll out exclusively in theaters on Friday. “The French Dispatch,” directed by Wes Anderson and featuring an all-star cast, is scheduled for exclusive theatrical release on Oct. 22.“We need studios to release a wider range of movies,” said Patrick Corcoran, a spokesman for the National Association of Theater Owners, which represents 35,000 movie screens in the United States. “Right now, theaters are like grocery stores where you can only buy steak,” he continued, referring to effects-driven spectacles. “People also want cereal. They also want fresh fruit and vegetables.” More

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      James Bond Saved the World, but Can He Rescue U.K. Movie Theaters?

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      The 25th installment of the Bond franchise has brought record-breaking numbers of people back to British movie theaters, but pressures on the industry continue.LONDON — By the time the 25th James Bond movie, “No Time to Die,” premiered to an audience of stars, members of the royal family and key workers here last week, it seemed to have the full weight of Britain’s movie theater industry on its shoulders.The industry has endured 18 months of on-and-off closures while desperately trying to avoid running out of cash as Hollywood studios delayed would-be blockbusters because of coronavirus restrictions overseas, and sent movies to streaming platforms, sometimes bypassing a theatrical release entirely.Expectations and hopes for “No Time to Die,” therefore, were high: Daniel Craig’s two previous Bond films, “Skyfall” and “Spectre,” are the second and third highest-grossing films ever at the British box office, and the franchise is a beloved — if sometimes bemoaned — fixture in British cultural life.“We’ll look back on Bond as being a watershed moment for the industry,” said Tim Richards, the founder and chief executive of Vue, the third-largest movie theater chain in Britain.At the Vue theater in the West End of London, branded popcorn for opening night.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesTheaters were full for the 25th Bond film.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesA moviegoer dressed up in honor of the suave spy, sipping Champagne.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesBut with pressure from streaming services and the financial toll of the pandemic still in play, it remains to be seen in what direction this watershed moment will take the British movie theater industry in the longer term.After a thrice-delayed release, “No Time to Die” has successfully ushered people back into theaters. Over the opening weekend — from Thursday through Sunday — it made £26 million, or $35 million, at the box office, not just breaking pandemic records, but also surpassing the opening weekends of the two previous Bond films. This puts it in the top five opening weekends for movies in Britain ever, according to data from the British Film Institute.Across the country, movie theaters made a spectacle of the 163-minute, $250 million-budget film. Some London big chain theaters scheduled dozens of screenings a day, and others hosted live music to entertain viewers as they waited. There were opening night parties, which encouraged viewers to dress up in black tie for cocktails and canapés at £50, or $68, a person.Jack Piggott, 31, was among the first to watch the film at the 0:07 a.m. screening at the Curzon in Mayfair, part of a small chain of movie theaters, which was for the first time putting on midnight premieres. Not only is Bond a major moment in British film, it’s also Craig’s last outing as the spy and “you might as well go all in,” he said on Thursday as he waited for the movie to start.Despite the late hour, the lure of Bond pulled in passers-by like Canset Klasmeyer, who made an impromptu decision to see the film even though she had tickets booked for Monday. “It’s a big event,” she said.Even as ticket sales rise, there are many challenges, and Richards doesn’t expect Vue to be back to where it was in 2019 until late 2023.Some of London’s big chain theaters scheduled dozens of screenings a day.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesAcross the industry, British theaters will have to find ways to recover from the financial blow of the past 18 months, which saw them take on heavy loads of debt or ask shareholders for cash. It’s still unclear how much the pandemic might permanently change consumer behaviors, as people reconsider what types of leisure experiences they want to have outside their homes.And critically, the influence of streaming has fundamentally changed the industry as studios make big budget films available sooner through on-demand services. For years, movie theaters enjoyed a period of screening exclusivity that lasted about three months. That’s being cut in half by recent negotiations as streaming services balloon.In the two years before the pandemic, British movie theaters were experiencing their best years since the early 1970s, thanks to a flow of big budget films, as well as major investments into recliner seating and high-tech sound systems. Stopped in their tracks by lockdowns, companies tried to stem the outflow of cash by furloughing staff members and deferring rent payments.At the end of August 2020, during an interval in Britain’s lockdown, Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” was released in cinemas. It was just a fleeting moment of hope. Not long after that, as restrictions tightened, S&P Global downgraded the credit ratings of Vue and Cineworld, Britain’s largest movie theater chain — which also owns Regal Cinemas in the United States — and gave them a negative outlook. And the pandemic dragged on.It has been a painful time for all, including independent movie theaters like Peckhamplex, a southeast London institution that sells tickets for just £5. It used almost all of the government support on offer, including furlough, tax referrals and a grant for independent movie theaters, according to John Reiss, the chairman of Peckhamplex.But to stay afloat the movie theater also spent money that had been painstakingly set aside for more than a decade for major refurbishments, and it could take another year for the movie theater to return to prepandemic sales, Reiss said.At the Odeon theater in London’s West End, people queued to get into opening night screenings of “No Time to Die.”Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesFor some moviegoers, evening wear wasn’t enough: they also donned masks of Léa Seydoux and Daniel Craig, who star in the film.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York Times“It’s a big event,” said one viewer who saw the film on opening night.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesBond has given a meaningful boost to the industry — in one weekend it eclipsed the total box office earnings for the previously highest-grossing film of the pandemic, “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” — but “No Time to Die” is still just one film. The theater industry’s credit ratings and outlook are “very unlikely to change based on the great success of any particular movie release,” said Abigail Klimovich, a credit analyst at S&P Global. There is still an uncertain path to recovery for movie theater earnings, she said.Among the hurdles is the virus itself, which is especially troubling as the days get colder and it gets harder to keep physically distant. Britain has a high vaccination rate, but daily case numbers are averaging more than 30,000. At the same time, many households are expected to face a squeeze on their incomes from high energy prices, rising inflation and cuts to benefits and other income support.For Philip Knatchbull, the chief executive of Curzon, change in the industry couldn’t come soon enough. “There’s an existential threat to cinema generally, as we know it,” he said.For one, independent cinema has long been pushed out of many large movie theaters that had to make room for the long releases of big-budget films, Knatchbull said.Curzon has a different model, in which 14 plush movie theaters are just one of three strands of the business. It’s also a film distributor, releasing a catalog of predominantly independent and foreign language films, including Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite,” in Britain. And for the past decade, it has embraced streaming with its own on-demand service.Soon Knatchbull hopes to be offering movies on the Curzon on-demand service from other distributors like Sony, Paramount and Universal.Amid all of this upheaval, Vue’s Richards sounds relatively relaxed. The old exclusivity period was “prehistoric,” he said, adding that he hopes the new 45-day release window will encourage streaming services to release more of their movies in theaters.“I know it’s clichéd, but I do believe we are about to enter into a second golden age of cinema,” he said. Several factors are coalescing here: The audience has returned, there is a promising slate of new and delayed films to be released over the next year and having an exclusive, albeit, shorter release window works, Richards said.Knatchbull, speaking from Curzon’s more disruptive position in the industry, also seems optimistic. “During the pandemic, all the changes I anticipated happening over maybe over a five-year period were just accelerated,” he said.Now, he said, there’s “a lot of experimentation, a lot of hurt, a lot of anger, a lot of opportunity from different parts of the film industry.” More

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      in Television

      For a Broadway Torn by a Pandemic, a Split-Personalities Tonys

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      The streaming part of the ceremony actually did a better job conveying the electricity of being in a theater than the CBS special billed as “Broadway’s Back!”It’s no surprise that the Tony Awards ceremony on Sunday night took much more time and bandwidth than usual, swallowing up more than four hours that were split between two platforms. After all, it had a big agenda: to honor the shortened 2019-2020 season and everything that came after, including the ongoing pandemic and a cultural reckoning in the theater, as in the world. Also, of course, with special urgency now, the event wanted to encourage possibly wary theatergoers to buy tickets to shows by highlighting Broadway’s performers as they return to the stage.With so much on its to do list, how did the Tonys do? Jesse Green, The New York Times’s chief theater critic, discussed the presentation — or, rather, the presentations: one on Paramount+ and one on CBS — with James Poniewozik, The Times’s chief television critic, and the contributor Elisabeth Vincentelli.JESSE GREEN The Tony Awards ceremony was deliberately broken into two halves: the first more like a private industry dinner, on Paramount+, to give out most of the awards efficiently; the second more like a desperate advertisement, on broadcast television, to lure tourists back to Broadway. (The second was even called, somewhat ambitiously, “Broadway’s Back!”) But did either of you feel, as I did intensely, that the two shows were almost psychotically different, even if they were written and directed by the same team? One half gave us the art form that wants to speak in serious terms of the human soul and cultural change. The other gave us weak comedy bits and bad timing.ELISABETH VINCENTELLI It felt like one of those horror films where a lab-made creature’s parts suddenly take on a life of their own: What used to be an awkward — but often very entertaining, in its own way — whole suddenly became split into separate bits and pieces. Mind you, those bits and pieces meant that even with four hours of airtime, the show still ran long!JAMES PONIEWOZIK The two shows were undeniably different. I’m not sure I mind that, though, at least in theory — we can get to my issues with the execution. Broadway was hit by the pandemic uniquely among art forms, but the Tonys really have the same challenge that all televised awards shows have now: Who is this production for? Is it for the die-hards or the casuals? Is it for the artists or the audience? Is it meant to honor the creative work of the past year(s) or sell tickets for the next? The Tonys answer was essentially, “Why not both?” There was definitely whiplash for those of us who managed to find Paramount+ and watch both halves. But I’m not sure how big that audience was compared with the CBS-only crowd.VINCENTELLI Splitting the awards from the musical numbers is what, I suspect, CBS had wanted to do for ages: shove the awards to the side because nobody (in the network’s view) cares, and focus on the fun stuff. I wouldn’t be surprised if they continued with that format in the future.PONIEWOZIK That split, by the way, is what the Grammys have done on CBS for years — shunt most of the awards off prime time and put on a big show for the general audience. That worked pretty well for them this year.GREEN The difference, and what makes the split feel more neurotic to me, is that the theater, abetted by pretentious theater critics like myself, often tries to imagine it is upholding a more noble tradition. Certainly it’s an older tradition. In any case, given the choice to divide the awards, it’s surprising how the first half managed to provide everything the second half was supposed to — warmth, dignity in a difficult time, Jennifer Holliday live! — and the second half largely failed to, except in the recorded segments from the nominated musicals.VINCENTELLI The combination of Sheryl Lee Ralph’s introduction and Jennifer Holliday’s performance of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” is bound to become a YouTube classic. CBS might be trying to turn the Tonys into the Kennedy Center Honors, which they also broadcast — they’re well placed to know that in 2019, the Honors scored more viewers than the Tonys. So that’s the model: celebrity presenters of big numbers. Having the awards themselves on Paramount+ also testifies to the siloing of audiences.Danny Burstein in a performance by the “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” cast. The critics agreed that the number worked well on TV.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesPONIEWOZIK I would question whether the theater is more inherently “noble” than TV or any other art form. But another argument, another day. More to the point, if the theater wants to celebrate its hard work and creative spirit, you can rent a nice hall for that and do it privately. If you expect a broadcast TV audience, your obligations are different — no one is entitled to the attention of millions of people. But I agree that (to my surprise) the first, industry-awards part actually did a better job of conveying the excitement and electricity of being in a theater!GREEN The “concert” half, not a bad idea in theory, was in fact so poorly routined and timed that it erased all the gains of the “awards” half. The final 30 minutes, which felt like an entire additional day, was a train wreck of bad calls: ballads, duets, redundant improv from “Freestyle Love Supreme” — when what you really wanted in that spot was the “Moulin Rouge!” kickline and confetti cannons.VINCENTELLI I don’t think I ever need “Moulin Rouge!” anything. That said, that number worked on TV and may well have done its job, which is to sell tickets.GREEN I’m not a huge fan of “Moulin Rouge!” myself, but I thought it looked fantastic on the screen, using the cool medium to tone down its manic red hotness. Even if it hadn’t won 10 awards, the most of any show, it would have done itself a lot of good with that performance.PONIEWOZIK The flow of the CBS portion was just weird. The “concert” wasn’t an awards show, but there were three major awards, and the last one was given out a half-hour before the end, sabotaging the momentum. I also question whether the song choices — between the general nostalgia of the production and Broadway’s reliance on jukebox musicals — did much to sell an audience on experiencing new theater. (Disclosure: I already have tickets for “Caroline, or Change.”) You’re telling me to feel excited (and safe) going back to a theater in 2021, and giving me a selection of songs I could have heard on one night of “American Idol” in 2005.VINCENTELLI And as on “American Idol,” there was no mention of plays, which the Tonys still don’t know what to do about. Unless I blinked and missed it, there was no attempt to even describe them, let alone feature excerpts.PONIEWOZIK Yes, Elisabeth! Four hours (plus overtime!!!), and you can’t even give us a taste of the plays you want us to come back to Broadway for?GREEN Generally you can’t come back for the plays; they’ve closed. But the world of Broadway is changing, even when the awards don’t. “The Inheritance” swept the big play categories, winning four major awards, and “Slave Play,” its main competition, got skunked — but it was “Slave Play” that has announced a return Broadway engagement, starting in November. I’m shocked “Slave Play” didn’t win, but there’s no point in litigating the voters’ choices; they are always unintelligible and, as far as television is concerned, beside the point. Unintelligibility may even be a plus. Drama!Daniel J. Watts, right, and Jared Grimes during their performance. The spoken word piece, featuring tap, addressed the racial equity concerns of the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, which received a special Tony.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesVINCENTELLI In terms of the overall tone, I was very happy to be spared the usual self-conscious posture of theater, which thinks of itself as a beleaguered band of misfits toiling for an underappreciated art form/industry and reacts with a bizarre mix of self-importance and defensiveness. Theater folks feel like the Marvel and “Star Wars” nerds of yore, before they became the de facto rulers of popular culture. Sunday night had a much more interesting, and overall healthier, balance of positivity, eagerness and joy. Of course at times there was frustration and anger, too, expressed most starkly in Daniel J. Watts’s spoken-word number, but that’s another way to let passion speak.PONIEWOZIK To me, the job of the whole shebang was to convey through TV the excitement of seeing theater live, in a room. What did that well? Jennifer Holliday’s performance, of course — not just because she’s a legend, but because it was a theatrical performance. She was in character. (Whereas too many of the duets, however beautifully sung, simply felt like watching two celebrities I like enjoy being back together.) I thought the recorded performances from other theaters might kill the live vibe, but it helped that they had audiences. And the buzz of the first awards portion — you could just feel how pumped everyone was to be in the room — in a way recreated the live experience better than some of the performances.GREEN Yes: What was good was whatever felt like live theater, not like an “I Love New York” commercial. Still, it’s very strange to me that the main thing all these Broadway creatives couldn’t pull off was a Broadway entertainment spectacular. (Who puts all the socko material at the beginning, leaving none for the end?) I think it’s time to give other writers and directors a chance.VINCENTELLI The second half of the show felt a little rote because something changed over the past 18 months in terms of access. The Tonys used to be the only place we could catch Broadway stars do a number on a screen. But in 2020, we streamed them a lot, and the newness of watching, say, Kelli O’Hara or Audra McDonald slay a number was dulled — because we watched Kelli O’Hara and Audra McDonald slay a lot of numbers online last year.PONIEWOZIK It would not be awful for the Tonys (and other awards) to learn a little from streaming. The most entertaining work of theater I saw during the pandemic may have been Annaleigh Ashford doing an insane version of “Mr. Mistoffelees” from “Cats” while cooped up at home for Miscast21.VINCENTELLI Yes! The Tonys need a good dose of that freewheeling social-media spirit.GREEN And maybe, hear me out, it should keep to a TikTok length. More

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      in Music

      Bicycle Diaries: Cruising With the ‘American Utopia’ Family

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      Our intrepid reporter and photographer biked through Queens with David Byrne and some of his castmates ahead of their return to Broadway. Then the skies opened up.On a dock in Queens, David Byrne’s musical bike gang was gearing up to go.“Are we ready?” Byrne called.It was a Saturday in late August, and the gang — three percussionists, a guitarist, a bassist and me, along with a daredevil photographer and lighting assistant — were sitting astride bicycles as Byrne, our fearless two-wheeled leader, outlined the plan.He wore a brimmed, pith-style helmet and a tour guide’s relaxed confidence: He’d done this route before, from Astoria to Flushing. The destination was the Queens Night Market, a paradise of global food stalls at the site of the 1964 World’s Fair. He’d already been talking up a ceviche stand and the all-women samba drumline he’d seen the last time he’d pedaled through.The market, in its diversity, “is really extraordinary,” he said — the kind of endeavor that seems like an antidote to our current social divisiveness. “In that context, you really go, ‘OK, this is not impossible, we can do this.’” It’s a message of community-as-uplift that Byrne, the former Talking Heads frontman, has been big on recently, with his hit theatrical concert “American Utopia,” a mostly joyous pilgrimage through his music. Even the act of extreme weather that ultimately derailed our ride didn’t curb his ability to find revelation locally.From left, the percussionists Tim Keiper, Jacquelene Acevedo and Daniel Freedman. “We would go on these adventures,” Acevedo said of the rides with Byrne. “It’s great. You come back six hours later, exhausted, like, ‘Where did I go?’”Byrne is, of course, a devoted cyclist: He’s written a book about it, and even designed bike racks; last week, he took an e-bike to the Met Gala (so he wouldn’t get sweaty!) and checked his helmet at the door. In the Before Times, I could sometimes clock the velocity and verve of my nightlife by how frequently I intersected with him speeding to some event along the Williamsburg waterfront bike path. He was easy to spot, often dressed in somehow still-pristine white — as he was on this evening, stepping off the East River ferry in white pants, a blue guayabera shirt and brown fisherman sandals. His whole crew, castmates from “American Utopia,” had been onboard, too.On the dock, he gave a few general instructions — hang a left at the big brick building, “go down for, like, a couple miles; should I say when our next turn is? Sixty-first, we make a right” — and then we peeled off. In interchanging pairs or spread out, our expedition took up half a city block. “Riding in New York is — hoo-hoo!” trilled Angie Swan, the guitarist, who had moved here from Milwaukee to work with Byrne and was now dodging through a crowded bike lane.From left, the guitarist Angie Swan, Byrne, Freedman, Keiper and the bassist Bobby Wooten III. The band members got matching folding bikes during their tour.It was the weekend before rehearsals began for the Broadway return of “American Utopia.” But the cast had already been convening throughout the pandemic for these miles-long, leisurely (or not) bike rides around town, led by Byrne, who is 69 and has the stamina of an athlete and the curiosity of a cultural omnivore. Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island: He traversed the city a couple of times a week at least, trailing bandmates alongside him.“That kind of pioneering spirit that he has in music is the same as he has in his bike rides,” Jacquelene Acevedo, a percussionist and Toronto transplant who lives in Manhattan, said as we pedaled along, passing beneath the rumbling train and only-in-Queens intersections like the corner of 31st Avenue and 31st Street. She said she got to know the city on these socially distanced rides. “We would go on these adventures,” she said. “It’s great. You come back six hours later, exhausted, like, ‘Where did I go?’”From left, Freedman, Byrne and Swan. They landed in Flushing Meadows Corona Park with the rest of the group as the sun was setting.That Saturday, we pulsed through Jackson Heights toward Corona — two neighborhoods, Byrne observed later, that had been hit hard, early on, by the coronavirus — and saw the city’s rhythms change. We spun through families barbecuing on pedestrian blocks and dinged our bells along to the streetside cumbia and reggaeton. It was, in a word, glorious.We might’ve blown a few stoplights, too, and caused some double-takes as Cole Wilson, the photographer, and his assistant, Bryan Banducci, cycled ahead of the group but peered backward to get their shot. Byrne was always in the lead; as soon as traffic disappeared, he removed his helmet, revealing his signature silver coif.By the time we landed in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, the sun was setting. Byrne led us to his ceviche spot. Moments later, the skies opened up: Tropical Storm Henri, arriving far earlier than the forecast predicted. We were quickly drenched. So, so drenched.A night that was meant to be a dreamy celebration of this multicultural city and its serendipitous connections, experienced from atop a bike seat, wound up in a (very) soggy group subway ride home. But even that became a moment for Byrnian wonder, thanks to a subway preacher and her acolytes, and an unexpected bit of ecstatic dance — the civic and the divine aboard the 7 train. Byrne clocked it all, surrounded by his bikemates.This group of musicians had toured with “American Utopia” when it was a more traditional rock concert a few years ago, and their matching bikes — a folding model made by Tern — came along then, too. The bikes had their own compartment on the tour bus: “Even when we went overseas, the bikes would come,” said Tim Keiper, a drummer. They would sometimes ride 25 miles before soundcheck, added Daniel Freedman, another drummer. (There are more than four dozen percussion instruments in the show.) “David would find the cool thing,” Freedman said, “and be like, there’s a restaurant or a museum or something bizarre, funny — ‘Cumming, Iowa! We’ve got to go!’”For Byrne, the rides kept him “sane on the road,” he told me later, “and inspired and stimulated.”It also gave his cast and crew a connection that was rare among performers. The original run of “American Utopia” ended in February 2020, just before the coronavirus shut down the city’s live performance spaces. During lockdown, Annie-B Parson, the show’s choreographer, saw the “American Utopia” crew a lot more than anybody else, she said. The cast’s emotional closeness onstage? “It’s not acted.”“Bike riding is a nice metaphor,” she added, “because there’s a kinship. There’s a group moving together, but everybody’s in their own space. But there is a unison. It’s a dance, for sure.”Tropical Storm Henri arrived earlier than forecasted. But the group did manage to finally try the ceviche and some of the other fare at the market.Days after drying out from the Queens ride, the group gathered for rehearsals. “American Utopia” is now playing at the St. James Theater, a bigger Broadway venue than its previous home, the Hudson. Parson, a downtown choreographer known for her attention to form and multimedia detail, was thrilled to learn that the stage is a rectangle, as she’d originally envisioned for the piece. “To me, a square shape is a warm shape that faces in, because there’s symmetry on the sides,” she explained. “A rectangular shape implies infinity, because it reaches out on the sides. They’re both beautiful. This show, and David, to me, I associate with a rectangle.”So Parson polished the choreography, much of which is done by the musicians while they’re playing. (Chris Giarmo and Tendayi Kuumba, standouts onstage and in Spike Lee’s filmed version of the show, are the main dancers.) In one rehearsal, Parson directed Byrne to amplify a moment by turning to face his castmates, giving an extra beat of connection there — the pandemic had underscored a theme of the show, “that we’re not atomized entities,” Byrne said. “Being together with other people is such a big part of what we are as individuals.”As a collaborator, Byrne leads with praise. Watching his percussion circle, he danced along with his very core. “I love the first half where you change up the groove, but it still keeps all the momentum,” he told them.In Byrne’s recent eclectic career, “American Utopia,” which will receive a special Tony Award at this Sunday’s ceremony, has taken up a bigger chunk than other projects. It may be because it makes him happier. “It’s a very moving show to do,” he said, “and a lot of fun” — not least because audiences shimmy with abandon a few songs in.And it pulls from the panoply of Byrne’s interests. There’s neuroscience, civic history, and Brazilian, African and Latin instrumentation. The visual and movement references span the world: the Bauhaus artist Oskar Schlemmer; ’70s Japanese movies; a Thai king’s coronation; and, after our Queens odyssey, a scene from the 7 train, when a woman pulled out a mic and an amp, plugged in and began proselytizing.Byrne, unrecognized beneath his mask, stood near her, holding his bike. Across the way, her companion suddenly began doing impassioned hand motions that were reminiscent of some “American Utopia” moves, waving and snapping her wrists around her face. “Annie-B should see this!” Byrne said, almost to himself. Someone taped a snippet, and he sent it off to her to check out.“There are no words to describe how adventurous David is,” Parson said. “He always finds the most profound way to interact with a place with his bicycle, and he always invites others, graciously, to join in.” More

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      in Music

      5 Pros in the Concert Trenches on Getting (Carefully) Back to Work

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      What’s it like mixing sound, building sets and taking care of artists’ health as the music industry hits pause and play?As live music revs back up, we spoke to five professionals around the industry about their experiences with fans, safety protocols, volume levels and tour plans. These are edited excerpts from the conversations.Marguerite Nowacki, security supervisor at the Metro in ChicagoFirst and foremost, every patron needs two forms of ID: their government ID, and their proof of vaccination. Our venue does not allow any kind of negative test for entry. A lot of patrons have come up to thank us for actually checking every single person’s vaccination card.That was the main reason we wanted to be fully vaccinated: We want people to feel our venue is a safe environment, and it will always be no matter what. Everybody’s been polite, understanding and accepting, with everything that’s going on. We’re seeing a lot of young crowds, and international crowds, and even the older generation is coming back out to listen to live music, and just be in the moment.One of the new protocols is to look for anxiety or stress, and ask if a patron needs help. Being in your house, cooped up, and then finally being let out — a lot of people experience stress around high intensity music or light. We tell our team to look for irritation, shakiness, sweatiness. We give them a bottle of water and a towel, if they want, to calm them down. Sometimes they just want to go home.Alex Reardon, president of Silent House ProductionsEverybody still wants the best show, the biggest show, the flashiest show, the coolest show — whatever aligns with their thinking. Everyone has been sitting still for so long that we are now so busy, we’re almost turning down work. And as a result of that, we have to understand that all of the arenas and theaters everywhere are going to be booked solid. So there will be a time when we have to work out, “Well, if the routing means that you can’t get from here to here in time, and you can’t actually build the stage, then the stage has to become smaller.” We would then address that logistical constraint in our design while working with the promoters and agents.The silver lining is that most management teams understand the constraints of availability, so they are talking to us earlier on than they might have in normal times. I think there’s something in the DNA of everyone that works in live touring, which is that we come up with solutions very, very quickly, which comes from the concept of “The doors will open at 7 p.m., and people will be in the venue.” But until we know where the problems are, we can’t really do much about it.The logistics, we popped back into very easily — we have muscle memory, and it just reconnects. But I think what I’m seeing across the entire live entertainment industry is an enthusiasm and a joy that we’ve been really reconnected with. I was recently at Lollapalooza, talking to Tyler, the Creator and his manager, and I told them that it was an interesting experience to walk from the stage out to the front of the house, surrounded by the audience, and smell the beer and sweat. I used the analogy that it’s like bumping into an old friend you hadn’t seen for a long time. And I think Tyler just called me a hopeless romantic and wandered off giggling.Elisa Binger, monitor engineer at the Black Cat in Washington, D.C.At first, it felt a little weird to have a bunch of people back in the room again. The first few shows, I was actually surprised that almost nobody in the audience was wearing a masks. I’ve just gotten so used to seeing people with masks over the last year and a half, that it almost sort of felt like culture shock.We were actually pretty concerned that people would be on their worst behavior. But for the most part, everyone is very well behaved. Everybody’s excited to talk to the bartenders, and talk to us, because they’ve missed talking to people other than their friends and family for so long. There have been a lot of regulars coming back — I knew their faces before, and was sort of familiar with them, but everybody’s gotten closer, because nobody wants to take that social interaction for granted.One of the nice things that actually makes my job a little bit easier on the technical side is that bands haven’t played in a really, really loud environment for a long time. They’re playing quieter than they once did, which brings the whole noise floor down onstage. Most of us are coming back with a fresh perspective after spending many months not working at all. When bands would load in, it used to feel like sort of a hassle — but now, whenever we have a band loaded, I’m excited for the running around, and lifting heavy things, and crazy things like that. It reminds me that we’re back at it.Don Muzquiz, production manager for Alanis MorissettePart of my job is to avoid surprises. It’s not about the noise, or the news, or the propaganda or whatever you want to believe or want to support. It’s about if anybody gets sick or not.Everything’s affected, because as we go into a city you’re having to involve a lot of local workers at the venues. Some artists that have been touring regularly have slimmed down their production. Every tour is going to have their own restrictions or their own requests, but we are requesting that all locals staff be vaccinated, and that everybody wear masks throughout the day, vaccinated or not. It’s just taking every precaution — you’re trying to protect as much as you can, because you’ve got a lot of people traveling together in confined spaces, on your buses.I think the biggest thing for everybody is that the access to backstage is going to be almost zero, in terms of anybody that’s not working. Any sort of visitation from anybody that’s not on the working personnel or touring staff, it’s probably just not going to happen. There’s no fluff, no extra people, not one guy that’s just out there to carry towels around.I can’t speak for everybody, but I think the overall feeling is that the artists are excited to get back to what they love. If there’s any nervousness, it’s really about just being able to make it through the tour without there being an issue. In total, with opening acts, we’re about 85 people traveling together, and we’re having to interact with local workers daily in different cities every day. The goal is to not get anybody sick, because then it’s just a domino effect.Erica Krusen, managing director of mental health and addiction services at MusiCaresMental health issues existed way before the pandemic, and continue to endure beyond it. We are seeing more requests come in daily, and we’re here to support them. A lot of the festivals and venues and bands are pivoting to require all of their crew and band members to be vaccinated. What we’re hearing is the anxiety increasing: Are they going to get it? How safe is it backstage? Are the venues adhering to protocols?All of our directors, including myself, are licensed therapists, social workers and chemical dependency counselors. We can assess and get music industry professionals the resources that they may need — that can be directing them to a local therapist, finding therapists that do Zoom or FaceTime or Skype, making sure that they know where the local hospital is.What we saw in the music community is how everyone began to confront mental health and talk about it and address it. For a long time, the music industry was behind in that, and now we’re seeing a lot of really good changes. Managers and agents are coming to us to say, “What can we do to help?” The more we talk about it, the more we destigmatize it, and the more that people will not be afraid, and not be shamed into thinking that they can’t get or find help. More