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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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      On the Scene: ‘Springsteen on Broadway’ 🎸

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      On the Scene: ‘Springsteen on Broadway’ 🎸Michael PaulsonReporting on theater Even before entering the St. James Theater, the theater district was clearly more alive than it was a year ago, at the height of the pandemic. Times Square, even with all but one theater still closed, was mobbed. 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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      England’s delayed reopening is a blow to culture and nightlife.

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      LONDON — Andrew Lloyd Webber last week promised to open his musical “Cinderella” in London’s West End on June 25 — even if it were illegal to do so.“We are going to open come hell or high water,” he told The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper. If Britain’s government tried to stop him because of rising coronavirus cases, he had one response, he added: “We will say: Come to the theater and arrest us.”Now, Mr. Lloyd Webber, 73, has his chance to go to prison — although he doesn’t appear to want to take it.On Monday evening, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain said that social distancing would continue in England until July 19, at least — almost a month later than originally planned.The decision, announced at a televised news conference, was made because of a rise in coronavirus cases linked to the Delta variant. An average of 7,278 cases per day were reported in United Kingdom in the last week, an increase of 127 percent from the average two weeks ago. Deaths are rising but still very low, with an average of nine a day over two weeks.Scientists remain at odds over exactly how serious a threat it poses in Britain, however, with some arguing that the most dire predictions about rising hospitalizations underestimate the effect even the current level of vaccinations have on breaking the link between the number of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths.United Kingdom Coronavirus Map and Case CountSee the latest charts and maps of coronavirus cases, deaths, hospitalizations and vaccinations in United Kingdom.“I think it’s sensible to wait just a little bit longer,” Mr. Johnson said, adding that the delay would allow more people to be fully vaccinated.The delay was a gut punch to the British cultural world, which has been desperately seeking an end to social distancing.The delay leaves “thousands of jobs hanging in the balance,” Julian Bird, chief executive of UK Theater, a trade body, said in a statement. A quarter of nighttime businesses cannot survive longer than a month without new government support, the Night Times Industries Association, which represents clubs and pubs, said in a news release.The biggest blow may be to England’s nightclubs, which were told for the fourth time that they could not reopen at all, even with distancing. Nightclubs in Britain have been closed since March 2020, and over 150 events were planned in London alone for the weekend of June 25, including a sold-out 42-hour-long party at Fabric, a famed club that can hold 1,500 people.Those were all immediately canceled.“It’s really, really frustrating,” Cameron Leslie, one of Fabric’s founders, said in a telephone interview. He had hired over 100 staff over the past month, expecting to reopen, and now was not able to furlough them. “You can only be pushed and tested so far before our entire sector can’t respond anymore,” Leslie added.Stuart Glen, the founder of The Cause, another London club, said in a telephone interview that the delay would cost him “hundred of thousands” of pounds and force him to rearrange 40 events. He’d had enough, he said. “I think everyone should riot if July doesn’t happen,” he said. “They can’t control people like this,” he added.“It’s so devastating for so many people,” said Yousef Zahar, a D.J. and co-owner of Circus, a nightclub based in Liverpool, that in May held two pilot events featuring 6,000 maskless dancers.Theaters, museums and music venues were allowed to reopen with distancing last month, but larger venues and all nightclubs have remained firmly shut. Mr. Lloyd Webber has repeatedly said that glitzy productions like “Cinderella” — which has a 34-strong cast and is already weeks into rehearsals — are financially unviable in half-full theaters.For those hoping to attend the opening of“Cinderella,” it was still unclear if the show would go on.“We’re working hard behind the scenes to make sure everyone gets to the ball,” the show’s producers said in a statement posted on Twitter. More

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      No Broadway Shows? No Problem. Walking Tours Fill a Void.

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      Tim Dolan of Broadway Up Close and his crew of tour guides are back on the sidewalks, catering to a growing number of visitors.On a recent weekday morning, a cluster of 10 masked out-of-towners found themselves in the garish maw of Times Square. Tim Dolan, their tour guide, held up an iPad showing a black-and-white photograph of the area in 1900, when it was filled with horse carriages rather than jumbo LED screens. In the photo, a man is shoveling a pile of manure. “The only thing that hasn’t changed is the smell,” Dolan said with affection.Dolan calls himself “probably the only New Yorker who would ever say they love Times Square.” It’s his neighborhood, he says, even though he lives in an apartment in Hamilton Heights with his French bulldog, Belasco, named after his favorite theater.Archival images of Times Square are incorporated into the tours.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesHe’s also probably one of the few people who can tell you the story of the actor who appeared in 9,382 performances of “The Phantom of the Opera,” or precisely why there were live lions onstage at the Broadhurst Theater for 14 nights in 1921.Dolan is the founder of Broadway Up Close, whose shamrock-green-shirted tour guides have, for 11 years, led one hour-and-45-minute tours of the area between 41st and 54th Streets, from Avenue of the Americas to Eighth Avenue. They talk about the buildings, the business and backstage gossip of the Theater District — including this newspaper, which gave Times Square its name — tracking its history from Oscar Hammerstein I to “Hamilton.” Dolan is also behind one of Times Square’s latter-day landmarks and photo ops, currently stashed away: a typographical jumble of the letters of “Broadway” near a pedestrian plaza, which looks good on Instagram.Last year, when the Great White Way went dark, Dolan’s tours stopped accordingly. (At the time, they were running 10 to 12 tours a week.) The exsanguine atmosphere of the place was especially heartbreaking for him. He missed his adopted community of performers, stage hands, TKTS staff members. “Even the Naked Cowboy,” he said. “I felt like I saw literal tumbleweeds roll down 44th Street.”A pre-pandemic poster for “Sing Street,” which was supposed to start previews at the Lyceum Theater in March 2020. Amy Lombard for The New York Times“Hamilton” will resume performances on Sept. 14 at the Richard Rodgers Theater on West 46th Street.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesA poster for “MJ the Musical,” scheduled to open this winter at the Neil Simon Theater on West 52nd Street.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesBut now, with coronavirus in retreat and reopening dates appearing on theater marquees, Dolan and his Broadway Up Close tour guides are back on the sidewalks nearly every day, catering to a slowly but surely growing number of visitors.It beats giving the tours virtually, though Dolan still conducts a couple of virtual tours a week. “So much of it is reading the audience, engaging with the audience, picking up on what they’re most interested in,” Dolan said. “It’s hard to do that in a webinar.”Visitors joined Dolan for a recent “Shubert Brothers and Beyond” tour.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesGiven that the tours attract musical lovers and theater die-hards, they are also currently serving as a substitute for actual Broadway. “We would definitely be seeing a show a night,” said Carrie Mershon, a visitor from Kansas who was taking the tour. She had booked the family’s New York trip months ago, in the hopes that Broadway productions would be up and running by now. No such luck; their show tickets had been refunded. “This fills the void a little bit.”At least Dolan can be relied upon to put on a show. Befitting the location, the more over-the-top the story, the better: Know the one about a “Follies” girl who found herself riding a runaway ostrich? How about the music director who dove into a watery orchestra pit after a flash flood at “Evita”? Or the theatergoer who fell out of the window onto the marquee of the Lyceum Theater?Dolan delivers colorful anecdotes and his fact-filled soliloquies with the polished enthusiasm of a jobbing actor. He was last onstage three years ago, in a regional production of “Arsenic and Old Lace,” and said he had booked a show in Michigan before the pandemic struck.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesHe has an actor’s knack for the emotional overshare too, pointing out his ex-girlfriend in a photo of the original “Hamilton” cast. “She’s with Daveed Diggs now,” one of the younger members of the tour group said, matter-of-factly.“I am aware!” Dolan replied.He moved to the city in 2003 to train at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. After graduation, he performed in “Altar Boyz” for two years, and then felt the pressure to get what many in the profession call a “survival job.” He’s still not a fan of the term. “I didn’t want to just get by. I wanted another job that was just as fulfilling as when I’m onstage or in an audition room.”Realizing there was a lack of good Broadway-centric walking tours, he picked up his New York City tour guide license and set out to tell strangers lesser-known stories about his favorite place in the world. He read scores of books and scoured the photo archives of the Museum of the City of New York and New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Most enjoyable, he relentlessly picked the brains of other industry professionals.The Broadway Up Close kiosk in Times Square.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesIf anything, he had to rein in his passions: The original version of the tour covered all 40 Broadway theaters open at the time, and was seven-and-a-half hours long. Eventually, Dolan divided it into three separate tours, later adding a historical Alexander Hamilton tour and one on Broadway ghost stories, plus an interior tour of the Hudson Theater that’s currently on pause.Dolan’s eyes light up when describing the very earliest days of Times Square, a time when, for example, you might visit a recreation of a Dutch farm, replete with sheep and windmill, on a 42nd Street rooftop. Perhaps more surprisingly, Dolan is a defender of the 21st-century incarnation of the place. “We lament the loss of the old, while loving the new,” he told the group while his “Shubert Brothers and Beyond” tour stopped in the spot where a beautiful French Renaissance-style theatrical complex called the Olympia used to be. (An Old Navy store is there now.)Amy Lombard for The New York Times“You can have commerce, and art, and a safe neighborhood all at the same time,” Dolan told me. “If you’re looking for the nostalgia amid the ‘Disneyification,’ you just have to know where to look. Wanting to find the old among the new is part of why I started this.”Dolan expects Broadway Up Close to be back to prepandemic levels of business later in the year. By then, he hopes, the area will start to feel like its old self again. “I don’t think it’s in September, when we just have a couple of shows open. I think it’s once we hit maybe December, and there’s a handful of shows, and there’s the yellow Playbills in a sea of people in Times Square. Maybe less masks too. I don’t think New York City will fully be reopened until that moment happens.”Tim Dolan calls himself “probably the only New Yorker who would ever say they love Times Square.”Amy Lombard for The New York TimesBefore that, Dolan has a date, on Sept. 14, with the Gershwin Theater — where “Sweeney Todd” had its premiere in 1979 and “Starlight Express” opened in 1987 — for the return of the musical “Wicked.”“I’ll be the grown man in the last row, crying.” More

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      Free of Protesters, Paris Theaters Reopen With Little Imagination

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      After more than two months of occupation by arts workers, the Odéon Theater returned to business with a prepandemic production that feels out of step with the current moment.PARIS — When the Odéon Theater reopened to audiences here with a staging of “The Glass Menagerie” at the end of May, its familiar columns looked somewhat naked. For two-and-a-half months, they had been adorned with large protest signs made by the arts workers occupying the theater. Shortly before they left, one sign read: “Reopening: The Great Comedy.”Inside occupied theaters around France, the situation grew increasingly tense in May after the government announced plans to allow performances to resume. On the one hand, a key goal of the protesters — the return of cultural life — was met. On the other, the occupations had morphed by then into a larger social movement with demands beyond the arts, including the withdrawal of coming changes to unemployment benefits.That set protesters on a collision course with frustrated theater administrators. Yet as fast as they had spread in early March, the occupations stopped. Students at the Colline and T2G theaters left during the first week of June, while some elsewhere were forced out. The Odéon’s occupiers moved to a friendlier Paris venue, the Centquatre.While watching “The Glass Menagerie,” though, it was hard to forget them. The Odéon didn’t help its case by reopening with a prepandemic, star-led production that felt worlds away from everything that has happened over the past year.With the prominent director Ivo van Hove in the driver’s seat, “The Glass Menagerie” premiered shortly before the first French lockdown in March 2020. Its main selling point was the presence of Isabelle Huppert, taking the role of Amanda Wingfield, the former Southern belle teetering on the edge of reality, for the first time.Huppert with Justine Bachelet as her daughter in “The Glass Menagerie.”Jan VersweyveldIt was a work in progress when I saw it then, but it now looks as aimless as Amanda herself. The drab sets, by Jan Versweyveld, trap the cast inside brown walls decorated with the silhouette of Mr. Wingfield, Amanda’s absent husband, who abandoned the family years before.The play’s characters are appropriately miserable in that décor, yet the actors often appear to be playing from different scores, in part because Huppert is an idiosyncratic stage presence these days. As Amanda, she is restless, even funny, as she repeatedly attempts to keep her son, Tom, from leaving by clinging to his legs. Van Hove feeds her over-the-top moments, including a scene in which she appears to masturbate on the kitchen counter while reminiscing about her youth.Yet the performance often makes the production seem overly conscious of her aura, of her sheer Huppert-ness, to the point that her partners adjust to her energy when she is onstage.The best scenes actually come when Laura, Amanda’s fragile daughter, is left alone with Jim, her old high-school crush. Cyril Gueï makes a kind, gentle Jim, and van Hove’s choice of a Black actor for the role reinforces the racial dynamics implicit in Amanda’s rose-tinted vision of the Old South. Gueï’s connection with Justine Bachelet’s Laura is genuine enough that for a second, a happy denouement seems within reach.Laura, played as touchingly muted by Bachelet, briefly comes alive before resigning herself. Van Hove has given her a classic French song to sing as she gives Jim her glass unicorn as an adieu: Barbara’s 1970 “L’Aigle Noir” (“The Black Eagle”), about a traumatic childhood memory that feels exactly right for Laura’s character.While capacity remained limited until this week to 35 percent of seats, a number of other theaters here rushed to reopen as soon as it became possible. At the tiny À La Folie Theater, the actress and director Laetitia Lebacq debuted a rare production of Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1946 play, “The Respectful Whore,” which is set, like “The Glass Menagerie,” in the American South.Laetitia Lebacq and Bertrand Skol in “The Respectful Whore,” directed by Lebacq at the tiny À La Folie Theater.Instant en suspendWhile Sartre wrote a number of plays, they have mostly fallen out of fashion on the French stage. It’s a shame, because “The Respectful Whore,” while occasionally over-explanatory, sets up its central conflict in a compact, efficient manner. It takes place entirely at the home of a prostitute, Lizzie, who is caught up in a case of blatant racial discrimination. Two Black men are accused of raping her as a way of exculpating the white son of a senator, who shot one of them.Lizzie herself is overtly racist, yet refuses to falsely testify that she was raped — until the senator and his son force her hand. Lebacq navigates the role of Lizzie without smoothing over her contradictions and occasional foolishness, and Baudouin Jackson brings pathos to the resignation one of the nameless accused in the face of normalized racism. Philippe Godin, as the smooth-talking senator, and Bertrand Skol, who plays his repressed son, also make an excellent case for Sartre’s character development.As summer nears, some venues have also turned to alfresco theater to draw audiences. At the Théâtre de la Tempête, Thomas Quillardet brought two shows adapted from movies by the Nouvelle Vague filmmaker Éric Rohmer. He was renowned for the quality of his dialogue, and both “Where Hearts Meet” (inspired by two films, 1984’s “Full Moon in Paris” and 1986’s “The Green Ray”) and “The Tree, the Mayor and the Mediatheque” flow and fizz like good champagne.Florent Cheippe and Anne-Laure Tondu in “Where Hearts Meet,” directed by Thomas Quillardet at the Théâtre de la Tempête.Pierre Grosbois“The Tree, the Mayor and the Mediatheque,” based on the 1993 film of the same name and performed in a park just behind the venue, also stands out for its political relevance. This story of a small-town mayor whose plans to build a multimedia library run into opposition from green activists might unfold similarly today, down to its left-wing divisions on climate issues. It even features a song praising the joys of working from home — three decades before Covid-19 made that a widespread necessity.Plays like this are a reminder of what we’ve gained as cultural institutions reopen in France, yet the experience remains in some ways bittersweet. For over two months, from March to May, occupiers essentially reclaimed venues, like the Odéon, that usually play host to a small subset of the French population.According to the latest large-scale study of cultural habits in the country, in 2018, only 12 percent of France’s working class had attended a theater performance in the previous year. The audience for prestige productions such as van Hove’s “Glass Menagerie,” especially, is hardly representative of French society at large.After a year of upheaval, more imaginative offerings would have been welcome. What if directors around the country had given occupiers a chance to hold their own on the stages they spent so much time around? It’s not the social revolution protesters were gunning for, but it might have been a start.From left, Nans Laborde Jourdàa, Florent Cheippe, Malvina Plégat and Clémentine Baert in “The Tree, the Mayor and the Mediatheque” at the Théâtre de la Tempête.Pierre GrosboisThe Glass Menagerie. Directed by Ivo van Hove. Odéon – Théâtre de l’Europe. Further performances planned in Tokyo, Athens and Amsterdam from September through November.The Respectful Whore. Directed by Laetitia Lebacq. A La Folie Théâtre, through June 20.Where Hearts Meet / The Tree, the Mayor and the Mediatheque. Directed by Thomas Quillardet. Théâtre de la Tempête, through June 20. More

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      National Black Theater Plans Next Act in a New Harlem High-Rise

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      The pathbreaking company plans to replace its Harlem home with a 21-story building with apartments, retail and a new theater.It was more than 50 years ago that Barbara Ann Teer rented space in a building at 125th Street and Fifth Avenue in Harlem that would serve as the home of a nascent organization called National Black Theater.The theater blossomed into an important cultural anchor, presenting productions by, and about, Black Americans when their stories rarely appeared on mainstream stages, and hosting artists including Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Nina Simone, Nikki Giovanni and Maya Angelou. When the building was destroyed in a fire in 1983, many feared that the theater was doomed, said Sade Lythcott, Teer’s daughter. But Teer had another idea: She decided to buy the damaged 64,000-square-foot building on Fifth Avenue, with a vision of revitalizing it and trying to use real estate to help pay for the theater’s work.Sade Lythcott, the theater’s chief executive, sees the development as a continuation of the plans that her mother, Barbara Ann Teer, made after founding the theater.Braylen Dion for The New York Times“She saw it as the next piece of this temple to Black liberation, which is ownership,” said Lythcott, the theater’s chief executive. “Ownership would allow the real estate to subsidize the art, which was a model that would disrupt the standard practice of nonprofit theater funding.”The move did not solve all their problems. There were struggles over the years, and a series of financial disputes that at one point left the theater on the brink of losing its home, but the work continued. Now National Black Theater is getting ready for its next act: It is replacing its longtime home with a 21-story building that will include a mix of housing, retail and, on floors three through five, a gleaming new home for the theater.Lythcott and other National Black Theater leaders see the $185 million project, and the partnership they are entering with developers, as a new chapter with the financial and institutional backing to allow them to live out the dream of Teer, who died in 2008: to nurture a space where Black artists can thrive, and the company can work to bring a deeper sense of racial justice to the American theater industry.“What we’re building today really has been informed in all ways by this blueprint that Dr. Teer put into place starting in 1968,” Lythcott said. “It feels like what our community of Black artists and the community of Harlem deserve.”To realize the development project, National Black Theater has partnered with a new real estate firm, Ray, which was founded by Dasha Zhukova, a Russian-American art collector and philanthropist. Also joining the project are the subsidized housing developer L + M, the architect Frida Escobedo, the firm Handel Architects, and the design firms working on National Black Theater’s space, Marvel, Charcoalblue, and Studio & Projects.The planning for the new development has come at a turning point in the theater world. With theaters closed for more than a year because of the pandemic, many institutions have been called on to turn inward and interrogate their own histories of racism and inequity, with many prominent voices calling for change when theaters reopen. It is the kind of discussion National Black Theater has been involved in for decades. This year Lythcott has advised Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on reopening the arts and, as chair for the Coalition of Theaters of Color, has spoken up about racial justice in arts budget negotiations.Before they decided to work together, Lythcott and Zhukova had to have a frank conversation early on about a high-profile misstep in Zhukova’s past.On Martin Luther King’s Birthday in 2014, an online fashion magazine published a photo of Zhukova sitting on a chair — designed by the Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard — that was constructed from a cushion arranged atop a sculpture of a partially clothed Black woman laying on her back, in some sort of bondage. Zhukova apologized for the photo, saying that using this artwork in a photo shoot was regrettable, “as it took the artwork totally out of its intended context.”Lythcott learned of this photo just before she met Zhukova for dinner for the first time — in fact she was Googling Zhukova on her phone at the restaurant before they met to discuss the development project. At the dinner, Zhukova brought up the incident first, Lythcott said, explaining that she would understand if the episode cast too much of a shadow on the project. But Lythcott wasn’t fazed by it, she said, because it was clear all that Zhukova had learned from the incident.“Perhaps that chair was the best thing that ever happened to Dasha,” Lythcott said, “because it was catalytic in expanding the lens by which she sees the world.”In an email, Zhukova said that she was “deeply sorry” for the photo and said that it had started her on a “journey of continued learning and education.”“I am so grateful that Sade sees the person I am trying to be on my continued journey toward personal growth,” she wrote.Barbara Ann Teer, center foreground, founder of National Black Theater, with the cast of one of her productions in 1970.via National Black Theater ArchivesThe new building being planned, for 2033 Fifth Avenue, is slated to include 222 units of housing, an event space and a communal living room where people might eat, work and hang out; a news release says “amenities will include health and wellness programming.”The development project is more than a decade in the making, with several false starts. Lythcott and her brother — Michael Lythcott, who is the chair of the National Black Theater’s board — see it as a realization of their mother’s dream, while recognizing that she might not have taken some of the paths they chose.“She never would have partnered with someone like Ray; she never would have had financing from Goldman Sachs,” Michael Lythcott said, noting that Teer had wanted full control over the building, and preferred to keep involvement limited to those inside the community.But it is all a means to an end that their mother energetically championed throughout her life: an “ecosystem by which Black people in particular are full-throated, full-voiced, fully rooted in their own liberation,” Sade Lythcott said.By the time construction starts this fall, theater in New York is likely to be back in full force. While the new building is going up, National Black Theater will use the Apollo Theater’s office space and two of its performance spaces. And by the time construction is slated to end, in spring 2024, National Black Theater leaders hope that the space will become a place to convene, both for art and the kind of community interaction that was sorely missed over the past year.“In the wake of this pandemic,” said Jonathan McCrory, National Black Theater’s executive artistic director, “there’s going to be a kind of psychic grief that is going to need to have a healing center.” More

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      New York’s Concert Scene Gets a Lavish New Addition: Brooklyn Made

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      The 500-capacity live venue in Bushwick will offer unique perks to musicians who play there, including a private pool and use of a loft apartment.For the last year, with the concert business mothballed by the pandemic, small clubs and theaters have warned that their survival was at risk, and dozens of venues across the country have shut down.But with concerts now coming back, something that might have seemed unthinkable just a few months ago is happening: Not only have old venues reopened their doors, but entirely new ones are sprouting up, buoyed by the hope that concert-hungry fans will help the industry come roaring back.On Sept. 30, Brooklyn Made, a new club in Bushwick, Brooklyn, will open with two nights featuring Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. Everything about the space is planned as deluxe and high-concept, from the Moroccan lamps adorning the 500-capacity performance space to the adjoining cafe and rooftop deck. Visiting artists will find an impossibly luxurious spread, including a private pool and use of a loft apartment with striking views of the Manhattan skyline.It is one of a handful of changes to the post-pandemic New York concert scene, including the return of Irving Plaza, the landmark rock club off Union Square that will reopen in August after a two-year, multimillion-dollar renovation.Brooklyn Made will open its doors to audiences on Sept. 30 with a concert by Jeff Tweedy.Lila Barth for The New York TimesFor Brooklyn Made, the club’s very existence is a bullish bet on the return of live music and the nightlife economy in New York, said Anthony Makes, a longtime player in the New York concert world who is one of the principals behind the new club.“I believe in the future, and I think everyone’s going to come back,” Makes said on a recent tour of the space, where construction machines were still whirring, but the sunny artist apartment, one level up, was an oasis of quiet.When Brooklyn Made opens its doors — other fall bookings include Greg Dulli (Oct. 2), Trombone Shorty (Oct. 4-5), Turnover (Oct. 12-13), Steve Earle (Oct. 16) and Band of Horses (Oct. 18-20) — it will be the latest independent operator in a local scene dominated by two corporate powers, Live Nation and AEG Presents.To stand out in a hypercompetitive market, Brooklyn Made wants to cater to concertgoers as well as to artists. For fans, the club will present itself as an all-day hang in the heart of hipster Brooklyn, with a cafe open from morning till night; the live room will feature up-to-the-minute lighting and sound.Brooklyn Made’s building, at 428 Troutman Street, has been a subject of local mystery for years. Lila Barth for The New York TimesNow it will host a private apartment for artists.Lila Barth for The New York TimesAnd ample space for performers to rest, before and after shows.Lila Barth for The New York TimesKelly Winrich, of the Americana band Delta Spirit, is Makes’s partner in Brooklyn Made. He said the club’s hospitality for artists — four green rooms, along with the pool and apartment — will help it stand out to musicians whose touring life can otherwise be a blur of undistinguished black-box spaces.“Some venues know how to do it right; some don’t,” Winrich said. “When they do it right, it makes a world of difference for an artist coming through.”Money makes a difference too. The club has already developed a reputation among talent agents for aggressive offers. Makes said that in many cases Brooklyn Made will pay artists virtually the entire face value of tickets, an arrangement more common among superstar tours than in the razor-thin margins of the club business.Anthony Makes, left, and Kelly Winrich, are partners in Brooklyn Made. “Some venues know how to do it right; some don’t,” Winrich said. Lila Barth for The New York Times“We are basically giving them the gross of the ticket sales,” Makes said, which he called “unheard-of in this modern era of doing business.”Makes, 52, who set up his promotion company last year, is the former president of Live Nation’s New York office, and he has also worked at the Bowery Presents, which is half-owned by AEG. Brooklyn Made will now compete with those companies for bookings.Irving Plaza, a rock venue since 1978 — and where one person died in a 2016 shooting during a T.I. concert — has gotten a major face-lift inside, with new bars, new bathrooms and improved sight lines. Its rough-around-the-edges vibe was always part of its charm, but Margaret Holmes, the general manager of the club, which is owned by Live Nation, said the changes will only improve the fan experience.“It still feels like a rock club to me,” Holmes said, where fans will be “up close to the stage, close to your favorite artists.” She added: “But it just feels nicer.”The renovated Irving Plaza in Manhattan.Halkin/Mason PhotographyIrving Plaza will return Aug. 17 with the country singer Ashley McBryde. Other shows include Noah Cyrus (Aug. 27), Ben Folds (Sept. 12) and the rapper J.I. (Sept. 16). In a sign of just how hard it is for midsize venues to secure unique bookings, the alt-rock stalwarts Guided by Voices will play both Irving Plaza (Sept. 10) and Brooklyn Made (Dec. 31).Brooklyn Made’s building, at 428 Troutman Street, has been a subject of local mystery for years. A former warehouse, it was purchased in 2011 by Charlie Kaim, the proprietor of the Maracuja bar in Williamsburg. Kaim spent eight years renovating the Troutman building, intending to create a venue called the Bushwick House of Music.Last year, as the pandemic hit, a frustrated Kaim decided to sell. “Time for some young blood in there,” he said in an interview.Winrich’s family bought the building in November for $9.4 million; in a separate transaction early last year, Winrich also took over Maracuja.Makes and Winrich, 37, will operate Brooklyn Made through their partnership. Brooklyn Made Presents, their promotion company, also books the United Palace in Manhattan and CMAC, an amphitheater in Canandaigua, N.Y.Like some venues in New York, Brooklyn Made is waiting to open its doors until pandemic restrictions are eased and it can operate at full capacity; Makes and Winrich expect that to be in the fall, if not before. But just in case a full reopening takes longer than expected, they say they are well financed and can wait.“We’ll be ready to go and the world is ready to go,” Makes said, “no matter how long that takes.” More