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On the Scene: âSpringsteen on Broadwayâ đžMichael 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
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 nationâs 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.âWe knew we needed a big move,â said MatiÌas 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. âThe only way forward is collaboration.âFacing severe shortfalls, cultural groups across the country are looking for ways to streamline operations and establish new sources of revenue. American orchestras, including Philadelphiaâs, are particularly vulnerable after years of rising costs.The Philadelphia Orchestra, one of the nationâs best ensembles, has struggled financially. Its music director, Yannick NĂ©zet-SĂ©guin, 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 NĂ©zet-SĂ©guin, 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 countryâs 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 orchestraâs $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 orchestraâs 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.âWhen the pandemic hit, every single earned revenue line was gone,â Ewers said. âI realized that our philanthropic base was not as deep and as broad as it needed to be.âThe orchestra has called Verizon Hall, one of three venues at the Kimmel Center, its home since the centerâs 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.âItâs about seizing those opportunities rather than watching them go by,â 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 orchestraâs 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.âMany people tell us there needs to be more of this kind of collaborative effort,â she said. âIâm hoping that we inspire that.â More
LONDON â Andrew Lloyd Webber last week promised to open his musical âCinderellaâ in Londonâs West End on June 25 â even if it were illegal to do so.âWe are going to open come hell or high water,â he told The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper. If Britainâs government tried to stop him because of rising coronavirus cases, he had one response, he added: âWe will say: Come to the theater and arrest us.âNow, Mr. Lloyd Webber, 73, has his chance to go to prison â although he doesnât 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 â 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.âI think itâs sensible to wait just a little bit longer,â 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 âthousands of jobs hanging in the balance,â 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 Englandâs 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.âItâs really, really frustrating,â Cameron Leslie, one of Fabricâs 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. âYou can only be pushed and tested so far before our entire sector canât respond anymore,â Leslie added.Stuart Glen, the founder of The Cause, another London club, said in a telephone interview that the delay would cost him âhundred of thousandsâ of pounds and force him to rearrange 40 events. Heâd had enough, he said. âI think everyone should riot if July doesnât happen,â he said. âThey canât control people like this,â he added.âItâs so devastating for so many people,â 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 âCinderellaâ â which has a 34-strong cast and is already weeks into rehearsals â are financially unviable in half-full theaters.For those hoping to attend the opening ofâCinderella,â it was still unclear if the show would go on.âWeâre working hard behind the scenes to make sure everyone gets to the ball,â the showâs producers said in a statement posted on Twitter. More
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. âThe only thing that hasnât changed is the smell,â Dolan said with affection.Dolan calls himself âprobably the only New Yorker who would ever say they love Times Square.â Itâs 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 TimesHeâs also probably one of the few people who can tell you the story of the actor who appeared in 9,382 performances of âThe Phantom of the Opera,â 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 â including this newspaper, which gave Times Square its name â tracking its history from Oscar Hammerstein I to âHamilton.â Dolan is also behind one of Times Squareâs latter-day landmarks and photo ops, currently stashed away: a typographical jumble of the letters of âBroadwayâ near a pedestrian plaza, which looks good on Instagram.Last year, when the Great White Way went dark, Dolanâs 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. âEven the Naked Cowboy,â he said. âI felt like I saw literal tumbleweeds roll down 44th Street.âA pre-pandemic poster for âSing Street,â which was supposed to start previews at the Lyceum Theater in March 2020. Amy Lombard for The New York TimesâHamiltonâ will resume performances on Sept. 14 at the Richard Rodgers Theater on West 46th Street.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesA poster for âMJ the Musical,â 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. âSo much of it is reading the audience, engaging with the audience, picking up on what theyâre most interested in,â Dolan said. âItâs hard to do that in a webinar.âVisitors joined Dolan for a recent âShubert Brothers and Beyondâ 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. âWe would definitely be seeing a show a night,â said Carrie Mershon, a visitor from Kansas who was taking the tour. She had booked the familyâs 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. âThis fills the void a little bit.âAt 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 âFolliesâ 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 âEvitaâ? 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 âArsenic and Old Lace,â and said he had booked a show in Michigan before the pandemic struck.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesHe has an actorâs knack for the emotional overshare too, pointing out his ex-girlfriend in a photo of the original âHamiltonâ cast. âSheâs with Daveed Diggs now,â one of the younger members of the tour group said, matter-of-factly.âI am aware!â Dolan replied.He moved to the city in 2003 to train at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. After graduation, he performed in âAltar Boyzâ for two years, and then felt the pressure to get what many in the profession call a âsurvival job.â Heâs still not a fan of the term. âI didnât want to just get by. I wanted another job that was just as fulfilling as when Iâm onstage or in an audition room.âRealizing 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 thatâs currently on pause.Dolanâs 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. âWe lament the loss of the old, while loving the new,â he told the group while his âShubert Brothers and Beyondâ 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 TimesâYou can have commerce, and art, and a safe neighborhood all at the same time,â Dolan told me. âIf youâre looking for the nostalgia amid the âDisneyification,â you just have to know where to look. Wanting to find the old among the new is part of why I started this.âDolan 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. âI donât think itâs in September, when we just have a couple of shows open. I think itâs once we hit maybe December, and thereâs a handful of shows, and thereâs the yellow Playbills in a sea of people in Times Square. Maybe less masks too. I donât think New York City will fully be reopened until that moment happens.âTim Dolan calls himself âprobably the only New Yorker who would ever say they love Times Square.âAmy Lombard for The New York TimesBefore that, Dolan has a date, on Sept. 14, with the Gershwin Theater â where âSweeney Toddâ had its premiere in 1979 and âStarlight Expressâ opened in 1987 â for the return of the musical âWicked.ââIâll be the grown man in the last row, crying.â More
After more than two months of occupation by arts workers, the OdĂ©on Theater returned to business with a prepandemic production that feels out of step with the current moment.PARIS â When the OdĂ©on Theater reopened to audiences here with a staging of âThe Glass Menagerieâ 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: âReopening: The Great Comedy.âInside 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 â the return of cultural life â 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 OdĂ©onâs occupiers moved to a friendlier Paris venue, the Centquatre.While watching âThe Glass Menagerie,â though, it was hard to forget them. The OdĂ©on didnât 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 driverâs seat, âThe Glass Menagerieâ 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 âThe Glass Menagerie.âJan 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, Amandaâs absent husband, who abandoned the family years before.The playâs characters are appropriately miserable in that dĂ©cor, 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, Amandaâs fragile daughter, is left alone with Jim, her old high-school crush. Cyril GueĂŻ makes a kind, gentle Jim, and van Hoveâs choice of a Black actor for the role reinforces the racial dynamics implicit in Amandaâs rose-tinted vision of the Old South. GueĂŻâs connection with Justine Bacheletâs 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: Barbaraâs 1970 âLâAigle Noirâ (âThe Black Eagleâ), about a traumatic childhood memory that feels exactly right for Lauraâs 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 Ă La Folie Theater, the actress and director Laetitia Lebacq debuted a rare production of Jean-Paul Sartreâs 1946 play, âThe Respectful Whore,â which is set, like âThe Glass Menagerie,â in the American South.Laetitia Lebacq and Bertrand Skol in âThe Respectful Whore,â directed by Lebacq at the tiny Ă La Folie Theater.Instant en suspendWhile Sartre wrote a number of plays, they have mostly fallen out of fashion on the French stage. Itâs a shame, because âThe Respectful Whore,â 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 â 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 Sartreâs character development.As summer nears, some venues have also turned to alfresco theater to draw audiences. At the ThĂ©Ăątre de la TempĂȘte, Thomas Quillardet brought two shows adapted from movies by the Nouvelle Vague filmmaker Ăric Rohmer. He was renowned for the quality of his dialogue, and both âWhere Hearts Meetâ (inspired by two films, 1984âs âFull Moon in Parisâ and 1986âs âThe Green Rayâ) and âThe Tree, the Mayor and the Mediathequeâ flow and fizz like good champagne.Florent Cheippe and Anne-Laure Tondu in âWhere Hearts Meet,â directed by Thomas Quillardet at the ThĂ©Ăątre de la TempĂȘte.Pierre GrosboisâThe Tree, the Mayor and the Mediatheque,â 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 â three decades before Covid-19 made that a widespread necessity.Plays like this are a reminder of what weâve 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 OdĂ©on, 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 Franceâs working class had attended a theater performance in the previous year. The audience for prestige productions such as van Hoveâs âGlass Menagerie,â 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? Itâs not the social revolution protesters were gunning for, but it might have been a start.From left, Nans Laborde JourdĂ a, Florent Cheippe, Malvina PlĂ©gat and ClĂ©mentine Baert in âThe Tree, the Mayor and the Mediathequeâ at the ThĂ©Ăątre de la TempĂȘte.Pierre GrosboisThe Glass Menagerie. Directed by Ivo van Hove. OdĂ©on â ThĂ©Ăątre de lâEurope. Further performances planned in Tokyo, Athens and Amsterdam from September through November.The Respectful Whore. Directed by Laetitia Lebacq. A La Folie ThĂ©Ăątre, through June 20.Where Hearts Meet / The Tree, the Mayor and the Mediatheque. Directed by Thomas Quillardet. ThĂ©Ăątre de la TempĂȘte, through June 20. More
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, Teerâs 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 theaterâs work.Sade Lythcott, the theaterâs 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 TimesâShe saw it as the next piece of this temple to Black liberation, which is ownership,â said Lythcott, the theaterâs chief executive. âOwnership would allow the real estate to subsidize the art, which was a model that would disrupt the standard practice of nonprofit theater funding.âThe 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.âWhat weâre building today really has been informed in all ways by this blueprint that Dr. Teer put into place starting in 1968,â Lythcott said. âIt feels like what our community of Black artists and the community of Harlem deserve.âTo 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 Theaterâs 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 Zhukovaâs past.On Martin Luther Kingâs Birthday in 2014, an online fashion magazine published a photo of Zhukova sitting on a chair â designed by the Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard â 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, âas it took the artwork totally out of its intended context.âLythcott learned of this photo just before she met Zhukova for dinner for the first time â 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 wasnât fazed by it, she said, because it was clear all that Zhukova had learned from the incident.âPerhaps that chair was the best thing that ever happened to Dasha,â Lythcott said, âbecause it was catalytic in expanding the lens by which she sees the world.âIn an email, Zhukova said that she was âdeeply sorryâ for the photo and said that it had started her on a âjourney of continued learning and education.ââI am so grateful that Sade sees the person I am trying to be on my continued journey toward personal growth,â 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 âamenities will include health and wellness programming.âThe development project is more than a decade in the making, with several false starts. Lythcott and her brother â Michael Lythcott, who is the chair of the National Black Theaterâs board â see it as a realization of their motherâs dream, while recognizing that she might not have taken some of the paths they chose.âShe never would have partnered with someone like Ray; she never would have had financing from Goldman Sachs,â 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 âecosystem by which Black people in particular are full-throated, full-voiced, fully rooted in their own liberation,â 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 Theaterâs 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.âIn the wake of this pandemic,â said Jonathan McCrory, National Black Theaterâs executive artistic director, âthereâs going to be a kind of psychic grief that is going to need to have a healing center.â More
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 clubâs 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.âI believe in the future, and I think everyoneâs going to come back,â 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 â 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) â 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 Madeâs 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 Makesâs partner in Brooklyn Made. He said the clubâs hospitality for artists â four green rooms, along with the pool and apartment â will help it stand out to musicians whose touring life can otherwise be a blur of undistinguished black-box spaces.âSome venues know how to do it right; some donât,â Winrich said. âWhen they do it right, it makes a world of difference for an artist coming through.âMoney 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. âSome venues know how to do it right; some donât,â Winrich said. Lila Barth for The New York TimesâWe are basically giving them the gross of the ticket sales,â Makes said, which he called âunheard-of in this modern era of doing business.âMakes, 52, who set up his promotion company last year, is the former president of Live Nationâs 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 â and where one person died in a 2016 shooting during a T.I. concert â 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.âIt still feels like a rock club to me,â Holmes said, where fans will be âup close to the stage, close to your favorite artists.â She added: âBut it just feels nicer.âThe 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 Madeâs 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. âTime for some young blood in there,â he said in an interview.Winrichâs 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.âWeâll be ready to go and the world is ready to go,â Makes said, âno matter how long that takes.â More
Shakespeareâs Globe survived Elizabethan plagues. Todayâs version got through the coronavirus pandemic, but tough times lie ahead.LONDON â At the Globe theater in London one recent Thursday was a sight Shakespeare could have related to: 11 actors larking about onstage rehearsing âA Midsummer Nightâs Dreamâ while beneath them stood the director Sean Holmes, looking furious.âListen please, everyone,â Holmes said. âCan we do the scene again, even if itâs a bit of a car crash?âEveryone stopped joking and got into place. Then Peter Bourke, playing the fairy king Oberon, started singing: âNow until the break of day, through this house each fairy stray.â Soon, the rest of the cast took over, and everyone crept offstage through two huge doors, getting quieter and quieter, as if trying to lull onlookers to sleep with their song.The performance was perfect. But Holmes didnât look happy. That dayâs rehearsal, he said, wasnât about the onstage action, but ensuring the 11 actors could get off, change costumes quickly in a small backstage area, then get back on, all while staying two meters (about six and a half feet) apart to maintain social distancing.If they got it wrong, heâd have to do it again, and again, until they found a solution.âItâs been the hardest thing,â Holmes said. âI think it finally broke me today.âWhen the coronavirus pandemic shut Britainâs theaters last March, Shakespeareâs Globe, as it is officially known, might have been the one institution expected to survive.An audience member being checked before admission into âA Midsummer Nightâs Dream.âAdama Jalloh for The New York TimesItâs one of the worldâs iconic theaters, with supporters worldwide drawn to the idea of a modern recreation of Shakespeareâs stomping ground on the banks of the Thames, complete with a thatched roof open to the elements.In Shakespeareâs time, his Globe was repeatedly closed as the plague hit London, especially between 1603 and 1613, though the Bard kept writing even during the closures. If the original Globe survived that, surely its updated version could manage Covid-19?But within weeks of coronavirus hitting Britain, the Globe â heavily reliant on tourism (17 percent of its audience are international tourists, many American) and without the public subsidy that goes to venues like Britainâs National Theater â was losing 2 million pounds, about $2.8 million, a month.The 180 freelance actors and crew who were on its books at the time, some in the final days of rehearsing a new âRomeo and Juliet,â had to be let go, Neil Constable, the theaterâs chief executive, said in a telephone interview. He also had to furlough 85 percent of his permanent staff, meaning the British government paid most of their wages. On top of that, he canceled a multimillion-dollar refurbishment project.Even with those moves, Constable was soon having to consider mothballing the theater entirely. âWeâd have had to shut to 2023,â he said.In May, he submitted a document to British politicians pleading for emergency funding. Without it, âwe will not be able to survive this crisis,â it said. That would be âa tragedy for the arts, for the legacy of Englandâs most famous writer, but also for the country.âThe news made headlines, including in The New York Times. A few weeks later, Oliver Dowden, Britainâs culture minister, went to the Globe to announce a $2 billion arts bailout package. The government eventually gave the theater almost ÂŁ6 million, about $8.5 million, of that money.That didnât stop need for further cost saving, Constable said. Staff took salary cuts, up to 50 percent.But the bailout money did mean one thing: The theater could finally reopen this month, if only to a socially distanced audience of 400, rather than the normal 1,600. Audience members would also not be allowed to become âgroundlings,â the term for people who stand in the pit beneath the stage, like normal. Instead theyâd have to sit on shiny metal outdoor chairs.The âMidsummer Nightâs Dreamâ production features Mardi Gras-style music.Adama Jalloh for The New York TimesâIt doesnât make financial sense to do this, but itâs important,â Constable said. âItâs what weâre here for.â He hoped British tourists would make up for the shortfall of international visitors.At the rehearsal, Holmes â who is also the Globeâs associate artistic director â said the theater had decided to reopen with a revival of his 2019 production of âMidsummerâ precisely because it was cheaper than doing a new show.The onstage social distancing was also as much for financial as health reasons, he said. Under the British governmentâs rules, if one person gets ill in a theater, everyone theyâve been in close contact with also has to isolate, so keeping people apart prevents that. âWe have to protect the show,â he said, adding itâd be âincredibly damaging financiallyâ if they had to pull it.A play about mistaken lovers turned out to be surprisingly easy to stage in the age of distancing. âThereâs passion and extremity in the language,â Holmes said, âso you donât need as much physical action.âHe still had to make some changes. In one scene, four of the playâs many lovers fall asleep in a wood. In 2019, they did so âpiled on top of each other,â Holmes said. Now, they each got a corner of the stage to themselves (one lover, Lysander, gets a blowup mattress at one point, much to his lover Hermiaâs annoyance).A scooter driven by Titania waits for its moment in âA Midsummer Nightâs Dream.âAdama Jalloh for The New York TimesThe biggest challenges all involved keeping people apart offstage. At one point in the rehearsal, Holmes went through a scene where the actors run onstage â all playing the fairy Puck â then fire blow darts at one another. Shona Babayemi kept missing her cue.âIs there a reason youâre always late?â Holmes asked. âThere were, like, seven, eight people in the way,â Babayemi replied. âOh, God,â Holmes said. âSorry!âLast Wednesday night, Holmes and the cast were back at the Globe for their first performance in 14 months.The mood in the lines outside was ecstatic, despite London being cold and damp even by the standards of a British summer. There were groups of drama students waiting to get in, as well as a fishing society and a mother and daughter celebrating a birthday.None were foreign tourists, but several attendees said they had traveled over an hour to get there, suggesting the Globe may not have to worry too much about attracting people from outside London.âIâve got six tickets already for this year,â said Peter Lloyd, 61, whoâd journeyed from Brighton on Englandâs south coast. âItâs the only authentic Elizabethan theater in the country, it feels so close to Shakespeareâs time,â he added. Was he OK with distancing in the plays? âOh, I didnât know about that,â he said, worried. âAre they wearing masks, too?âShona Babayemi, who portrays Helena, awaits her entrance in the show.Adama Jalloh for The New York TimesInside, the eager atmosphere didnât let up, helped by Holmesâs carnivalesque staging of the play â with Day-Glo costumes and a band playing almost constant Mardi Gras-style music. At one point, Titania, the fairy queen, wove in and out of the audience on a scooter (the cast pulled up masks sewn into their costumes whenever offstage). A bemused-looking audience member was even roped into the play, made to read out lines and ride on an exercise bike (it helped power the production), much to his partnerâs apparent amusement.The Globe depends heavily on international tourists.Adama Jalloh for The New York TimesOn the few occasions that coronavirus rules intruded into the staging, the cast played the scene for laughs. When two characters had to stab themselves with the same knife, the actor playing Flute pulled an antiseptic wipe from his sock, then cleaned the blade, before plunging it into his chest.The play ran without an intermission â another effort to reduce risk â but few people left to use the bathroom or buy a drink. When it finished, to cheers, about 30 audience members even stayed behind, forming a polite queue to take selfies on the ramp leading up to the stage.Holmes stood nearby, watching. He looked as annoyed as during rehearsals. âThatâs clearly just my resting face,â he said, with a laugh.âItâs just great weâre back and people are hungry for it,â he added. âWe canât sustain at this level of audience by any means,â he said of the theater being only a quarter full, âbut Iâm feeling optimistic.âThen, without the frown disappearing, he headed toward the crew, to find out if the distancing had worked as planned, after all. More
