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

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

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      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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      Stephen Colbert Returns to ‘Late Show’ Stage Before Vaccinated Fans

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      In a sign of life going back to normal, a capacity crowd at the Ed Sullivan Theater — face masks optional — roared for the highest-rated late night host.There was a hug for the bandleader, Jon Batiste, without any need for social distancing. There were chants of “Ste-phen! Ste-phen! Ste-phen!” And a standing ovation that lasted a minute and a half.“So how ya been?” Stephen Colbert said to a roar of laughter from a crowd of more than 420 people — all vaccinated, most of them maskless — at the Ed Sullivan Theater in Midtown Manhattan.The CBS late night host was back in his element on Monday, connecting with a capacity crowd 460 days after the coronavirus pandemic had emptied the theater where he has worked since 2015. He was reveling in the moment.“I am proud to say that we are the first show back up on Broadway,” Mr. Colbert said, adding a profane taunt of “The Lion King.”The return to the stage of late night’s highest-rated host was one of the clearest signs yet, in television and in New York cultural life, that things were starting to get back to normal.During an interview in his office last week, Mr. Colbert sounded eager to get back in the spotlight. “I’m like a dog who’s got his head out the window and can smell that we’re near the farm,” he said. “I’m ready to be out of the cage.”There were 213 audience-less episodes of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” broadcasts that came with off-camera chuckles from his executive producer, Chris Licht, and his wife, Evie, in place of big laughs from a packed hall. The usually buttoned-up host ditched his suit and grew out his hair.The remote version started in March 2020, when Mr. Colbert returned to TV with a surprise monologue from a bubble bath at his home. In recent months, he has put on the show from a retrofitted supply closet above the Ed Sullivan Theater.During an episode last week, he appeared to have had enough of the small-scale version. He broke away from his monologue to complain about Mr. Licht’s hovering presence — “I can’t escape him!” — and other annoyances of lockdown television production. The rant was filled with bleeped-out words and ended with him shaking a fist at the heavens and crying, “What you got, old man? Is that all you got? Give it to me — I can take it!”Describing the screed, Mr. Licht said in an interview that the host had “kind of lost his mind.” Mr. Colbert likened the on-air moment to an “emotional breakdown.”He started pushing for a return on March 18, the day he taped a sketch backstage, surrounded by staff members. It was, in Mr. Colbert’s telling, a lot of fun to be with his colleagues in the building again. He summoned Mr. Licht.“That’s when I said to Chris, ‘It’s really important we get back,’” Mr. Colbert said.He continued: “I think we’ve done the show the best we can in this isolated circumstance. I think the best way to do the show now is to find a way to get back in front of the audience, because it feels more honest to the national experience right now.”Jon Stewart was a guest on Monday night’s “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”Scott Kowalchyk/CBSMr. Colbert set strict conditions for the return: There would be a full studio audience; there would be no mask requirement; and there would be no social distancing between him and Mr. Batiste.“We made a conscious decision that really was following his lead as a performer, which was, ‘I don’t want to go halfsies back into that room,’” Mr. Licht said.For three months the host regularly nudged his producer on how close he was to standing face to face with an audience again. “At the end of every day, I would say: ‘Chris, so what’s the answer? I mean, the answer can be no, but I just want an answer,’” Mr. Colbert said.Mr. Licht worked with ViacomCBS to get the necessary clearances. By mid-May, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lifted indoor regulations for mask use among vaccinated people, the show was well on its way to a return. Approval from New York State came May 22, Mr. Licht said.After Mr. Colbert announced, three weeks ago, that he would soon be back onstage, others followed suit, including Bruce Springsteen, who said his “Springsteen on Broadway” show would return to the St. James Theater on June 26. Mr. Colbert’s NBC rival, Jimmy Fallon, welcomed back a full audience of just under 200 people for “The Tonight Show” last week, though attendees have been required to wear masks in his 30 Rockefeller Plaza studio.The Ed Sullivan Theater, built in 1927, has hosted a number of dramatic moments in broadcast and New York history, including landmark performances by Elvis Presley and the Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” and David Letterman’s return to broadcasting six days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.It was restored to its former glory after CBS bought the building, for $4 million, as the venue for Mr. Letterman’s program in 1993. When Mr. Colbert succeeded him in 2015, the network refurbished it anew at a cost of $18 million. Until Monday, the last “Late Show” broadcast from its stage took place March 12, 2020, when the host delivered his lines to empty seats.Mr. Licht said he was concerned about finding enough people willing to show up for the Monday taping so soon after pandemic restrictions had been lifted, a worry that proved unfounded. Twenty minutes after tickets were made available online, the show had received 20,000 requests, the producer said.The vast majority of those who saw the return had their masks on their laps or in their pockets. There was even the sound of scattered coughing, and no one seemed shaken up by it.Mr. Colbert with Evie, his wife, at the end of his monologue. Scott Kowalchyk/CBSAs Mr. Colbert wrapped up his monologue, he brought out Evie, his wife, who became a mainstay of the show during his remote broadcasts. “Audience, he’s all yours now,” she said. “Don’t forget to laugh, because he really needs it.”Mr. Colbert then did a remote interview with the comedian Dana Carvey, who offered his impersonation of President Biden, before welcoming his former “Daily Show” colleague Jon Stewart to the guest chair.“Can I lick these people?” Mr. Stewart said, looking at the packed house.To close the show, Mr. Batiste performed a new song of his with his band, Stay Human, and a group of gospel singers. Mr. Colbert joined everyone else onstage and danced.The song was called “Freedom.” More

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      It’s Outside, but Shakespeare in the Park Still Plans Social Distancing

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      The free, beloved summer tradition will enjoy an extended run, but currently plans very limited capacity, with masks required.One of New York City’s hottest tickets is about to get even harder to get: When Shakespeare in the Park returns to the Delacorte Theater this summer after losing a year to the pandemic, it plans to sharply limit capacity in order to follow state guidelines, officials announced on Thursday.The 1,800-seat theater currently plans to allow only 428 attendees for each performance of “Merry Wives,” the intermission-free adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” being put on by the Public Theater; it says it must do so under the state’s current, but rapidly-shifting, rules. But there will be more performances: The show will run three weeks longer than originally scheduled, through Sept. 18 rather than Aug. 28.In a news release, officials said the capacity limit was put in place because of the need for social distancing. They said all theatergoers over age 2 would be required to wear a mask and either provide proof of full vaccination or a recent negative Covid test to attend.The decision to significantly limit the size of the audience stands in contrast to some other New York venues that have gotten permission to reopen to bigger crowds. Radio City Music Hall, for instance, plans to reopen this month to a full, indoor house of maskless, vaccinated ticket holders. Broadway shows have started ticket sales for what will be full-capacity performances, some of which will begin in mid-September. And on the other side of the country, the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles has decided to start selling all 18,000 of its seats.It is possible that the limits could be eased before opening night. A spokeswoman for the Public said Thursday that New York health and safety protocols for small and medium-sized performing arts spaces still require six feet of social distance between patrons. She said the theater would await updated guidance from the state and would adapt its policies as needed. More

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      Stephen Colbert’s late-night show will resume filming soon before a vaccinated live audience.

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      Stephen Colbert’s late-night talk show will return to filming in front of a studio audience on June 14, CBS said on Monday.About 400 audience members will be allowed in the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway in Manhattan, provided they can show proof of vaccination against the coronavirus, such as through the Excelsior Pass issued by New York State or an original physical vaccination card from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There will be no capacity restrictions, and masks will be optional.CBS said that staff and crew members will be tested for the virus before starting work and will be screened daily for symptoms, monitored by a Covid-19 compliance officer. The network said the plan comports with New York State guidelines.The show’s changes will come just a few months before Broadway shows are expected to return, and about a month after baseball stadiums in New York began designating separate seating sections for people who have been vaccinated and those who have not.Last week Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo relaxed the state’s capacity restrictions, allowing businesses to serve as many patrons as they like as long as there is enough space for people to adequately socially distance. He also ended the mask mandate for vaccinated people indoors and outdoors, though individual businesses are allowed to have stricter mask policies.The pandemic put a stop to many late-night talk shows for a time in mid-March 2020, when New York and Los Angeles, where many of them are produced, introduced strict social distancing and quarantine guidelines.Since then, the shows have had to get creative, interviewing guests by video conference and filming in empty studios or from the hosts’ homes, with family members sometimes serving on the crew.When Mr. Colbert began doing his show from home, the first episode had him delivering the monologue from his bathtub. At the time, Mr. Colbert and the network changed the name from “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” to “A Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” to reflect the show’s straitened circumstances. The name will return to normal once the audience returns.A screengrab from the first episode shot at home.CBS“Over the last 437 days, my staff and crew (and family!) have amazed me with their professionalism and creativity as we made shows for an audience we couldn’t see or hear,” Mr. Colbert said in a statement included in CBS’s announcement on Monday. “I look forward to once again doing shows for an audience I can smell and touch.”The show resumed studio production in August 2020, using a small set in the Ed Sullivan Theater, a far cry from Mr. Colbert’s normal setting. Of the 205 episodes shot without a live audience so far, 16 have been broadcast live, including an impromptu reaction to the Jan. 6 Capitol assault.During a recent interview on “Fresh Air,” Mr. Colbert said that working without an audience created challenges that only a crowd could ameliorate.“I’m much more likely to mess up and have to retake something, lose the rhythm of a joke, or even just misread the prompter without an audience there, because there’s some vital performance adrenaline spark that’s missing that the audience provides,” Mr. Colbert said. “And so my wife and my kids have seen me absolutely shank monologues over and over again. And it’s very humbling for them to realize that I’m not that good at this.” More

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      Testing, One, Two. Fans Flock to an Experimental Indoor Rock Concert.

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      An organizer said this Barcelona event, one of several planned in Europe, was “a small but important step toward normality.” The listeners there basked in being part of an audience again.BARCELONA, Spain — Mireia Serret, a 21-year old student at the University of Barcelona, said that she was not a big fan of the band that played here on Saturday, nor does she normally like large crowds.Nevertheless, Serret had snapped up one of the 5,000 tickets to Europe’s biggest indoor rock concert since the start of the pandemic because “it had just been too long since I was last able to dance and have fun at a concert.”Organized by a group of Spanish music promoters as part of an initiative called “Festivals for Safe Culture,” the concert in the Palau de Sant Jordi was presented as Europe’s boldest effort to get thousands into an indoor venue, without seating or mandatory social distancing. The sole act was Love of Lesbian, a Spanish indie rock band, which formed before Serret was born. “For me, this isn’t about whether I really like their music, but about being able to feel and live their music, right next to so many other people,” Serret said.The sole act was Love of Lesbian, a Spanish indie rock band.Albert Gea/ReutersTrial concert or festival events have been held in several European countries, including in Germany and the Netherlands, as part of efforts to allow crowds to form again to see live music. The British government will also run a series of test events next month, including one at a nightclub in Liverpool, also without requiring social distancing.Europe’s famed summer music festivals, which draw tens of thousands of fans to open outdoor spaces, are in doubt this year despite the tests. Several major festivals have already canceled their June lineups, including Rock am Ring at the Nürburgring racetrack in Germany and Sonar festival in Barcelona. Sonar’s management pushed their flagship festival to 2022 and is planning two smaller events in October. Still, Roskilde, Denmark’s biggest, hopes to go on in June with acts including the rapper Kendrick Lamar. The Danish government said last week that it aims to restart pop concerts from May 6 onward with the help of a “corona passport” that will allow people to show their status of vaccination, proof of recent negative tests for the virus or documentation they have recovered from Covid-19.At a time when countries like France and Italy have recently put their residents back under lockdown to help stop another wave of infection, the people behind the Barcelona event said their goal was to look ahead.Albert Gea/ReutersLluis Gene/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOne of the organizers, Ventura Barba, the executive director of the Sonar festival, said in an interview that Saturday’s concert was “a small but important step toward normality.” Barba forecast that the Barcelona concert would break even, but he stressed that it was “not a commercial project,” nor could it be replicated for festivals that operate over several days and with other financial constraints. Ticket sales accounted for 36 percent of the Barcelona concert’s budget of about €250,000, with 30 percent covered by public authorities, 24 percent from private sponsors and 10 percent from the promoters themselves.A hospital team helped test the concertgoers for Covid-19 before the event, using as their model a smaller concert last December in another Barcelona venue, the Sala Apolo. At the Apolo, the audience of 500 people was tested before the show, as well as another 500 people who acted as a control group, and everybody got tested again eight days later. The Apolo’s concertgoers all tested negative, while two people in the control group tested positive, according to Josep Maria Llibre, a specialist in infectious diseases from the Germans Trias i Pujol hospital northeast of Barcelona who is also monitoring the Palau concert.Ahead of Saturday’s concert, six people tested positive, according to the organizers. However, the medical team is using neither a control group nor postconcert testing, relying instead on public medical records to track whether any concertgoers will later get Covid-19.Dr. Llibre said the decision was made both for financial and practical reasons. He acknowledged in an interview that the tracking method used Saturday would be less accurate than that used at the Apolo, but he argued it could still help show that a safely-organized concert “is not a super-spreading event,” contrary to what some might presume. “In the case of concerts, there has been very little or no data, but it has been empirically assumed that it is a very high risk to have people dancing together,” he said.The Palau can welcome 17,000 people, but the 5,000 ticketholders were not allowed into its stands and instead were kept divided within three areas of the dance floor, while having to wear FFP2 face masks (the European standard) provided by the organizers.Healthcare workers prepare to collect swab samples from concertgoers before the show.Albert Gea/ReutersOn Saturday, some concertgoers said they felt fully reassured by the safety protocols, but a few others said they had briefly hesitated before going.“If I had not been vaccinated already, I really would have thought twice about coming here,” said Cristina Delgado, a doctor. But Ana, her sister, who was also vaccinated because she works in health care, felt differently. “I was going to come whatever, because I want to save culture and return us to normal life,” she said.Inés Villasuso, a 24-year old nurse, also said that “it would have been better to get everybody tested again later, to have scientific evidence that can really convince the authorities that such a big event can be held safely.” But she and her twin sister, Eva, agreed that the concert outstripped their expectations. “It felt like living a total dream,” Eva said.In an interview before the concert, Julián Saldarriaga, a member of Love of Lesbian, said that the band’s decision to perform had received very broad support, but also generated “some criticism, from people who have called us irresponsible or who say that we only care about money.” But for his band, he said, “we really saw this as an opportunity to take part in the recovery of culture.”Rather than featuring a supporting act, the concert was preceded by a series of videos about Covid-19, shown on the big stage screen and interspersed with hits from the distant past — like “Come Together” and “Here Comes the Sun,” by The Beatles — whose themes warmed up the crowd.To comply with the safety protocols, on Saturday, concertgoers visited one of three smaller Barcelona music venues to get a rapid antigen test for Covid-19. The cost was included in the €23 ticket price.Christiana Guldager, a photographer, said that she cried before her test at the Razzmatazz nightclub. “I’ve been dancing so often in that place that it made me feel very emotional to find it instead converted into a mini-hospital,” she said.Santi Balmes, the lead singer, invited the crowd to deliver the chorus of a song. Lluis Gene/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesLater that night in the Palau, emotions also ran high. The dance floor was lit up by cellphones as well as white face masks. When Santi Balmes, the lead singer, invited the crowd to deliver the chorus of a song, he got a powerful response. “Woohoo, you still remember how to sing!” Balmes shouted back. As he brought the concert to a close, Balmes told the crowd, “the band is not important: What is important is the experience and the experience is incredible.”Pablo García, 27, an illustrator, agreed. “Of course I never stopped listening to music, but you really need to be at a concert to feel the bass right inside your heart.”Alex Marshall contributed reporting from London. More

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      Coming to Broadway: Vaccinations for New York’s Theater Workers

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      Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the city would create a vaccination site for theater workers to try to help Broadway shows reopen by the fall.Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York said on Thursday that the city plans to open a Covid-19 vaccination site on Broadway, as well as a mobile vaccination unit and pop-up sites specifically for theater industry workers.Jeenah Moon/ReutersMayor Bill de Blasio announced on Thursday that the city plans to create a coronavirus vaccination site on Broadway that will be reserved for theater industry workers, promising to dedicate city resources to help Broadway theaters reopen for live performances in the fall.At a news conference, Mr. de Blasio said that in addition to the Broadway vaccination site, there would be a mobile vaccination unit to serve theater workers beyond Broadway. The sites will be staffed by theater workers, many of whom have been relying on unemployment insurance since Broadway shut down over a year ago.“This is going to be a year to turn things around,” Mr. de Blasio said. “It’s time to raise the curtain and bring Broadway back.”TIMES EVENT On April 29, subscribers can explore Australia’s theater reopening and lessons for Broadway, with conversations and songs from “Moulin Rouge!,” “Frozen,” “Come From Away” and more.The city’s plans will not change the state’s rules around vaccine eligibility, which currently allow residents older than 50 to sign up for shots, as well as those in certain job categories and with certain health conditions. Mr. de Blasio said that the sites would be set up over the next four weeks or so and that vaccination eligibility is expected to be much more broad by then.“We want to get the Broadway community involved, and the Off Broadway community, in vaccinating their own folks, by definition a very high percentage of whom are eligible right now,” he said. “We also know that in just a matter of four or five weeks, at latest, everyone will be eligible. I won’t be surprised if that even is sooner.”There will also be pop-up coronavirus testing sites located at or nearby Broadway and Off Broadway theaters to make sure that there is ample testing available as the theater industry tries to get back on its feet. The city will be assisting Broadway theaters in developing plans to manage crowds as they flow in and out of venues.This month, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that arts, entertainment and events venues can reopen April 2 at 33 percent capacity, with a limit of 100 people indoors or 200 people outdoors, and higher limits if patrons show they have tested negative for the coronavirus. But Broadway producers say it is not economically feasible to run commercial productions at reduced capacity, and although there are likely to be some special events inside theaters this spring and summer, full-scale plays and musicals are not likely to open until after Labor Day.In the months leading up to a full revival, there will be a period of preparation needed to mount plays and musicals, including rehearsals and stage maintenance, which will involve actors and stagehands returning to work in close quarters. That period will require ample testing accessibility, Mr. de Blasio said.Mr. de Blasio urged the state to create clear guidelines for the theater industry around mask usage, as well as on how audience members can prove they were vaccinated or received a negative coronavirus test result before a performance. He did not mention a similar effort for other performing arts workers outside the theater industry. The mayor’s office said that once eligibility rules are expanded, this newly announced vaccination site would not turn away workers in the performing arts industry who are outside the theater sector.Some public officials are anxious about the revival of arts and entertainment next week and are calling for more caution. On Wednesday, Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, urged Mr. Cuomo in a news conference to hold off on the planned reopenings — which will include theaters, music venues and comedy clubs — citing his concern for the spread of the virus variants. New York and New Jersey currently have the highest per capita rates of Covid-19 cases in the country, averaging 39 and 47 new cases per 100,000 people in the last week, respectively.“We have to scale back the rush to reopen,” Mr. Williams said. “One of the side effects of rushing to reopening is that it makes people feel safe to start doing things again.”Mr. de Blasio was joined at the virtual news conference by two Broadway performers, André De Shields, a Tony winner for “Hadestown,” and Telly Leung, whose roles have included starring in “Aladdin.” Both of them welcomed the mayor’s support.“We’re ready, we’ve stayed in shape, our voices are strong,” Mr. De Shields said. “All we need is a stage.”Mr. Leung said reopening would require safety measures for performers and audience members.“This pandemic has hit our industry particularly hard,” he said. “We all have a long way to go as a community, but I really do think that today is a really good first step in our healing.”The Broadway League, which represents theater owners and producers, and Actors’ Equity, the labor union representing 51,000 stage actors and stage managers around the country, welcomed the mayor’s announcement. The union, which has barred its members from working in all but a few dozen productions before live audiences during the past year, has been eager to see its members vaccinated to make the return to the stage safer.Mary McColl, the union’s executive director, said in a statement that the mayor understood that theater workers could not socially distance, making testing and vaccine availability “critical for maintaining a safe workplace.”“Our community has suffered catastrophic losses,” the Broadway League said in a statement, “and the sooner we can return to share our stories in a safe and secure way, the better our city will be.” More

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      Cuomo Outlines Plans to Revive Arts and Culture Industries

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Covid-19 VaccinesVaccine QuestionsRollout by StateBiden’s PlansHow 9 Vaccines WorkAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCuomo Outlines Plans to ‘Bring Arts and Culture Back to Life’Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said that New York urgently needs to bring the arts back — not only to help jobless artists, but to make sure that New York City survives.“New York City is not New York without Broadway,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Tuesday in unveiling plans for the arts. Theaters have been closed since March because of the pandemic.Credit…Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesJan. 12, 2021Updated 4:46 p.m. ETDeclaring that New York urgently needs to revive its arts and entertainment industry if it is to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Tuesday that the state would begin taking a series of interim steps to help to bring back some cultural events in the short term and put more unemployed artists back to work.“We must bring arts and culture back to life,” Mr. Cuomo said as he continued a weeklong series of policy addresses outlining his agenda for the state.The governor said that bringing back art and culture was crucial — not just to help artists, who have suffered some of the worst unemployment in the nation, but to keep New York City a vital, exciting center where people will want to live and work.“Cities are, by definition, centers of energy, entertainment, theater and cuisine,” Mr. Cuomo said, noting the threats the city is facing from the rise in remote work, crime and homelessness. “Without that activity and attraction, cities lose much of their appeal. What is a city without social, cultural and creative synergies? New York City is not New York without Broadway.”Mr. Cuomo said that the state would begin a public-private partnership to offer a series of statewide pop-up concerts featuring artists such as Amy Schumer, Chris Rock, Renée Fleming and Hugh Jackman; begin a pilot program exploring how socially distant performances might be held safely in flexible venues whose seating is not fixed; and work in partnership with the Mellon Foundation to distribute grants to put more than 1,000 artists back to work and provide money to community arts groups.The governor said that the state could not wait until summer, when more people are vaccinated, to bring back performances.The public-private partnership, New York Arts Revival, which will offer pop-up performances featuring more than 150 artists beginning Feb. 4, will be spearheaded by the producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal, along with the New York State Council on the Arts. The plan will culminate with the opening of Little Island, the parklike pier being built downtown in the Hudson River by Barry Diller, and with the Tribeca Film Festival, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary in June..css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-1sjr751{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1sjr751 a:hover{border-bottom:1px solid #dcdcdc;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-k59gj9{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;width:100%;}.css-1e2usoh{font-family:inherit;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;border-top:1px solid #ccc;padding:10px 0px 10px 0px;background-color:#fff;}.css-1jz6h6z{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.5rem;text-align:left;}.css-1t412wb{box-sizing:border-box;margin:8px 15px 0px 15px;cursor:pointer;}.css-hhzar2{-webkit-transition:-webkit-transform ease 0.5s;-webkit-transition:transform ease 0.5s;transition:transform ease 0.5s;}.css-t54hv4{-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-1r2j9qz{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-e1ipqs{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.5rem;padding:0px 30px 0px 0px;}.css-e1ipqs a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-e1ipqs a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1o76pdf{visibility:show;height:100%;padding-bottom:20px;}.css-1sw9s96{visibility:hidden;height:0px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1prex18{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;font-family:’nyt-franklin’,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;text-align:left;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1prex18{padding:20px;}}.css-1prex18:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}Covid-19 Vaccines ›Answers to Your Vaccine QuestionsWhile the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary by state, most will likely put medical workers and residents of long-term care facilities first. If you want to understand how this decision is getting made, this article will help.Life will return to normal only when society as a whole gains enough protection against the coronavirus. Once countries authorize a vaccine, they’ll only be able to vaccinate a few percent of their citizens at most in the first couple months. The unvaccinated majority will still remain vulnerable to getting infected. A growing number of coronavirus vaccines are showing robust protection against becoming sick. But it’s also possible for people to spread the virus without even knowing they’re infected because they experience only mild symptoms or none at all. Scientists don’t yet know if the vaccines also block the transmission of the coronavirus. So for the time being, even vaccinated people will need to wear masks, avoid indoor crowds, and so on. Once enough people get vaccinated, it will become very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people to infect. Depending on how quickly we as a society achieve that goal, life might start approaching something like normal by the fall 2021.Yes, but not forever. The two vaccines that will potentially get authorized this month clearly protect people from getting sick with Covid-19. But the clinical trials that delivered these results were not designed to determine whether vaccinated people could still spread the coronavirus without developing symptoms. That remains a possibility. We know that people who are naturally infected by the coronavirus can spread it while they’re not experiencing any cough or other symptoms. Researchers will be intensely studying this question as the vaccines roll out. In the meantime, even vaccinated people will need to think of themselves as possible spreaders.The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is delivered as a shot in the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection won’t be any different from ones you’ve gotten before. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines, and none of them have reported any serious health problems. But some of them have felt short-lived discomfort, including aches and flu-like symptoms that typically last a day. It’s possible that people may need to plan to take a day off work or school after the second shot. While these experiences aren’t pleasant, they are a good sign: they are the result of your own immune system encountering the vaccine and mounting a potent response that will provide long-lasting immunity.No. The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer use a genetic molecule to prime the immune system. That molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse to a cell, allowing the molecule to slip in. The cell uses the mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus, which can stimulate the immune system. At any moment, each of our cells may contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules, which they produce in order to make proteins of their own. Once those proteins are made, our cells then shred the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules our cells make can only survive a matter of minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is engineered to withstand the cell’s enzymes a bit longer, so that the cells can make extra virus proteins and prompt a stronger immune response. But the mRNA can only last for a few days at most before they are destroyed.Mr. Cuomo said that he hoped to expand rapid testing, including at pop-up sites, to make it easier for people to be tested before visiting restaurants or theaters in areas with low-enough rates of the virus. He pointed to the state’s experiment last Saturday at the Buffalo Bills game, when the state tested nearly 7,000 fans.There have been problems with rapid testing. While rapid testing machines are portable, and can swiftly provide results, many are not considered as reliable as other tests in people without symptoms. The White House had relied on rapid testing to keep President Trump and his inner circle safe by requiring all White House visitors to take the test, even though that was not the way the test was intended to be used.New York reported at least 196 new coronavirus deaths and 14,179 new cases on Monday, and the rate of positive tests continues to increase.Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the United States, told performing arts professionals at a virtual conference on Saturday that he believed theaters could reopen sometime this fall with relatively few restrictions if the vaccination program was a success, though he suggested audiences might still be required to wear masks for some time.“By the time we get to the early to mid-fall, you can have people feeling safe performing onstage as well as people in the audience,” Dr. Fauci said.But vaccine distribution in the United States is behind schedule, and public health officials have struggled to administer the vaccine to hospital workers and at-risk older Americans.Mr. Cuomo said that New York could not wait for enough people to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity before taking steps to revive its performing arts scene.“We’re looking at months of shutdowns,” he said. “We need to begin to act now. We can’t float along letting pain, hardship and inequality grow around us.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More