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Today’s column is from Frank Scheck, a critic and journalist for The New York Post and The Hollywood Reporter who formerly edited STAGES magazine.
Things seem very chilly on Broadway these days, and it’s not just because of the frigid temperatures. The business seemed to be getting back on track after it went into an historic year-and-a-half hibernation due to the pandemic. The majority of people, at least the sane ones, were getting vaccinated, and a strict policy of requiring inoculation proof and mask wearing for attendees helped reassure theatergoers that they weren’t risking their lives to watch chandeliers falling, Wicked witches melting and Founding Fathers rapping. All things considered, business was pretty good, not great, with the percentage of seats sold routinely above the 80 percent mark.
(One caveat: the Broadway League, breaking with longtime precedent, declined to release weekly box-office numbers for individual shows, meaning that a handful of hits including Hamilton, Wicked, Moulin Rouge and The Lion King could be carrying the industry.)
And then came omicron. Suddenly one show after another cancelled performances or closed permanently due to widespread infections among cast and crews. Healthy understudies and swings (fill-ins for chorus and dancing) were inevitably in short supply, resulting in some performances having to be canceled even after patrons had been seated. It’s not a good advertisement for theatergoing when not just one but both stars of the most anticipated production of the season had to announce that they had Covid. One imagines the ad: “Come see The Music Man, and you too can self-quarantine just like Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster!”
The winter, normally the slowest time of the year on Broadway under any circumstances, looks even bleaker. Seeing the writing on the wall, several productions (Jagged Little Pill, Waitress, Ain’t Too Proud) have already thrown in the towel, even though they had been expected to run much longer.
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