Broadway continues recovery 3 years after COVID shutdown
NEW YORK -- Sunday marks three years since Broadway shut down for nearly 18 months because of the pandemic.
When the first shows reopened, the determination and resilience proved to be remarkable.
Today, Times Square pulses with crowds caught up in the glow of building-sized posters and videos advertising Broadway shows, but three years ago, it was empty -- a ghost town.
"It like, OK, are we going to get on the other side? Luckily we did," said Diane Nicoletti, co-founder of the Museum of Broadway on West 45th Street.
The museum keeps pace with recent and arriving shows.
"We actually got artifacts from 'The Music Man.' We also have the Usher hat from 'Strange Loop,' a costume from 'Beetlejuice,'" Nicoletti said.
This season brings 37 shows, 17 in spring alone, with a total of 15 musicals. That's back to the industry standard, says Charlotte St. Martin, the president of the Broadway League.
"We're not back to full capacity. We're at about 88 percent," St. Martin said.
Back at the Museum of Broadway, they do not gloss over the shutdown.
One section of the sprawling museum has a timeline showing photos from new shows that opened each year. The column for 2020 is largely blank with an explanation of Broadway's shutdown caused by the pandemic.
"What the pandemic made us do was stop and take assessment of the theater," said actor Brandon J. Dirden, who recently appeared in the Broadway revival of "Take Me Out." "This idea of EDI -- equity, diversity, inclusion -- rose to the forefront ... So I have every reason to be optimistic."
But Dirden says there is still much work to be done.
A fellow actor who agrees is Michael Patrick Thornton, who was in the most recent Broadway revival of "Macbeth" and is currently in the revival of "A Doll's House."
Thornton uses a wheelchair.
"Disabled people are still the largest minority and the least represented on TV, film and stage, and so we have a long way to go," he said.
The key word is support, says theatrical producer and co-founder of the Museum of Broadway Julie Boardman.
"We have postcards so people can say, 'I live in X city and state and the arts are important to me because...' And we actually mail them out to members of Congress," she said.
She says so much talent keeps Broadway going and going and growing.