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[upbeat music]
♪ Start spreading the news
♪ I'm leaving today
♪ I want to be a part of it
♪ New York, New York
♪ These vagabond shoes
♪ Are longing to stray
♪ We'll make a brand new start of it ♪
♪ In old New York
♪ If we can make it there
♪ We'll make it anywhere
♪ It's up to you
♪ New York, New York
- [Actor] Come to New York, and let's go on with the show!
[siren ringing]
- I'm being interviewed and I know you don't care.
Thank you.
I'm very grateful to be working on Broadway.
It's one of the best jobs that you can actually have.
Some of the cast members and some of the fans
viewed me as Broadway's best stage doorman.
As you can see on our board here,
just to let you know who's running the Broadhurst here.
So if you ever wanted to know
what my little office looks like.
Got the monitor, TV,
you know, and of course we're under the stairs,
so I don't have much head room, you know.
So this is the Broadhurst stage door,
my home away from home,
where I spend six days a week and oodles of hours at.
Broadway shut down March 12th.
I think I got sick the following week.
- We all had a sense that things
were happening very, very quickly,
and there was so much fear in the air.
[upbeat music]
- And I heard the stirrings,
this virus taking hold of the country.
And I told the cast, be careful.
Take care of yourselves.
[emotional music]
- You could feel the walls closing in,
and the sense of fear that was
taking over the city and Broadway.
- It was almost like the AIDS pandemic,
where we didn't know what it was,
and so we didn't know if it was in the building.
We didn't know if it was airborne.
We didn't know if it was saliva.
- It was all that anybody could talk about.
- We were all shocked, stunned.
- Then I thought we might need
to really take a break for sure.
[tense music]
- We heard a rumor that an usher
at the booth had contracted the virus.
And we thought, well,
that's right next door.
- I actually first heard about
the coronavirus through the theater.
Ironically enough,
I was working 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?',
and by the time I heard about it, it was too late.
I started feeling this weakness,
and it was just,
I just remember walking and, hmm,
that - I don't like the way that felt,
and in my mind,
because of years of my ancestors self diagnosing,
and you know, we have to heal ourselves,
I was like, I'm gonna get pneumonia.
[coughing quickly]
Dry cough, see there.
And I said, okay,
I'll just finish out the week,
get to the weekend, you know,
and then I'm gonna go to the emergency room,
and let them handle it.
- People in the cast were getting sick, one by one.
And we were all like, oh,
you know, this is weird!
And then it got worse and it got worse.
- Then my entire life was kind of flipped upside down.
- I remember walking through the streets
and just seeing people in a panic.
And I said to my partner,
I don't think that this is gonna last very long,
where we're gonna have a job anymore.
- I just had to sit there in a quarantine room.
All they could do is tell me, we don't know what's going on.
We don't know how to deal with this.
People were hitting me up that were in the theater
that knew about the usher on Broadway has coronavirus,
but everyone else didn't.
It was traumatic.
I didn't want people to know about that.
And the way they made it,
it was like I was wearing a scarlet letter.
I was infecting people.
- [Newsreader] The move to cancel all Broadway performances
comes a day after Broadway's two largest theater chains
revealed that a part-time usher and security guard
who worked at two theaters in recent days
tested positive for COVID-19.
- I was just working against the headwinds,
not really sure when they were gonna blow me down.
[tense music]
We were opening on the 12th at 6:30 in the evening.
On that morning, I came in,
was here so that all our partners, and friends,
and cast members could pick up tickets, pick up gifts.
It was very exciting.
But I also was feeling a bit of a bell jar over all of us.
This night might not happen.
Yeah, okay.
Thank you.
And I, sure enough,
I got a call from the League
of American Theaters and Producers,
who basically are the trade organization
for all the producers and theater operators.
- [Producer] Okay, do you need your backpack for anything?
- To reduce the number of people
in a contagious environment,
no gathering with 500 people or more.
- He was going to close Broadway for a month.
There's gonna be no red carpet, there's gonna be nothing.
So as soon as we got the Governor's announcement
and we all agreed we were shuttering Broadway,
I then ran over to 43rd Street,
basically made the announcement.
You have to leave the theater by five.
- Canceling a show is unheard of on Broadway.
You know, you just don't do it.
The show must go on.
[emotional music]
- So to think that, you know,
shows were gonna be closed for an entire month was,
yeah, mind boggling.
- I was crossing stage left to stage right
with the ghost light on,
and then I said goodbye to my life in the theater.
And I had a breakdown.
This has been my life.
- It all has been threaded with despair,
grief, and loss,
and pain,
and patience you don't have.
- It was quite devastating,
because I knew that this year was going to probably be
one of my busiest years in theater,
bar none.
- [Miranda] Yeah.
So we have a big work call,
then rehearsal for anything that happens today.
- I had to process what that means,
not only not to have any work,
but also not to have this immense opportunity.
- Let's see, my last day pre pandemic,
I was at work on March 12th.
I was here to get my suit ready,
and do some last minute things for opening night.
That was the night that "Six"
was scheduled to open on Broadway.
I was here fixing my shoes.
Had my shoes ready to go.
And I couldn't stop coughing, I couldn't breathe.
I ended up being isolated.
I was hospitalized for a week.
And then by the time I came out of that,
my business had been shut down,
my industry had gone away, and my employees were laid off.
- We've got the sign that everybody likes.
- [Camerawoman] I love it.
- Before Covid, we were rocking and rolling.
We were shut down on a Thursday,
and we had about 10 pickups that night,
which is about normal.
But every Broadway theater was full at that point,
so that Sunday night,
we should have had, I believe it was 30 plus pickups.
And so we went from rocking and rolling,
to instant, like nothing going on here at all.
And my help showed up on Monday morning and was like, what?
You know, what are we supposed to do?
Almost everything that you can think of, we've cleaned.
When it was closing, I think we pretty much
had every production that was on Broadway that was running.
We sat down as a team,
and about half the staff chose to not be here,
some of it out of fear because of Covid,
but it kind of naturally worked its way out
that the other half have chosen to do
some sort of production with us.
And you know, were trying to keep
the doors open till Broadway returns.
[upbeat music]
- When the pandemic started,
we just had these nights together.
Greetings from my quarantine.
Hope all is well in your world.
- [Eric] Do we have any little extension cords?
- To cook together, and to,
it seems silly, but even just go to bed at the same time.
You know, I'm getting home from shows usually at 11 or 12,
and he was already asleep.
Oh my gosh.
Does the heartbeat sound good?
- [Doctor] Beautiful.
- Is it moving?
They always say there's no good time to have a baby,
but I actually think it was the perfect time for us.
It definitely looked different than a normal pregnancy
not getting to have Eric there
with me because of Covid protocols.
That was difficult.
He's a pilot,
and the aviation industry is actually something
that got hit pretty hard during the pandemic as well.
So it was interesting both being in industries
where we had to step back and be like,
what's happening now, what do we do now?
I didn't think it was possible
for them to shut down Broadway.
I didn't think that was something that could even happen.
You know, doing something eight times a week,
you know, it's your entire existence,
being in that theater essentially.
And so I think I found really early on
in the pandemic myself being like,
Alexa, play Broadway show tunes.
Right?
She's probably gonna start doing it now.
And there she goes.
Alexa, stop.
♪ Let us be glad
♪ Let us be grateful
♪ Let us rejoicify that goodness could subdue ♪
♪ The wicked workings of you-know-who ♪
[piano music]
[tense music]
- Right before Covid hit,
I was in the Broadway show "Frozen".
I started showing symptoms.
I didn't really think anything of it.
I - It was just so off of my radar that I'd have Covid,
and then two days later I started
having like, a lot of breathing problems,
and that's when I went and got tested.
I was scared, but I just thought,
well, you know,
they're saying it's like the flu, so I'll be fine.
Well, at first I was just kind of experiencing, like extreme fatigue,
and then it got to the point
where I had to think to breathe,
and I could never take a full breath.
I felt like I was dying, 'cause I couldn't get enough air.
The breathing was the most
terrifying thing I've ever experienced.
And I just kind of physically and then mentally
just coached myself to inhale and exhale every single day,
24 hours a day,
so I wouldn't have to go into the hospital.
'Cause at that point, like,
who knows, you know?
I was just constantly in a state of, I'm gonna die.
'Cause I saved them, these are the note cards that I had,
you know, kind of taped all around the room
when I would get up in the morning.
Like this one says, get up,
it wants to keep you down.
And this one says, don't worry,
trust God, don't give up.
Yeah, there was just little notes that I needed
when I woke up in the morning,
because if I would just lay in bed and spiral,
and my anxiety would go crazy,
and I would just wonder if I was
ever gonna make it through this.
[upbeat music]
♪ If I take my best companion
♪ Drive him right in the canyon ♪
♪ Tain't nobody's business if I do ♪
- Nick was one of the most loved people I've ever met.
Every time I would walk down the street with him,
he was like, hey,
how you doing?
You know, like just full of excitement,
and full of life.
- Yum, yum, yum.
- We all knew, like right away,
when he went into the hospital that things weren't great.
- And a really sad update here.
Former "Waitress" on Broadway star Nick Cordero
has been hospitalized and is in intensive care,
according to his wife Amanda Kloots.
- He is struggling.
Just every minute counts right now.
- It turned into Nick is unconscious,
and Nick lost his leg.
It was just surreal.
- [Newsreader] So Kloots is encouraging others
to sing their support for her husband.
His co-stars.
- We love you Nick!
- We gotta wake him up.
We gotta wake him up,
and so I think that if he hears his song,
if he hears his music.
So just put on Nick's song "Live Your Life"
and just blast it in your house,
and play it loud, and dance with your family.
- Nobody would've ever imagined,
even when he lost his leg and things started,
like, that's gonna suck for Nick.
But he'll make it, he'll figure it out.
♪ Live life
- He's still gonna be, you know,
just doing his thing.
And he's gonna beat this. He's gonna-
We got this, Nick.
We got this.
- [Newsreader] Nick Cordero has died
after a long battle with Coronavirus,
his wife Amanda Kloots announcing that he passed away
this morning while surrounded by his family.
- [Presenter] After more than three months in the ICU,
he lost the fight.
- When he passed, I just was like,
just in shock.
And I literally sat down,
and "Lucky Straight" just came outta me.
It was like a divine intervention.
I feel like he was with me in that moment, in a weird way.
♪ We flew across the stage on a Saturday night ♪
♪ I couldn't keep my eyes off how your face looked light ♪
And certainly the song that I wrote for Nick
was a major gift that came to me in that time,
and I think was very helpful to me
to heal some of that heartache,
and also share it with Amanda,
and especially our "Waitress" family that loved him so much,
and trying to help send some light his way,
and Amanda's way, and Elvis' way.
♪ Story of my lucky straight
[tense music]
- Broadway had shut down and we left the next morning.
I felt a great sense of relief for
the companies working on my various shows.
My husband is a, was a lung cancer survivor.
And I remember thinking this is
something we have to worry about.
My husband and I decided to get out
of New York as quickly as we could.
I wanted to protect him.
And then a week later, he was gone.
- [Newsreader] This afternoon,
81 year old legendary playwright Terrence McNally
died from complications of the virus.
- We've lost a great New Yorker,
the great playwright Terrence McNally.
- I'm one of the lucky ones,
'cause I got to be with my husband when he died.
It was really early in the pandemic.
And...
You know,
I was in my hazard suit and I left the room.
We took him off a ventilator.
He knew I was there.
He squeezed my hand and made sure I knew.
But I was devastated.
Just devastated.
I mean, Terrence and I fought our whole lives.
We were on the front lines
of the marriage equality movement.
He wrote so much about AIDS,
and really chronicled a pandemic.
So the sort of irony that a pandemic
would take his life was - is not lost on me.
- I didn't really know like, hey,
I have, you know,
the coronavirus.
I just thought that I, you know,
I either had the flu or something like that.
My mother was the strongest woman I know.
It wasn't until the coronavirus hit her that it just,
whatever strength she had,
it sapped every bit of strength out of her.
It kind of hit me.
I was questioning whether or not I got my mother sick.
My mother was living in an adult care facility.
I put my mom on FaceTime.
That was the last time I saw my mom,
via a cell phone screen.
So I was going through a real deep depression.
Didn't care to take care of myself.
I just didn't care.
I've been a diabetic for easily 20 years,
and my foot kept ballooning up.
I came into the hospital, I guess on a Wednesday.
Thursday, the doctor told me that.
He goes, listen,
the infection was into the bone of your foot.
You have a choice.
You could be alive and live with one foot,
or you can be dead in a casket with two feet.
Which do you prefer?
- That's for Sunday nights, okay?
Okay, do you have that?
Did you wash your hands?
Thank you.
My main concern at the time was saving our home.
For half a minute, we were packing up and we were moving,
we were gonna sell the house
and try to live in my sister's basement.
I love my sister, but,
you know, that just was,
with four kids we were like, I just - no,
I don't think so.
- I think we'll make a salad.
- [Little Child] Dad, make a salad.
Salad's are great.
- It's gonna be great.
You can put ranch dressing in dip.
- Okay.
- It was just watching the bills come in,
trying to care for my family, get everybody in homeschool,
learn fourth grade math, which is absurd,
and continue to keep the kids safe, and home,
and try to take care of us
in an industry that was evaporated.
And...
It was delightful.
What more can I say?
- Jazzy, Jazzy.
What else do you need?
- We were gonna move back to New York
and be fabulous theater people,
and get an apartment in Manhattan.
And he would have his career as a costume maker,
and I would pursue a directing career for the stage.
But we got a call about a little girl
who was living in a group home,
and she needed a permanent home
and she was almost two years old.
- She immediately tagged me as the weak one,
crawled into my lap,
started playing with my beard, and pulling at my nose,
and kissy facing and all that stuff.
And it was over.
[emotional chest]
She laid on my chest,
and it was just like this perfect day of just nothingness,
and then we went nuts.
- [Brian] They called again, and they had another infant.
- Clap your hands, clap your hands.
- [Brian] And then we brought in another baby.
We ended up with four children.
[children singing]
They've all been officially adopted.
- I don't wanna throw up again.
- Okay, so eat slow.
- It's gonna be a long time because--
- They'll never know.
- I did zero times zero.
- [Brian] What is zero times zero?
- 100?
- We were homeschooling,
and while trying to figure out
how we were gonna save our home,
figuring out how we were gonna help our employees
figure out a way to survive the pandemic.
And we're gonna support our
sisters as they learn new things.
- If I could rate my experience right now,
and do like a Yelp review for America,
I would give it one star.
One star.
And I would write the words, would not recommend.
Would not recommend.
- Everybody in world need to be watching this.
The world please watch this!
- [Crowd] [chanting] I can't breathe.
- I don't have to explain racism anymore.
It's happening in real time.
- [Crowd] [chanting] Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter.
- Coronavirus, Covid is a truth serum,
and it's gonna reveal to you be the person you really are.
And right now, Broadway has to see what it really is.
These things can and need to get better,
and now people are standing up for themselves.
The world is changing and we have momentum.
- Supporting and eliminating racist,
ableist, and misogynistic behavior,
we will lose that foothold.
- I don't want to come out of this
the same person that I went into it as.
So to figure out what that change needed to be,
for me, so that I'm not repeating that lesson.
I'm not - I don't have to tell that story again
until I learn it next time.
- The year during Covid really gave me a pause to reflect.
And I think the most important thing that happened
was the way in which many of us
responded to the death of George Floyd.
- [Newsreader] For some workers
in the now shuttered theater industry,
they say the time is ripe for a major reset
when the curtains rise once more
on stages in New York and across the country.
- I hope that that's the byproduct of this downtime,
and that the last year and a half
hasn't been sustained virtue signaling,
but actually is about fundamental systemic change.
- It's been painful, it's been fraught,
it's been difficult.
You know, it's given us time for true introspection.
It's also allowed us to interrogate our practices.
- It's been horrific in one sense,
and yet eye opening in another,
because it gave us all the chance
to stop and really gather your thoughts,
gather your intention, your desires.
And I'm a silhouette,
'cause the light is coming straight down.
You don't see my face.
And then I do, Manny was better to me than my own mother!
She treat everybody like they're people.
Took me out the gutter.
And you just see my body and the voices.
And then I walk straight down in the dark.
You don't see my face until the bottom
of the stage and the lights come up,
and then I'm heard.
We've had time to think and reassess how we do business.
Broadway.
It's - first of all, it's a business.
It also is a playground for some very powerful,
wealthy white people who invented it,
who made Broadway.
And they want to control it continually,
and be comfortable in it.
Unfortunately for them,
people who have been ignored, neglected,
but yet utilized to the advantage of Broadway are saying,
no mas, not that same way.
We don't want to come back to Broadway
and just be waiting to be asked to do the dance.
No, we wanna dance ourselves to our own tune,
to our own music.
It's different to sit at the table,
but if the table's not yours,
after you finish sitting in the middle to serve,
you have to leave.
So I don't want to sit at the table.
I want to have a piece of the table.
- So I'm a playwright in residence at the Signature.
I was gonna use this opportunity to invite
a group of younger theater makers
to animate the entire Signature Theater.
Here, it felt like it was a safe space.
And so I think that that's why we came up
with the notion of "The Watering Hole".
And we thought it's kind of like
the watering hole in the Savannah,
where you have all of these animals who for five,
10 minutes are able to come and be together,
and feel safe.
And once everything's back up and running,
I think it's really easy to go back to the default.
And so we have to put systems in place
that won't permit that to happen.
So during this past year,
what I personally was able to do is to sort of reflect
on the way in which I want to return to theater,
and to reflect on my own complicity
in the way in which I was treated
and others were treated in theater,
and figure out how can we make it more diverse?
How can we make it more reflective of the theater
that we as a multicultural universe want?
I thought if we're gonna come back,
we have to disrupt that entire system.
We can't accept that that's the way
in which it's going to be made.
- There is work to be done.
Are we being equitable?
And is it diverse enough?
And is it inclusive enough?
Figuring out ways to change an industry that we love,
but we aren't happy with the way that it's run.
- A lot of people think that theater,
while it is a very happy,
open, welcoming community,
it is not void of any systems of oppression,
because it is related to capitalism.
It is related to supremacy and hierarchy.
- The world is screaming in all the ways,
and we can no longer pretend that we don't hear it.
If we don't move forward, I don't know what would happen.
So that is the only choice.
- [Lynn] Coming out of Covid,
we're going to really need our storytellers
to be present and to reflect back on what has happened,
and also to help shape what I feel
needs to be a much better world.
Inclusion is really not just
about putting diversity on stage.
Does this entire theatrical ecosystem really support
the way in which BIPOC people want to tell their stories?
[sirens ringing]
- Being in New York City during the pandemic,
it was a town I didn't recognize.
Scary at times,
and isolating and lonely.
- With theater, everything is based on our working.
So a lot of people ran out of insurance,
because they didn't have work weeks,
so you start looking at everything else as, like,
if I get sick, and I don't have insurance,
and I don't really have a job,
what are we all gonna do?
- This is having a devastating impact for actors,
producers, stage hands and theater workers,
which impacts nearly 100,000 workers.
- Think about the external economy,
the restaurants, and the hotels.
I mean, that's nearly a $15 billion industry.
- We're still calculating the loss that's going to happen.
I can't tell you how many people
left the theater to pay their rent,
and are not coming back.
So that's like a story that's still being written,
and I'm terrified about it.
- When the shutdown happened,
I literally had to figure out,
you know, where I was gonna go back to.
I had gone back to Toronto,
and I wasn't interested in music, really.
I had no desire to sing,
create anything.
It was rough.
- It was a shock to the system how quickly,
how easily, and how fragile this business can be.
- [Newsreader] Nearly 100,000 workers rely
on Broadway for their livelihoods,
but the Pandemic has killed the lights on Broadway,
and will stay dark until 2021.
- After the months continued to compile,
and I was like, I'm not relieved.
I'm scared.
I'm afraid right now, what's gonna happen?
- [Reporter] John Kristiansen and Brian Blythe
run a costume shop in New York,
and founded the Costume Industry Coalition,
raising funds to help support
hundreds of fellow costume makers,
specialty vendors, and other industry small businesses.
- Most people don't really see
how much there is that goes into what we do.
- We know that the entertainment
industry is going to return.
We just wanna ensure that we're still around when it does.
[emotional music]
- [Interviewer] Upfront now is Adam Perry,
a Broadway actor who tested positive
more than a 100 days ago.
How bad is it still?
- I mean it's quite terrifying, to be honest.
There's nothing like the feeling
of not being able to breathe.
- As a Broadway actor and a dancer,
it requires stamina and lung capacity to do your job.
Are you worried about getting
back into shape and being 100%?
- It's scary.
I mean, I've been been dancing and singing
on Broadway for the past 20 years,
and all of a sudden I just don't
have the capacity that I had anymore.
So I'm just trying to stay hopeful for the future
that they will get back to normal.
Right before Covid hit,
I was kind of already facing a crossroads in a way,
because I was 39, I was injured.
Doing eight shows a week had just gotten really hard.
I would just come home and I would have to ice,
and was just like in pain all the time.
Yeah, can I just do five stems?
Yeah, okay.
I don't think I would've been as successful
as I had been had I really accepted the fact
that I couldn't do it forever.
I just assumed that I would just keep dancing.
I mean, dancing has been my passion since I was,
could remember.
You know, I sacrificed everything to become a dancer.
- [Robbie] Literally never seen
so much lilac in my entire life.
I think that my favorite flower is a peony.
Pop in some peonies, maybe get some peonies.
- I always think you're saying penis.
- [Robbie] Oh well, not today.
- So last summer, Robbie called me and said,
hey, I'm starting a floral business.
Do you want to come and help me out?
- And so the whole motto of the business
is that it employs out of work performers
who have an affinity for florals.
So yeah, everybody who's involved with Boo-Kay,
from the website designer, to any assistant I have,
to any florist is a performer of some kind,
which is fun.
- I love it.
Working in the flowers was just like zen.
It brought me out of a deep,
dark depression that I was in from everything.
From getting sick and having this new sense of my mortality.
- We went to that lady's house,
and made two flanking arrangements
on the side of this gorgeous fireplace.
And it was like, felt like a performance of sorts.
Do you know what I mean?
We went - we had costumes, we got on these workman Dickies,
we came in with our, we're performers.
We love our costume, you know?
- I have a lot of love in my life,
and the theater community really
rallied around Terrence and me.
- Hi!
- Oh my God.
- We were just talking about you.
As President of the Lilly Awards,
it's our great pleasure to award you
with the very odd title of Miss Lilly.
- My God!
- Happy Lilly's to you!
There he is!
Miss Lilly!
- This is for your life of activism and advocacy
on the part of the LGBTQ community,
for your and Terrence's loyal support and encouragement
for the Lilly's and their activism for women in theater,
for producing the female led "Hadestown",
and Terrence's plays,
chocked full on roles for women,
for loving and caring for Terrence, 'cause we loved him too.
We crown you Tom Kirdahy, Miss Lilly 2020.
- [Crowd] Yay!
[laughs quickly]
- In a year of extraordinary pain and challenges,
it is a genuine blessing to share this with Terrance,
and to make sure that women's voices are heard
and celebrated on stages all across the globe.
And I wanna say thank you.
[crowd applauding]
[crowd cheering]
- Before the pandemic,
I played "Waitress" for about
almost four years at that point.
And I was ready for a change.
But then when the shutdown actually happened,
it was a real, like,
uh oh, what are we gonna do now?
Nothing, nothing.
So then everybody rushed to do something else,
to try and promote themselves,
or to try and make a living as an artist.
Hey, this is Meg Toohey.
I'm gonna be coming to you live on Thursday
for "Shut In and Sing" from Maplewood, New Jersey.
And you're just trying to do something
kind of rinky dinky outta your basement.
It's tough to compete.
I'd look over at the numbers and say,
oh, well,
last week I had 40 people, this week I have 10 people.
This week I have no - no one.
And you start judging yourself on that,
which is ridiculous.
And I'm just sitting there going, like,
I don't wanna, I don't wanna do any of this.
You know, my partner's working 24 hours
a day to try and keep her business afloat,
and support me, and support our kid,
and all these things were happening
that started shifting this like,
this would be a nice time to really
connect with myself again,
to like, who am I?
I really dug into to my own music at that point.
I thought like, well,
I may as well use this time to be creative.
- So I had been playing Glinda
on the national tour of "Wicked" for a few months
when Mary Kate came in as my Elphaba.
We loved working together so much on stage,
and dreamed about ways that that could continue.
So it was about one month into the pause,
we're on the phone, we're catching up,
we're kind of talking about our
various quarantine activities.
And she said,
I think it's time for us to start our teaching business.
So some people, you know,
invest lots and lots of money to pad their walls.
But all you really need is like a good jean jacket,
a leather jacket,
and then some of your husband's work shirts,
Mary Kate Morrissey,
we're about to start our very first class.
How are you feeling?
Ah!
We sort of put it out into the Instagram universe
and got almost a hundred auditions,
which was crazy.
There she goes!
Perfect, yes.
You guys look incredible.
Here's kind of how class is gonna go today.
We're gonna start with our icon interview.
And it just kept building, building,
building and, you know,
had kids join us from all over the world,
and all over the country.
- I'm Betty, I'm from the Philippines.
It's 1:22 AM.
- Did you feel like you had to be
really careful not to over project,
or over exert yourself, or hurt your voice,
like, doing things through a mask?
- Yeah.
And you guys know I was doing Janice,
so I was like, and you can't.
- It made musical theater feel more meaningful than ever,
sort of to create a place to sing,
and act, and dance,
and to have community in a time
where people were feeling so isolated.
♪ Now I know, don't be scared
♪ Brand new actions, be prepared ♪
♪ Because you've got an awfully long way to go ♪
- And then I know for me personally,
even teaching a music theater history class
and re-examining sort of my roots has made me
fall in love with musical theater all over again.
We just got back so much more than than we ever dreamed.
You better boo boo.
Can you guys believe it?
- It's the start of our last chapter.
- Week Nine! - Nuts.
- Really bonkers, it's gone by so quickly.
- It has.
- All right.
♪ Everybody dresses in clothes so fine ♪
♪ Everybody's pockets are weighted down ♪
♪ Everybody's sipping ambrosia wine ♪
♪ In a goldmine in Hadestown
♪ Way down in Hadestown
♪ Way down under the ground
- I'm here with Jewelle Blackman.
Jewelle is a singer, songwriter,
actor, playwright,
and violinist.
She has been in the Canadian companies of "Hadestown",
"The Lion King" and "Dream Girls".
And she made her Broadway debut in "Hadestown" as a Fate
How are you?
- I'm dealing as best with the situation,
like I'm sure everybody is.
Still strange.
Luckily have my son to keep me busy.
One of the beautiful things about this shutdown
is that I've been able to refocus on myself,
and my artistic value,
and my artistic creativity and curiosity.
And a program came up through a theater company
called Musical Stage Company,
and their focus was on BIPOC creators.
New storytellers who wanted to develop
new works in the musical field.
[rap music]
The creative process for "Boy Boy and the Magic Drum"
has been so fulfilling in the sense that
I'm tapping into a part of my culture,
my parents' culture,
and bringing it to musical theater.
I love Soca, and Calypso,
and Western Caribbean music.
And then mixing that with the art of musical theater
and putting it together on stage for children,
other children of color who may not see themselves
always represented in children's theater specifically.
And so it's been fulfilling in so many,
so many different aspects.
[relaxing music]
- When Covid hit,
I was in Long Island to be part of the Dino Squad
for "Jurassic World Live: The Tour".
They were like, oh,
audiences above 600 are banned,
and we were in a hockey stadium.
And then the show was canceled.
Not a day went by when I didn't get
a text message from my father,
who was like, are you sure you don't wanna be an engineer?
I didn't wanna give up.
I'm not gonna lose my shot.
I was able to remain on partial employment
with Roundabout Theater Company,
and for my personal projects,
I started to make a bunch of clothes out of garbage bags.
With the whole pandemic,
it was basically another summer for my childhood,
and I found ways to be creative and crafty again.
You know, just me cutting up garbage bags.
As per usual.
I am your garbage princess.
I'm wearing a garbage bag!
And basketball shorts underneath this.
You can't even see them.
Oh my god.
I could cry.
Girl, did you see this?
I just made this!
- I had two Facebook friends, fans of the show.
What they did was,
so they had set a GoFundMe page,
help support Broadway's Best Stage Doorman.
That actually was the headline for the GoFundMe page.
So those two ladies are my guardian angels.
We would be probably be decimated
in bills if it wasn't for them.
You can see who donated money,
and so I'm scrolling across the list of names,
the fans, the stage managers,
the actors, the dancers,
the musicians.
And I'm just overwhelmed with the amount of love
from the Broadway community for me.
'Cause I, you know,
I thought of myself as just a simple stage doorman.
I didn't think I was deserving
of so much love from the Broadway community.
- We miss you!
[crowd cheering]
Love you, Ernie! Ernie, I love you!
[emotional music]
[sirens ringing]
[phone ringing]
- Okay, good morning everyone.
Let's make some announcements.
Today, we have all really good news for New York.
Broadway tickets go on sale today
at 100% capacity for theaters.
The shows open September 14th.
That's a function of how Broadway operates, obviously.
- That's all we need
That's all we got.
Happy day, happy day.
All right, so we're pressing go
on that Toby and Lucy video.
Great.
- [Assistant] He's posting the video right now.
- [Lucy] Hi Queendom!
We are really excited to announce the date
of the first active presale of "Six" on Broadway.
- [Toby] The presale will begin this Thursday, May 6th!
- Yep.
- [Assistant] All right, it's live.
- As producers, we are deeply serious
about keeping everyone safe so that we can do what we do,
which is put on shows.
- This is a,
I'm collecting a saliva sample for a pooled PCR test.
It's of utmost importance that the protocols we have
for reopening include testing,
since many people who are vaccinated
don't experience any symptoms at all.
- I was still skeptical.
I'm still skeptical.
We're not out of this virus.
I know that there'll be Covid protocols,
but we're singing.
We're spitting.
Well, hopefully not spitting,
but there is a lot of saliva.
- [Blythe] If I have a really large musical where,
let's say, 200 of the samples come in one bag,
and the way that you have your operations,
could those be conveniently added into a pool
if it wasn't already up to 24?
- [Prem] What, for one company?
Oh absolutely.
As long as they have all the same company.
- [Lab Technician] Oh, the company barcode.
So the bar code's gonna have everything within there. Okay.
- Even right now, opening our theaters,
our productions, it leaves a lot of question marks.
We don't know what that means.
We just have to be vigilant,
and we have to be a little more determined,
and we have to be harder on each other.
- My first line of the show is,
it's good to see me, isn't it?
And I think it's gonna feel like a really big honor
to get to welcome audiences back to the Gershwin.
[Ginna singing]
So my preparations in the next couple months
look like getting back in shape in every way possible.
Physically,
vocally, mentally.
So I've jumped back into voice lessons
with my teacher Derek Rosenblatt,
getting ready to gear up and sing Glinda eight times a week.
- Really clean onset.
[singing]
- When I was in here a few weeks ago,
and he started playing the opening.
I was like, you're lying.
It's not that high.
You're playing jokes on me.
He's like, no,
no, no.
That's what's written.
- Anything you didn't like?
The issues for me have been you were singing
two the top instead of through the top,
so the energy wasn't expansive
all the way through the exercise.
- Yeah, if I could just have you
in an earpiece during the show.
- [Derek] Let's talk to Dan.
- [laughs quickly] Yeah, great.
[tense music]
- [Physiotherapist] Can you put it on?
- Yeah.
When I go back to work, you know,
you better come see my show.
- [Physiotherapist] Yeah.
- And I'll take you backstage
and I'll introduce you to everybody.
They'll love you,
because you're the one who got me able to go back to work.
Let's do it.
Okay, just a little bit nervous.
So far so good!
25 years ago I was in the Air Force ROTC,
and I had to run a mile in 12 minutes.
So to do 15 minutes, and do a mile with a prosthetic,
I think that's pretty damn good.
Hoo-wee!
[sighing quickly]
- I'm sorry, honey,
I didn't have time to bake.
- Aw honey, thank you very much.
♪ Happy birthday to you
♪ Happy birthday my hubby
♪ Happy Birthday to you
- [Maribel] Make a wish.
- [Ernie] Okay.
- [Maribel] Say Paris?
- [Eric] Paris?
That's right.
Paris, France.
Again.
- [Maribel] Again, yes.
- Pants, we're gonna take in a little bit,
just to give them some, you know what I mean?
He's gonna pinch him in a little bit?
- Just a tad more of a break, yeah.
Yeah.
- They feel very comfortable.
This is the fitting for "Lackawanna Blues",
for the actor in "Lackawanna Blues"
by Ruben Santiago-Hudson.
The writer, very nice guy.
Ruben Santiago-Hudson.
And the director is me, Ruben Santiago-Hudson.
That's what they call a split personality situation.
[upbeat music]
1956.
Lackawanna, New York.
Like all Great Lake cities, was thriving.
"Lackawanna Blues"
You know, I named it "Lackawanna Blues",
'cause blues means story.
And what happened to my life is
this woman happened to me named Rachel Crosby.
We called her nanny, and she became my mother,
because my mother became a heroin addict.
And so I watched her goodness every week,
the door, it was like a turn,
somebody else needed, and she responded.
And then somewhere in it,
you see how she put them together
when they were broken apart.
A car ride in the country with nanny was always a joy.
So I wanted to say thank you to her,
and thank you to all the people
in our lives who've been that rock for us.
- You know what, let me do this.
28.
- You know, when you see "Lackawanna Blues",
you begin to reflect, hopefully,
and witness the power of humanity
and human beings taking care of each other.
- Morning everybody.
All right, let's see where we are.
- [Assistant] We are four minutes from being
on sale to the general public,
and that is where we are.
- Wow.
- [Assistant] Presale, woo!
- Well done.
They're huge.
On day one, we did 2 million.
And then the last three days of people sharing the code,
I mean, another million.
So we're over three, four before we're on general sale.
And I think it's a great leading indicator
that people wanna come back to Broadway.
How are we doing?
- [Assistant] We've almost sold 100,000 dollars--
- In 20 minutes?
- [Assistant] In 20 minutes. All right I'm gonna-
- Good.
- [Assistant] Have you seen?
In 30 minutes?
30 minutes, we are at 3131.
- 256,000 already?
I think we'll do more.
So today is May 10th, 2021.
Today we went on general sale
for both "Six" and "Doubtfire".
In the first hour,
"Six" sold about two - a quarter of a million dollars.
So we're looking for, you know,
at least a million dollar day.
Maybe more, we'll see.
So even though this sounds
like a big number that we're selling,
it's not that much given how much time we have,
because theater's expensive.
Each show is gonna spend between seven and $8 million
to get to its first preview starting now.
We're spending money we don't have.
But we have to.
It doesn't feel good, but someone's gotta do it.
[classical music]
- [Worker] Are you ready, Bella?
Ladies and gentlemen, the Drama Bookshop is now open!
Welcome!
- Hi Alan!
- Well, I mean,
it's been hard.
It's been heartbreaking.
Not just as a performer missing audiences,
but as someone who employs lots of performers.
And it's been amazing to watch sort of folks
rally around virtual theater and fundraisers,
and, you know,
Seth Rudetsky was miraculous.
But we miss an audience.
Like we are all Tinkerbell and we need applause to live.
It's also a big part of this too.
You know, we bought this before the pandemic hit.
We were set to open last year, didn't happen.
And so much about theater is about gathering, right?
And this is one of the places in the city
where people feel a sense of community.
I'm really, really happy we're back.
Thank you for supporting the bookshop, take care!
- [Brian] A designer designs costumes on paper.
What John does is build couture costumes.
They're built to spec.
- And it's human beings that do it.
It's not like we go to a box and just, there it is.
Here's the solution to all of your problems.
We have to sit, and meet,
and plan and solve.
When I started in this industry 25 years ago,
it was normal for a Broadway production
to give you three months lead time,
so that you could do the proper exploration
and the proper development.
And now we've come to post pandemic, two weeks.
- [Anna] I look like I have a butt again.
- You know what, you've always had a butt.
[Anna laughing]
In 2009 with the financial crisis,
we suddenly were asked to do shows in three weeks time,
which was way too fast.
But because we were also happy to continue working,
we made it happen.
And that's kind of become the norm now,
so that you get, you know,
you get where you can,
but it's not the same quality that we expect,
that we would prefer to do.
- [Anna] It looks so good, oh my God!
- And now post pandemic,
when people have gotten a chance
to realize that they don't breathe costumes,
that there is a life to be done,
it's become a challenge.
There are a couple of days I've actually come in and said,
I'm just going to do my best today.
And that's all I can do.
And if I don't make a deadline, I'm gonna make a phone call.
Like, what else can I do?
- [Anna] You're a human being.
- And this is a collaborative process,
so we all have to bring what we can and do what we do.
- For me, I want to constantly remind people
that there are people who make these things.
There's no 13th floor at Macy's
that actually provides these costumes, so.
The Costume Industry Coalition represents
over 500 specialty artisans who are all out of work.
I'm gonna move around.
I feel like I should have a flag.
So we're walking, we're walking.
We have the painters and the pleaters,
the embroiders, the fabric printers.
And then we come around over here.
This is gonna be the "Wicked" section.
When we ended 2020, the coalition,
we were in a huge amount of collective debt,
and putting on an exhibition.
The hope is to, you know,
use it as a tool to raise money,
sell tickets, get people to understand.
From "Frozen", we're focusing on two Elsa pieces,
and then a muslin,
'cause this whole section is really about design to build.
So we're trying to show a little bit how we can take
a two dimensional and make it a three dimensional.
They have this abandoned Modell's in Times Square,
and they said, can you do anything with it?
And it's like, we're theater people.
Yes, of course we can put on a show.
We know how to do that.
There's gonna be a table here with a Bible,
and swatches, and everything that'll be here.
And then again, this is gonna be one of those infographics.
So anytime you see what's going on with the product,
you should see how it is being made.
If we pull this off,
it's gonna really position us
as members to survive this pandemic.
[emotional music]
- [Camerawoman] How does it feel to be back in here, Kevin?
- [Camerawoman] How does it feel to be back in the theater?
Alright, let the games begin.
- It feels surreal, but there's me!
I think weirder than seeing that photo of me,
'cause it's like a press shot.
It's Glinda.
It's like seeing my name next to it.
Like, whoa,
that's really me!
I'm walking to the rehearsal room,
and the theater's kind of dark,
but I love that everything's just a sensible shade of green.
So I can't go into my dressing room
yet because of Covid protocols
and some cleanings that are happening.
So I've been loaned the Assistant Stage Manager's office,
where I am pumping with my portable LV pump,
and doing a little warmup.
Momming on the go.
This is what it's going to be like, it's crazy.
My letdown just happened.
This is our gorgeous rehearsal room.
Ugh, it feels so good to be back in here,
just doing a warm up.
This is the ride, y'all.
And usually the cast is down there below me,
and warming up their bodies or voices,
or getting into character.
I've got this sweet glow from the lights around,
and I get to spend, yeah,
a couple minutes up here before the show even starts.
Say a prayer, wiggle my toes in my shoes,
ground myself, center myself for a moment.
We're just three days out from opening, which is crazy.
We're ready, Mark!
- The Great White Way is back and it's blacker than ever
Broadway reopens this fall.
The best part is that seven of the new works
are penned and performed by black artists.
Up first, joining me now is Ruben Santiago-Hudson,
author, star,
and director of "Lackawanna Blues"
How thrilled are you by this,
by your participation in this historic moment for Broadway?
- Well first of all, thank you for having me.
But you know, we don't want this to be a flash in the pan,
a look, we tried kind of situation.
We want to get out and show the world the integrity,
the beauty, the disdain.
and joy, and anger,
and laughter of African American people,
BIPOC people all over this nation.
So for us to come out right now on Broadway
and really show the glory of who we are,
it's a great moment, but I want it to last.
I don't want it to be just a moment.
- Over the last 18 months,
there have been, I think,
a lot of lessons learned,
and a lot of lessons that will continue to be learned.
And until we learn that lesson,
we have to recycle, and re-circle,
and learn it again.
- [Air Hostess] Good afternoon and welcome to New York's LaGuardia Airport.
- Yes, theater can be a healing form for many.
We're here, and it's the first day of tech.
But if it doesn't include everyone and respect everyone,
then it won't be that healing force that it claims to be.
- [Director] Okay folks, can we circle up?
- [Lynn] I just wanted to bring everyone together
who's involved with The Watering Hole.
This ritual is something that I
always do whenever I have a show.
It's just acknowledging the continuity of what we do,
and of putting stories into the world,
which are super important.
And I feel like now more than ever,
as we're coming out of Covid,
we're going to really need our storytellers to be present,
to reflect back on what has happened,
and also to project into the future
and help shape what I feel needs to be a much better world.
And with that, theater commences again.
[crowd cheering]
- Hi!
- You good?
You're good.
- Yes, thank you.
Yes, tell me, don't ask.
Yeah, just tell me.
Tell me we're good.
We'll go round in the circle and I'll talk last.
I'll talk very last.
[crowd applauding]
- It is extremely moving to stand up before this community
of people to welcome you back into a rehearsal room,
into creation after we literally have survived a plague.
We have this beautiful play,
transcendent play written by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu.
And I will pass it on to the genius herself, Antoinette.
- In typical Nwandu-Taymor fashion,
I actually changed what we're gonna do without telling you.
So now everybody's gonna say who you are,
and then I'm gonna talk last.
[crowd cheering]
- Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Blythe invented the NBA bubble.
Bow down, bow down, bow down, bow down.
- Belau Benjamin, part of the BIPOC team
with Realman Productions.
- Tony Entrial, Realman Productions.
BIPOC Marketing and Press.
- Woo, what's that?
BIPOC Marketing?
Oh shit!
There we go!
My God.
I say to each of you,
bring your A game, and your A game,
and your A game.
And I say to each of you,
I don't care if we win any awards.
Close your ears, Matt.
I don't care if we recoup.
We are the healers.
We are here to heal our people,
so that they can go out and save the fucking world.
Let's go, let's get into it.
Amen, I love you.
I love you, I love you.
[audience clapping]
[audience cheering]
- I added a little cushion.
It's a little thin.
This has grown a little since
the last time I played the show,
so I'm trying to maximize my space.
- On behalf of our entire company, our whole production,
welcome to our "Waitress" family,
and we just wanted to share with you
how deeply we are holding Nick in our hearts.
- Thanks guys, thank you so much.
Thank you for all the love and support that came our way,
you know, during his fight.
It meant the world to me, it seriously did.
And I know it would've met the world to Nick too.
You know, he loved you guys.
I can't wait to be here for opening night.
- We are so happy you're gonna join.
- I will bawl the whole time.
[laughs quickly]
- Actually, we all have been talking.
How are we even gonna get through this show?
You have been on our hearts,
and we wanted to do something
specifically to keep Nick inside,
baked into this production.
And our master baker here, Jessie Nelson,
had a beautiful idea for how to do that.
- We got the idea to name a pie for Nick,
and we're gonna show it to you,
but it's a big old slice of 'Live Your Life' pie.
- That's amazing.
- That will be in every production, in every country,
in every state, forever.
- [Director] Across the tour, all over America.
- Oh my gosh, that's so awesome you guys.
He would just, you know,
he would be thrilled, you guys know Nick.
He would just be like, what?
[cast laughing]
Thank you so much.
Congratulations.
[emotional music]
- Oh, fabulous, this is super - how are ya?
We just have to do a quick piece right here.
Here we are in the world of "Wicked".
This is very exciting.
I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World.
As Broadway gets ready to open up,
I'm in the heart of Times Square to bring you
a sneak peek at the brand new
interactive exhibition called Show Stoppers.
Look at the fabrics on this.
I bet Harry Potter's over here.
Really sensational.
Oh, this is Tricorn.
This is fabulous, this is great.
I'm like hyperventilating.
- Because I had the background in off-Broadway theater,
I knew that we could put on a show.
We did something in three and a half months
that they normally do in two years.
- This is what you do.
- This is what we do, we roll up our sleeves.
That's what we do.
We roll our sleeves and make things happen.
- Well, you made magic happen here.
This is really spectacular, beyond.
- The very big moment for the city's reopening as
the first new play in over a year finally raises its curtains.
But the concerns over the Delta variant
are still in everyone's minds.
- Right now, there is concern
about the growing number of Covid's
Delta variant here in the city.
Delta spreads as easily as chickenpox,
in that it's being spread by vaccinated people
as much as unvaccinated people.
- I wanna run the scenarios for if
there are positive cases on our next upcoming show.
I'm a little concerned we have not enough understudies.
This is our PCR negative.
You've got a green light to come in.
Rapid antigen negative.
Rapid antigen positive.
Exposed, we call this getting yellow carded,
which is a language, once we,
when we do this with the cast,
when we say like, you know,
sorry, you got a yellow card.
They know that that means like caution.
Yeah.
And then PCR positive.
- Everyone loves what we do.
They have taken every precaution.
They don't go to indoor to restaurants anymore.
They don't visit any unvaccinated friends, family.
They are investing in having a job.
- [Pamela] The most important thing that we've learned
about coming back after Covid
is that science can lead the way.
- When we see the community burden increase,
we respond by increasing the frequency of PCR tests.
It's been incredibly encouraging to watch the cast,
and the crew, and creatives work together,
and test regularly, and wear masks.
And I'm just so proud to see them go
from rehearsal to opening night safely.
[emotional music]
- Today is September 14th, zero days till opening.
I just woke up.
I was up really early with the baby,
but I went back to sleep for a little while because,
God bless my husband, he let me get a few extra hours in.
Good morning baby! Good morning, Cooper!
There it is!
It's good to see you, isn't it?
A gal who previously played Elphaba,
her name is Hannah Corneau,
she gave me this necklace that says Coop on it.
So I feel like I get to take him with me to Manhattan,
which is really sweet.
Be a good boy, I love you.
- This is a New York train.
Orange at the next stop, Orange.
- It's gonna be something to navigate.
I think it's gonna take every ounce
of my mental strength to sort of center myself
and shut out everything else that's going on,
and think about the story that we get to tell.
- And this will be my first time
wearing an actual white shirt in a long time.
We'll see, you know,
and even right now,
there's still another variant of Covid around.
But you know, I'm gonna wear my mask,
and the way I feel in my spirit is,
you know, something that needs to be done.
Like, somebody's got to do something.
And even if that's my little part
to add back into the community,
to give a positive token or a positive offer,
then I guess this is it.
My white shirt and my plain black pants.
And I'm guessing a smile will go with it too.
Hello folks, good morning.
I'm so sorry to, hello?
Hello?
I'm actually going back to work to usher on Broadway today.
I haven't been, ooh,
I haven't been back to work since I left.
You know, when I caught Covid and I had to be,
ooh, I had to be admitted to the hospital,
and this will be my first shift back, period.
And if y'all could just pray for me and lift me,
'cause you know I can't do it without prayer.
- [Priest] Father God, in the name of Jesus,
we thank you for your goodness and your mercy.
We thank you for watching over him right now,
for covering him.
We thank you for covering him with the blood of Jesus,
from the top of his head to the sole of his feet.
We ask that wherever his feet shall tread,
that you bless him.
Whatever his hand touch, may they be blessed as well.
- [Peter] Thank you so much for that, thank you.
- [Priest] God did not give you the spirit of fear,
but he gave you power, he gave you love,
and he gave you a sound mind.
May the blessings of God overtake you today.
In Jesus' mighty name.
- What you growling for, huh?
Huh?
Give me kiss, give me kiss.
You're not gonna gimme a kiss now?
Okay.
I don't think I'm mentally prepared
for everybody asking questions as to what happened.
I never was like, you know,
nervous going to work before.
Not like I don't know everybody.
- [Ernie] Now if I have to break
my foot off into somebody's ass--
- I can actually take off my foot and leave it in there.
[giggles quickly]
Sweep your hair over everything.
You gonna miss me?
I'm gonna miss you.
- What you huffing for?
Like where you going so early?
I know!
I know, honey, I know.
[dog barking]
Okay baby, okay.
[dog barking]
- $11 a stem.
- Wait, $11 a stem?
- Work!
Well, I kept thinking that it's gonna be like petals,
like her dress, right?
Like these, and these,
and those, and the lillies,
and then delphiniums coming up around,
and then like, I don't know.
Just like...
- Are you thinking like somewhat circular, like her enclosure?
- Yes. [laughs quietly]
When Broadway started to make all
the announcements that they were coming back,
it was, I don't know.
It was triggering for me.
I just had like a really good cry,
just 'cause I was like, I don't know if I'm,
am I still a part of this world, am I -
I miss the world so much.
You know, I miss the dressing room,
and the people that work in the Broadway
community are just so insanely special.
I mean, I definitely want the--
- What happens if it went?
- Wow, yeah.
That's really a moment, yeah.
- To Ginna Claire.
- Okay, yes.
And the card says,
'It's good to see you, isn't it?'
- Cute.
[upbeat music]
Many, many different.
All heading out.
- [Worker] Very graceful takeout. Yeah. We'll do this.
- [Al] Last night we picked up two shows.
We picked up "Hamilton" and we picked up "Hadestown".
Shows are starting to open.
Shows that are not opening yet are starting to clean.
- Hey Al, Kevin,
I just wanted to thank you for
your lovely email and your text.
Can't wait to see you.
And as you know, it's our first preview,
so thank you for thinking of me,
and we'll talk soon and often.
All right.
Thanks buddy, bye.
Big fan.
I was born and raised in Hawaii,
so I am a huge fan of Sushi,
and tonight I'm splurging because it's the first preview,
and this is all very technical,
and the the key is not to get
soy sauce on your preview outfit.
Hmm, right.
- Being away from your home for over a year and a half.
You would want to go home,
you would want to go back home,
and I want to go back home,
and I want to be with my Broadway family again.
[cast cheering]
- [Cast Member 1] Love you so much.
- [Cast Member In Hoodie] Uncle Ernie, what's good?
So good to see you.
- [Ernie] I had to show up today
'cause I missed the hell out of you guys.
It's been a long, long layoff,
and I'm just very fortunate that,
I'm fortunate that I'm able to come back to work,
to be with you guys.
It was a very scary time for me and my wife.
Just a very scary time, man.
Forgive me for being emotional about it.
- [Cast Member 1] We love emotions! We love you! All we have are our emotions!
[cast muttering]
- Yeah, it's just one of the things
that really kept me going was
the outpouring of love from the Broadway community.
I'm here!
[cast cheering]
- [Cast Member 1] And we're here for you.
Yeah, we're still here for you.
- [Ernie] I'm amongst friends,
and I just want you guys to know
that I love you from the bottom of my heart.
I really do. We love you!
It's all your time, but I'll take a hug from all you guys.
- Tonight, "Hadestown" is reopening on Broadway.
This is the first time I'll be attending one of my shows
without my husband Terrence McNally.
Needless to say, it's surreal,
and a really mixed, emotional day for me.
Thank you, Terrence would love these.
They're just really beautiful.
- Take care!
- Thank you!
Unfortunately, because of the storm last night,
the florist didn't have white tulips,
but I had them make an arrangement
of just gorgeous white flowers to fill the apartment up,
and bring him close to me.
I'm wearing the shirt that I wore
to the opening on Broadway.
The good news is it still fits.
So even though I've put on weight during Covid,
it's less awful than I thought.
But the big decision now is shoes.
These are the tough decisions
a producer has to make on a reopening.
I think I'm gonna go with these.
I'm going with the new shoes.
Yeah.
You know, the shirt is the nod to history.
The shoes will be the nod to the future.
[hopeful music]
- [Adam] As far as going back to Broadway,
I mean, there might be a couple more shows in me,
or I might be done.
I just will forever be a creative.
I've just realized that,
like I just have to be creative in whatever I do.
- I got my garden fresh items and my Binax Now.
This would be a good time to do
a little light reading actually.
Negative!
[loud humming]
- [Ginna] Glinda macaroons!
Oh my gosh! Wow. Can I get a box?
Oh my gosh, this is stunning.
- Opening up.
Belly of the Beast.
Costume.
Happy opening!
Happy opening, everybody!
Let's do this.
- As we prepare to reopen,
we're experiencing a rebirth,
and it's like spring.
There's an awakening that's happening,
and it's just beautiful.
It's so much about how we can treat each other better.
Have a good night, sir.
Appreciate it.
Everybody across the globe, we've all been through so much.
I went through a specific form of trauma
at the beginning of the quarantine.
You're such a rock star.
But, you know,
there are nearly 200 people who work on a production.
Each individual has a story of redemption,
and hope, and anxiety.
Hello, picking up for Kirdahy.
- [Shirley] You have four tickets?
- That's me.
And I genuinely believe that we are part of an art form
and part of an industry that is not going anywhere.
- Stage Manager's here,
they're waiting for us to get off stage
so they can actually open the house at seven o'clock,
an hour before the show because now we have Covid protocols.
- [Tom] Thank you, how are you guys holding up?
- [Shirley] Good, so excited to be back.
- [Tom] Thank you.
Shirley, thanks for everything.
See you tonight!
- T-shirt!
To commemorate this day.
September 2nd, 2021.
Broadway reopening.
- Yay, it's opening!
- [Six Boss] What's so emotional about "Six"
is that it didn't become the last show to open.
It became the show that wasn't allowed to open.
We were the show that was ready to go.
To then finally be allowed to open,
that's the definition of emotion for me.
- We have to tell stories in order to survive.
The most important part of the story
is the resilience of the human spirit.
Everything spills out from that.
- Yes. It was a good night.
[audience cheering]
- Broadway is back!
[cast cheering]
♪ Start spreading the news
♪ I'm leaving today
♪ I wanna be a part of it
♪ New York, New York
♪ These vagabond shoes
♪ Are longing to stray
♪ Right to the very heart of it ♪
♪ New York, New York
♪ I wanna wake up in a city that never sleeps ♪
♪ And find I'm king of the world♪
♪ Top of the list
♪ I'm the king of the hill
- It's good to see me, isn't it?
[crowd screaming]
[audience cheering]
♪ If I can make it there
♪ I'll make it anywhere
♪ It's up to you
♪ New York, New York
[emotional music]
- Hey folks, let me pull my mask down so you can see me.
Can you see?
- Okay, so update.
I have a new record coming out
and I'm going on tour this summer,
supporting my own music.
- I'm currently in London pursuing floral design.
As far as Broadway goes,
my body is just telling me that I need to move on,
and I have to listen to it.
- Hi, I finished my run as Glinda in "Wicked."
End of January 2020 I got to go film a Hallmark movie,
which was a lot of fun,
and now I'm home.
I'm auditioning, loving being a mom.
Cooper just turned one!
Can you say one?
Yeah!
- If you're looking for Broadway's best stage doorman,
check me out at the Broadhurst.
I'll probably be there.
- So we started back to work in September.
We've been quite busy.
Big shows, little shows,
new shows and old shows.
Can't be more proud of my team,
and how lucky I am to have them all in the room.
- Being creative as a floral designer is very fulfilling,
and I'm enjoying it a lot, so I'm at peace with it.
- Both "Six" and "Mrs Doubtfire" reopened as scheduled,
however I had to close "Mrs Doubtfire"
on January 9th because of Covid,
and I reopened it April 14th.
Still here in "Hadestown" at the Walter Kerr,
but I no longer play a Fate,
I've now become the full time Persephone.
- [Manager] Five minute call, everyone.
Five minutes please until the top of the show, five minutes.
- Five minutes until call.
- Family's great.
- Great, wrap it up.
- So I managed to put up four shows in eight months,
and installation play on Broadway,
a musical on Broadway, and an opera,
and I did it all Covid-free.
And it's the end of the theater season,
and I'm really looking forward to the summer.
- I'm still working on Broadway,
getting lots of calls for new musicals coming in.
- "Hadestown" is currently playing
to sold out audiences on Broadway.
"Little Shop Of Horrors" is currently
playing to sold out audiences off Broadway.
- I actually got to walk my
first red carpet as Patient Zero,
so that's cool.
I took a leap of faith.
I said get ready 22, 2022.
Watch my ass just stay away from the negativity, period.
[laughs loudly]
And look out for me.
Look out for Peter McIntosh,
boom, in lights.
- I'm excited about the future,
and thrilled about all the possibilities for Broadway.
- Theater's been hard.
We're a resilient industry where people
have to show up to make it work,
and people have shown up, including audiences.
Although not quite as many as we typically get right now.
Hopefully the summer will be different
and Broadway will continue to rise.
[triumphant music]