Inside Broadway’s Reopening: A Times Virtual Event

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/theater/broadway-reopening-pandemic.html

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Information on our upcoming subscriber-only virtual events can be found here.

Broadway is starting to come back.

First rehearsals, and first performances, began this summer. Sixteen shows have announced performance dates before the end of September, with more lined up for later this fall and winter.

But what does it take to bring a show back — or start a new one — after a near-total industry shutdown? How does it feel to be inside a theater again? And how are artists and audiences coping with the uncertainty of what lies ahead?

On Sept. 23, Times subscribers joined us virtually for the final episode of “Offstage,” our digital series about theater during the pandemic, to find out.

We went inside the Walter Kerr Theater to visit the company of the Tony Award-winning musical “Hadestown” during rehearsals, with singing and dancing, including in some unexpected locations. And we heard from André De Shields, who plays the god Hermes; his co-stars Reeve Carney and Eva Noblezada, who play the young lovers Orpheus and Eurydice; and other company members working onstage and behind the scenes.

Douglas Lyons, author of the new comedy “Chicken & Biscuits,” spoke with the Times theater reporter Michael Paulson about preparing for his Broadway playwriting debut. So far, Lyons is one of seven Black writers with shows that have announced Broadway runs this season, a rare occurrence.

The cast of “Girl From the North Country” performed a medley of the musical’s Bob Dylan songs, including “Hurricane” and “All Along the Watchtower,” from backstage at the Belasco Theater.

And we heard from audience members about their experiences at some of the first reopened Broadway performances, with a special appearance from a trio of artists whose shows restarted on the same evening: Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of “Hamilton”; Julie Taymor, director of “The Lion King”; and Stephen Schwartz, composer and lyricist of “Wicked.”

This “Offstage” episode was an exclusive virtual event for New York Times subscribers, who can also catch up on the full series.

In previous episodes, we explored the stirrings of New York City’s summer cultural scene with Lin-Manuel Miranda; we looked at the return of theater in Australia and the adaptation of stage shows for streaming; we interviewed Hillary Rodham Clinton about her lifelong theater passion; we checked in with “Suffragist,” a musical in development; and we considered the season cut short, as well as concerns over racial justice, in our Opening Night.