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| re: Nothing about this will be legend. | |
| Posted by: writerkev 05:48 am EDT 08/23/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Nothing about this will be legend. - Chromolume 04:56 pm EDT 08/22/21 | |
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| It was announced back in June, when things were looking very different, when NYC was making a comeback because we were going to put the pandemic behind us thanks to the vaccines. Things look very different now, I agree. That’s my whole point. | |
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| re: Nothing about this will be legend. | |
| Posted by: ryhog 10:36 am EDT 08/23/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Nothing about this will be legend. - writerkev 05:48 am EDT 08/23/21 | |
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| I do not agree that we were putting the pandemic behind us in June; we were adapting to it as we still are. We would not have had all of the protocols in place if we were putting the pandemic behind us. The fact is, there are very few people who can see Central Park from where they live who are not vaccinated. That and evolving science has allowed us to start living with the virus instead of remaining locked in our homes. That is what we are celebrating. We have worked out what we can do safely in the densest place in the country, and how to go about doing it. One of those things was this sort of celebration, another, right across the lawn, is SITP, and another, a few blocks away is Pass Over. I don't think things look very different now. At this point, there are still challenges. There was an article in the paper yesterday that I am linking below because I think it speaks to why we are having trouble wrapping our heads around things right now. | |
| Link | NYTimes |
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| But again, no one is celebrating. Not to beat a dead horse, but… | |
| Last Edit: ShowGoer 08:20 am EDT 08/24/21 | |
| Posted by: ShowGoer 08:07 am EDT 08/24/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Nothing about this will be legend. - ryhog 10:36 am EDT 08/23/21 | |
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| I agreed with most of what you wrote in your longer response to me below, specifically with regard to this misbegotten concert attempt, which is why I didn’t answer you again there. Your baseball game rainout analogy was a good one, and you’re absolutely right that ‘metaphors’ have no more predictive power than ‘omens’, ‘superstitions’, or for that matter, hunches (yours or mine). However, I guess my basic disagreement in premise is that it just seems there’s no question there’s been a definite change in the air, in the mood, headlines and general discourse, since barely 6 or 7 weeks ago, from the way (most) people were thinking and writing about the pandemic back then, and it seems like a real head-scratcher to basically say, “Well where we are right now is pretty much where we knew we be all along.” If you’re saying that what happened to the concert last weekend has no bearing on the fall and winter, well, then, neither does the celebratory mood at Shakespeare in the Park a month ago, or the swarms of people who WERE celebrating over July 4th (and there’s certainly no celebrating at Pass Over, which can barely give tickets away even after getting the reviews it got; as it turns out I will be able to see it even it closes before my performance in September, since they’re giving away so many tickets). Yes, there are articles like the one you linked, or the Sanjay Gupta one I referenced, or countless others going back months, whose general idea is “How we proceed with our lives” or “Learning to live with it.” But that’s a very different place from “Biden’s partial declaration of victory over the virus in July”, as news organizations are referencing it even today. The concert-as-metaphor headlines didn’t hinder things, but they certainly didn’t help. And with Fauci now saying that “the pandemic will not be under control until spring 2022” (and only IF we convince the majority of vaccine holdouts)… with banners like “Fauci corrects earlier predictions”, and “Fauci: “I have to apologize” even on the SAME DAY that Pfizer gets full FDA approval… well, that’s simply a different timeline, a vastly different headline, and a far different mindset than what people were saying and feeling just at the beginning of last month… before Delta spread so much, before outbreaks like Provincetown, before Garth Brooks, BTS, Nine Inch Nails, Stevie Nicks and many others began canceling concert tours over the past week, before theaters coast to coast from Berkeley Rep to Signature Theater began once again canceling fall productions this month, and before little headlines, everything from Laura Osnes to Jesse Jackson to yes, the Homecoming Concert began affecting people’s thinking in gradual but significant ways. And I think it’s going to affect live theater this fall in a truly disastrous way. I’m depressed as hell about it but as I said, a) I’m ordinarily an optimist, and b) while this is obviously contradictory, I’ve also never been more certain of anything. I’ll suspend the argument/discussion and temper my (hopefully temporary) doomsaying until another new thread, since this is getting far down the board, by saying once again I pray that somehow I’m wrong, but I’ll link another article from today here (with a few quotes in case you can’t get behind the paywall): “ Arts performances have returned, albeit in far smaller numbers than is typical in a Chicago fall. But audiences will need to be vaccinated and masked. Many Chicagoans are willing to comply for everyone’s safety, but there is no question that the mood in the seats and on the lawns has been chilled. The kinds of escapist entertainment that we were assuming everyone would want now feels not just premature but maybe even tone-deaf. And audiences so far have tended to be small. No, we’re not back.” |
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| Link | Alas, no time for celebration. The delta variant has made sure of that. |
| reply to this message | reply to first message | |
| re: But again, no one is celebrating. Not to beat a dead horse, but… | |
| Posted by: ryhog 10:08 am EDT 08/24/21 | |
| In reply to: But again, no one is celebrating. Not to beat a dead horse, but… - ShowGoer 08:07 am EDT 08/24/21 | |
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| Perhaps along the way our assessments of things have crossed, and our willingness to celebrate have been skewed. (Fwiw I also recognize that a lot of the larger pronouncements and events are overselling what I see as the scale of what we are to expect.) As you know, all along, I have been saying that Broadway should be coming back slowly and with a local/regional focus. That's not what is happening and (I hope I am wrong) the result is going to be a bloodbath for a significant portion of the shows (re)opening, followed by a longer than necessary skittishness based on that. Beyond that, I would observe that, as with many other things, we are confronting a tale of two countries. One part is in the middle of a self-inflicted crisis, the other part is basically doing pretty well. I think we would have cause for celebration were it not for the insane rush to reopen, including especially shows that have virtually no chance of making it without tourists. We knew this before the July "partial victory." When I walk down 9th Ave (an area in which residents are almost 100% vaccinated), what I see is a robust restaurant scene that is not dependent on tourists. That is a picture of what I think we should be seeing on Broadway. That is not what is about to happen and that's sad. Now let me just add a word about Pass Over. I think it is a hugely significant show, both for what it has to say and also for what it represents. But (as I have said) I also think it is a nonprofit show in a commercial Broadway theatre. I understand why Jordan et al wanted to make this happen and had the wherewithal to do so, but I also think that, realistically, the results would have been disappointing pre-pandemic, much in the nature of, say, Anna in the Tropics. What this show does is show us how to live with covid in a responsible way, imo, even if it is not showing us how to make money. I'll leave it at that for now except to add that my sense, from personal conversations and watching video of people in the park pre-deluge, a lot of folks were having a fine time even if you unfortunately were not. (I think the same divergence happens with the dining out experience. I have friends who say they are tense whenever they have gone out, which others (including me) are not. |
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| Yes yes yes | |
| Last Edit: ShowGoer 01:00 pm EDT 08/24/21 | |
| Posted by: ShowGoer 12:56 pm EDT 08/24/21 | |
| In reply to: re: But again, no one is celebrating. Not to beat a dead horse, but… - ryhog 10:08 am EDT 08/24/21 | |
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| Agree with this nearly 100%. As is often the case, the areas we disagree are more about semantics or specifics than some overall worldview. Pass Over, you're right about – the Anna in the Tropics analogy probably also being a good one; I guess my reaction there is, if it hadn't been for the rollout of the vaccines, the sense that by July 4th 70% of the country would be vaccinated, and the feeling that the worst was behind us – AND with no concept of the Delta variant – I have a strong suspicion that Pass Over might not have moved to Broadway at all, at least not right now, and at that huge theater. At the time it was announced - I show a press release date of May 4th – they obviously thought theater would be back, audiences would be eager, and that by being first out of the gate they'd not only be the only game in town, but would hugely benefit from that mere fact. And then what happened?- according to Wikipedia the Delta variant was first labeled a "variant of concern" only 2 days later, on May 6th (by British scientists). If they'd known then what they know now, I have to believe that non-profit or not, IF they'd announced they were moving this 3-person show to Broadway at all, it would be in the Booth, or another small playhouse that wasn't occupied this summer, as opposed to a 1200-seat house that hasn't hosted a non-musical play in 20 years. (& i realize Jordan doesn't have a theatre like that aside from the Kerr, I'm just speaking generally about producing options.) And by extension, I obviously think others would have made similar recalibrated decisions or delayed reopening announcements – again, look at the timeline: Cuomo announced Broadway was reopening in September with Hamilton, Wicked and Lion King on May 5th, Phantom, Chicago and Six all put out their releases on May 6th - the same day as that report on Delta from England. It's terrible timing all around, and it seems like you and I are probably in agreement that now there are no good options; either a lot of these 30-some Broadway shows scheduled to open/reopen in the next 4 months rethink everything and postpone again, or they conclude (as I'm assuming nearly all will) that it's just too late and they're in too deep, so for better or worse they need to forge ahead (much as De Blasio and Clive Davis did), hoping against hope for a lucky outcome. But either scenario likely ends by only demoralizing nearly everybody. IF the new spring-summer 2022 timeline for the end of the pandemic speculated about in the last few days is accurate, then it seems likely that by this time next year Broadway will be where we'd hoped it would be by the holidays this winter. But it's hard for me to see how many of the shows beginning in the next few weeks would hold on till then. Truly, the worst-case scenario (and a highly possible one) for me at this point isn't even that the non-profit shows all lose money, or that other commercial shows (Diana, Mrs Doubtfire, even Six) all flop; it's the possibility of headlines in January, or possibly sooner, like the ones we saw over the last year about Frozen, Mean Girls, or West Side Story, but this time for even higher-profile shows ("After 25 Years Chicago Posts Closing Notice, a Victim of the Pandemic" or "Phantom, Longest-Running Show in Broadway History, Couldn't Hide From Covid"). That would be more depressing than I think anyone in the industry is prepared for even now. OK, enough. As usual, I hope that I'm wrong and this is just a phase I'm going through. Thumbs up, fingers crossed. |
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