because of the coronavirus — here are 3 reasons theaters could remain closed even longer
By
Jacob Passy of Market Watch
‘Our audience has to be safe no matter what age they are,’ said Charlotte St. Martin, president of the Broadway League, but she acknowledges social distancing will prove difficult
Theater fans won’t be able to give their regards to Broadway in person until January at the earliest. And certain factors could prevent New York City’s theaters from reopening for quite some time.
The Broadway League, the trade group that represents theater owners and producers, announced Monday that Broadway performances would be canceled through at least January 3, 2021, because of the coronavirus outbreak. Theaters are offering exchanges and refunds for tickets purchased for performances through then.
The closure of Broadway, which began in March, led producers to pull the plug on some productions. Disney DIS, -0.28% said in May that it would close its Broadway musical production of “Frozen” because of the pandemic. Previously, producers said the curtain had fallen for good on the productions of two plays, “Hangmen” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
When the Broadway League previously announced that the Great White Way would remain closed through Labor Day, Charlotte St. Martin, the organization’s president, told MarketWatch that there was a significant chance performance cancellations would be extended further. That’s because the arts and entertainment industry is in the fourth phase of New York state’s official reopening plan, which calls for gradually putting certain business sectors back online as long as the state meets certain metrics.
“We literally cannot reopen unless there is a confidence in the safety of the cast and crew and theatergoers,” St. Martin told MarketWatch in May. “So we don’t really know when that will be and that’s part of the challenge we’re facing.” Read more from Market Watch
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