As Stars Catch Covid, Broadway Braces For A Chaotic Month

Not even James Bond can dodge Covid.

Daniel Craig is one of several high-profile stars who have recently tested positive while performing on Broadway, even as the industry recovers from a brutal winter. The Bond actor is anchoring a new production of Macbeth, which, before his diagnosis, was grossing almost $200,000 per performance. It is now on hiatus through April 11^th.

Also out are Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, who are starring in the play Plaza Suite – Thursday’s performance was cancelled rather than played with understudies. Reviews for the comedy were ho-hum, but the duo’s star power garners weekly sales north of $1 million.

Positive cases have also jarred three major new musicals. Pulitzer winner A Strange Loop has delayed its first preview by several days, while the downtown hit Suffs cancelled its official opening and several performances after. And Paradise Square, which opened on Broadway to flat reviews and poor sales, has cancelled at least one performance this week.

It all feels like horrible déjà vu for the theatre industry, which hemorrhaged money and jobs overwinter during the first Omicron surge. And while the new subvariant doesn’t seem to be as crippling, live shows remain vulnerable, especially those without a reservoir of backup talent.

Last week alone, seven new shows started performances on Broadway. And while overall grosses rose, overall capacity – the percentage of available seats with butts in them – dropped, signaling a mismatch in demand and supply.

It’s too early to make more than a cursory prognostication, but the coming weeks will be chaotic for the formerly $15 billion industry. Seventeen shows are slated to open before April 28, the cutoff date for Tony Award eligibility, in hopes that a trophy could boost their sales. While the odds of a major lift are slim (it didn’t happen to Moulin Rouge! after winning Best Musical in September), the prospect is appealing enough to merit a stampede of producers.

The question is: Will audiences stampede after them? While the glut of content may excite some fans, it’s rife with risk, and not just from Covid. The high volume could trigger a logjam, with shows cannibalizing each other as they all rush to attract buyers – a painful Catch-22, especially for those that delayed their plans to avoid the first Omicron wave.

Thanks to sales data, both public and leaked, we know the industry’s box office has been wildly uneven since reopening last fall, with established hits dominating and new ventures struggling. A gap has always existed between Broadway’s haves and have-nots; the difference now is the size of that gap, and the ability of larger shows to absorb losses while smaller ones founder.

The big tentpoles have mostly recovered. This week, The Lion King, Wicked, and Hamilton all sold as well, if not better, than they did in 2020. And The Music Man, buoyed by star Hugh Jackman, continues to pull eye-popping sums. But others are in rougher shape. Dear Evan Hansen is doing about half its pre-Covid business, for example, grossing just $637,000. Some of that is likely due to the awful film adaptation that was released this winter, but it may simply be Evan’s natural declining moment; the show’s facile treatment of suicide and mental health has aged poorly during the pandemic.

There is always churn on Broadway. With 41 theaters, real estate is limited, but most shows only run for a couple months, and even profitable hits rarely last more than a few years. The question is: how much of this spring’s churn will be “normal,” and how much will be exacerbated by the virus?

One challenge is contagion within companies. All shows have understudies, and many have increased their cast sizes with extra backups, but new productions are at a structural disadvantage compared to old warhorses. Shows like Wicked and The Lion King stayed open overwinter in part because they could call in performers from tours and past iterations to fill in on short notice, while fresh mints like Thoughts of a Colored Man and Jagged Little Pill were crippled by their relative newness.

A few industry veterans have privately indicated a desire to stop testing within companies this summer, in coordination with dropping masking and vaccination mandates for audiences. Given the incoming surge (and the inevitability of future variants) this feels shortsighted and self-hobbling, but no leading producers have commented publicly one way or another, and current protocols are in effect until at least May.

As it stands now, Broadway is poised to continue a lopsided recovery, with all of its structural inequities augmented by pandemic fallout. This week, thirteen shows grossed over $1 million, with Hamilton above $2 million, and The Music Man at an exceptional $3.3 million. The other eighteen shows run the gamut from solid (Company, at $757,000) to D.O.A. (Paradise Square, $296,000).

By the end of the month, a clearer picture will emerge of haves, have-nots, and what might be done to close the gap. Until then, it’s all hands on deck – and all fingers crossed.