Broadway61004 said: "Jordan Catalano said: "And don’t forget pretty much 100% of these shows will need to be recast in some form or another. I can’t imagine every single person who was in a show on 3/12/20 will be available or even wanting to do it again almost a year later. Not to mention new people backstage including lighting/sound etc who will have to learn a brand new show."
A lot of that stuff can be done beforehand, though. Let's just say for the sake of argument that by January we can in fact have large enough gatherings that theatres can reopen at full capacity. That almost assuredly means that smaller gatherings would have been acceptable by October or so at the latest. Which means auditions can resume, rehearsals with 10-15 people can resume, scene shops can reopen with social distancing in place, cleaning crews can come into the theatres, etc. My point being that whenever the "we're approved to have large theatre crowd gatherings again" switch is flipped, that doesn't mean that's the first moment theatre folks go back to work or shows start to be worked on again. That's the last step, so whenever that happens, be it January or March or next June or whatever, shows will be able to start up pretty quickly then."
Until I read your last sentence, I was going to ask who you voted for in the next election and how many doses of hydrochloroquine (sic) you are taking daily.
Getting past the snarkiness on my part, I feel that if Broadway, or any even modestly large theatres (I include @nd Stage in that equation), make any attempt to open before vaccinations are easily available, they will just be throwing good money after bad, to use a cliche, unless the thing just does away, which seems entirely unlikely, based on my readings.
Being conservative by nature (but not politically), I am betting that Broadway will not be open any earlier than summer 2021. That optimistically assumes that vaccines are readily available by March (Fauci's original most optimistic view), that people on Broadway who need to begin hiring and rehearsals can get vaccinated early, and that it will require a minimum of a couple of months to prepare for audiences.
If, in fact, knowledgeable people who opine that the vaccine may be ready for inclusion in this year's flu shots (placing a lot of bets on the Oxford process proving successful or the pharmaceutical firm that seems to be ahead -- can't remember which one), then I guess Spring would be a possibility, but that seems overoptimistic to me.
If the WHO person who keeps saying there may never be a vaccine (and the way to fight it will be to treat it) is correct, I shudder t think of the impact on theatre, which -- as much as we all love it -- is ultimately discretionary. Only time will tell, but winter 2021 seems delusional to me.
