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After over a year of darkness, Broadway lights beamed once more this weekend as frontline workers from the Actors Fund and Broadway Cares filled the St. James Theatre on West 44th Street for a private show led by Tony winners Nathan Lane and Savion Glover as part of New York state's NY PopUps initiative.
The first performance inside a Broadway theater since the March 2020 shutdown was part of a pilot program that seeks to find a safe way to bring live performances back to New York.
The show took place this past Saturday around 1pm EST, with safety protocols in place. The invite-only audience submitted to contact tracing procedures and staggered entry and exit times. All guests were also required to wear masks throughout the event, properly social distance, show proof of full vaccination prior to entering the premise, present a negative PCR test taken within three days of curtain time or submit to a rapid antigen test within six hours of the beginning of the event. All crew and staff members also had to show proof of negative test. New air filters were installed inside the theater before guests were welcome back in.
Glover was the first to take the stage, dancing and singing his way through scenes from Broadway staples including Tap Dance Kid (his Broadway debut back in 1989), Cats, West Side Story and A Chorus Line.
Lane followed Glover's act with a monologue written specifically for the occasion by Paul Rudnick and called Playbills. As part of the monologue, Lane took on the role of "a man who has spent the last year cooped up in his studio apartment, laid off from his job and desperately missing his greatest passion: going to the theater." He also mused about our new lifestyle, from a collective devotion to sweatpants to all things Zoom.
The much-discussed happening is only the first of ten that are scheduled to play across Broadway theaters in the upcoming ten weeks, a factoid that fills us with wonder and excitement while we await the complete return of live shows.
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