Eva Noblezada and Jeremy Jordan arriving at “The Great Gatsby.”
Broadway just got busy. Really busy.
Seven musicals and five plays opened in just nine days, scrambling to beat an April 25 deadline to qualify for this year’s Tony Awards.
We sent a reporter and a photographer to chronicle the crush of openings.
Even at a challenging time for a pandemic-weakened industry, they found razzle-dazzle.
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Broadway Opened 12 Shows in 9 Days. Here’s What That Looked Like.
Broadway is in the midst of a rolling celebration — of artistic expression, of audience enthusiasm, of song and dance and storytelling itself.
The overlapping runs constitute a risky bet by producers and investors, who have staked tens of millions of dollars on their ability to sell seats. Even in the best of times, most Broadway shows fail, and these are not the best of times: Production costs have soared, and season-to-date attendance is 18 percent below prepandemic levels.
But the shakeout comes later. First: fanfare and flowers, ovations and optimism.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17
‘The Wiz’
Easing on down the road … to Broadway
Deborah Cox, left, who plays Glinda the good witch, and Nichelle Lewis, who plays Dorothy, at the opening night of “The Wiz.” Many of the 1,600 in attendance wore green for the Emerald City.
A revival of a 1975 musical that reimagines “The Wizard of Oz” for an all-Black cast.
Of course “The Wiz” was going to have a yellow carpet. The show’s recurring song is “Ease on Down the Road,” and that road is the yellow brick one — the path to Oz, but also, to self-discovery.
