Last October, I took a journey through the Broadway theatre district and Times Square which was mind-numbing. It was a beautiful October Wednesday at 2:30 pm, just about matinee time, and no one was there. Yes, Broadway was shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and I knew that, but seeing the once-most-trodden landscape in New York City empty was deeply disturbing, and my journey through this ghost-town of Broadway, woke me up to my mission as a theatre creator, and human being.

This past week, I had a doctor’s appointment on 5th Ave, on the “other” side of Times Square, so I thought I would again journey back to the Broadway Theatre district because “BROADWAY IS COMING BACK THIS FALL” and see what was happening, take pictures and write an exciting blog post to help promote Broadway’s return!

As I was walking up 8th Avenue, toward the Samuel J. Friedman theatre, where Manhattan Theatre Club houses their Broadway productions, I had to walk around 2 homeless individuals, literally sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk. My heart cried out for them, and silently, I whispered “God Bless you” as I walked by, thinking “Why isn’t this city doing something about this? Is there no outreach to help these HUMAN BEINGS find a shelter or a home or something? Why has homeless people sleeping on sidewalks and in storefront doorways become status quo in New York City?” And I felt so impotent to do anything, which as I write this, sickens me.

I walked up to the Samuel J. Friedman theatre, and I was thrilled to see that right by the doors to the theatre and the box office they put up two big posters announcing Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s upcoming one man show Lackawanna Blues. Ruben is a fantastic writer, actor, and director and these two posters were incredibly exciting to me.

And then I walked out from under the marquee to take a picture and this is what I saw:

Up above the marquee, was a poster from February 2020 of Laura Linney and her one woman show MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON by Elizabeth Strout.

What the heck? Why is that still there?

Hello! Broadway is coming back with a great one man show, so why does Ruben share the marquee with a show from 16 months ago?

How does this happen?

I was talking to a friend of mine who is good friends with a Broadway producer, and she said this may happen because of a UNION thing. Because of union rules Broadway theatres have to use UNION workers to do everything including taking down posters from 16 months ago. I don’t know if this is true, and if it is, I imagine Ruben Santiago-Hudson probably put his own posters up in the front of the Samuel J. Friedman, for I would too if I as opening on Broadway in my one man show.

And if this is a UNION thing. Couldn’t you just spend the money to hire a union worker to take down Laura Linney and put Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s picture where it belongs?

But this gets worse, as I continue my return pilgrimage through Broadway.

Other than the shows that are “officially opening” this fall, 90% of the Broadway theatres I walked by still had the old posters for the shows back in March 2021, not to mention the garbage and the grafitti around and on our beloved Broadway theatres!

Hey, aren’t we coming back this fall? Do you think you could take down the old signs and clean things up so people walking by might actually THINK that Broadway is returning soon!

How does this happen?

Another “schizophrenic two different shows from two different times” theatre.

At the Hayes Theatre, the new Broadway home of Second Stage Theater, I found another “schizophrenic two different shows from two different times” thing happening. Mind-boggling!

And here, at one of the Roundabout Theatre Company theatres, the note on the door from March 2021 was still there. Hey, theatre is coming back to NYC, right?

And this one made me crazy. The musical Company is returning on December 22, 2021 according to Broadway.com but look what I discovered at the Bernard B. Jacobs theatre!

Why is that there? They are returning on December 22, 2021! Why not announce it at the theatre where it is going to be performed? Pay for a union guy to simply clip this sign down! I was thinking of going there and doing it myself. Get a pair of wire clippers and a stool and walk over there and just cut it down!

Shouldn’t BROADWAY theatres, at least focus a little bit on promotion on the theatre they will be performing in! And it will let people know that BROADWAY IS COMING BACK!

Why is Broadway still a GHOST TOWN? It’s opening this fall!

After literally banging my head against the theatre facade, to bring myself back to some semblance of reality, I continued on my pilgrimage, where I discovered a myriad of empty Broadway theatres without even a poster that said “WE ARE COMING BACK STRONGER THAN EVER!”

The Booth Theatre on 44th St, and Shubert Alley were covered in scaffolding, and this was a sad thing to see, but a good thing for it looks like they are fixing up the facades of the Booth, and also the Shubert Theatre that houses To Kill a Mockingbird, which is returning October 5, 2021.

As as I walked by The Lion King, which is returning on September 14, 2021, scaffolding was up on the building next door that obsured the marquee, which made me laugh and cry at the same time.

Yes, this is a Brave New Broadway that is for sure.

I was happy to see Jagged Little Pill was returning on October 21, 2021.

And also, thrilled to see Dear Evan Hansen was coming back on December 11, 2021.

And Ain’t Too Proud - The Life and Times of The Temptations was returning on October 16, 2021. And they were promoting it on their theatre! Someone is thinking!

I walked by Phantom of The Opera, which is returning on October 22, but there was no mention of returning on the theatre that I could see, but they were doing construction on the lobby so that was a good sign.

The good news is that Bruce Springstein is doing 30 concert shows this summer at the St. James Theatre. God Bless Bruce! Any venue would have loved to house him, but he chose Broadway, to help breathe life into a long lost friend. (And I applaud him for making vaccinations mandatory despite the political uproar! Theatre needs to be safe.)

If we need this show “ESPECIALLY RIGHT NOW,” when is it opening? I checked online and Come From Away is opening on September 21, 2021! But let us know on your marquee!(But they have a good Covid-19 policy! Bravo!)

And then, I discovered one of the few new plays opening for the first time on Broadway: Thoughts of a Colored Man by Keenan Scott II which opens on October 1, 2021. The marque was up - BRAVO!!!

Yet nothing in the poster boxes…

Yes, we are just coming out of a global pandemic, but heck, couldn’t there be a little more focus here on BROADWAY itself? Couldn’t the old posters be pulled down, and new posters be put in their places? Couldn’t someone clean the street in front of the theatre so that people walking by will see that these theatres are not being abandoned?

Couldn’t there be a little more focus on just what we are coming back to Midtown Manhattan for?

Broadway! One of the most exciting places on earth!

Whatever is responsible for this - the oddball malaise on behalf of the producers, or the goofy problems with union workers, this needs to be taken care of immediately, to make Broadway seem like Broadway REALLY is coming back! Would you invite your friends to dinner and not clean up and prepare first? Check this out…

As I continued my journey, surprised, saddened and feeling kinda crazy, for like most things in this almost Post Pandemic world, “it just doesn’t make sense,” and I walked up to 43rd St and Times Square, where 8 months earlier I took a sad and empty picture of Times Square, and I took some Deja Vu photos.

But this time, I was not shocked by an empty Times Square, but by a lost Times Square populated with homeless individuals, somehow living here at the center of the theatrical universe.

Yes, this is a BRAVE NEW NORMAL. And there are so many things that need to be done to bring this city back to its former glory as the greatest city in the world.

We have to do something to help the homeless population. We have to do something to clean up the city. We have to do something to make New York City safe again.

We have to realize that in order to bring back audiences, NYC needs to be safe. When Broadway tickets were first offered for sale again, I found only 1 Broadway show mention that there may be some sort of Covid-19 precautions made. Only 1 theatre!

Hello! Audiences need to feel safe. We are just coming out of a pandemic which shut down Broadway! And we need to make Times Square and the Broadway Theatre District safe and AWESOME again too!

And, most importantly, we need to help our brothers and sisters living on the streets!

So how can you help?

Write or call your congress person, the Mayor, the Governor of New York, and express your concerns. Donate to Food Banks and shelters. Call 311 and make complaints about things you see on the streets of this once great city that need to be fixed! Get some friends together to go and clean up Broadway. (What a concept!) We can’t just accept this as the way it is. There are ways to do anything if you are creative enough to find a new way,(and by God, as theatre artists we are creative!) Get on social media and start conversations about possibility (not fights,) and let’s all raise our energy on this, and then take action.

We need to take responsibility here.

We need to work together.

And one thing you can do right this second to help Broadway is to:

Buy Tickets NOW!

even if you are fearful of returning to the theatre.

Buy tickets and give them to friends, or family members or to acting schools. Or just buy tickets for next year!!

Broadway and New York desperately need our help.

They say when we are faced with a big challenge, we have three choices. We can fight, choose flight - run away, or freeze and do nothing.

But there is a 4th choice:

Choose LOVE.

I am not going anywhere. I am not running from this challenge. We need NYC and Broadway to thrive.

Hmmm. . .

I might just go out tonight,

feed a friend,

and cut down that sign!

To Listen to my Podcast about this CURRENT TRAGEDY ON BROADWAY - click here!

More pictures from my journey:

So today, I decided I would go somewhere new on my daily walk. Usually I get up early and get out by 7 am and go walking down by Hudson River Park along the bike path, but today, it was raining, and rain is not fun for a daily walk, so I decided to bag it, and sleep in.

At about 2 pm, it started to clear up, and while looking out my window at the gray skies and the even grayer Hudson River, I decided that I would take a new route, and walk down 42nd St to the Broadway Theatre District, and see what it looks like at Wednesday matinee time 7 months after Broadway closed due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.

I threw on my black hoodie for it was cool, and my black mask because... because that is the right thing to do, and I went on my merry way.

As I walked down 42nd St. I felt this sick sadness in my gut. I had heard that much of the Theatre District had closed, but I hadn’t seen it personally, and as you all know, I am the world’s most passionate theatre enthusiast, so I knew this walk was not going to be pretty.

My first casualty of the day was The Theatre Row Diner. My partner Jen and I had spent many a night there after performing, and had many Sunday morning breakfasts there too. But the wild thing about this Diner is it rests on the spot where I produced my first OFF-BROADWAY show My Father, MY Son on Theatre Row in 1990 at The South Street Theatre. Why it was named The South Street Theatre when it was on 42nd St was beyond me, but I loved that theatre, and I was deeply saddened when it was destroyed years later to build a diner.

And now, The Theatre Row Diner is out of business, like Theatre Row. Maybe in some sort of synchronistic world when this THEATRE PAUSE passes, someone will turn the diner back into a theatre, or better yet, into a Diner Theatre. What a concept! Come have breakfast and catch a show!

This is what I do when I am bent out of shape, I make jokes.

I walked by Playwrights Horizons and I was thrilled to see that they had a big colorful LED screen that said something happy:

“Stay safe! We miss you. We’ll be back soon!”

If you look at the picture below, it’s pretty wild.

Are they saying that we should just hang out and get drunk until we can come back?

Yes, I know it must be a picture from one of their performances, but, it was strangely sad and strangely funny at the same time.

Then I saw this:

7 months of Theatre Row being closed - yeah, I would prefer a LED screen with pictures of people drinking. I felt my tears well up and I stuffed them down. If I started to cry, I would never finish my walk, and I didn’t want to be that guy in a black hoodie and black mask crying like a baby walking down 42nd St. Not today.

Today I wanted to see and ACCEPT what is really happening here, or ACCEPT what is NOT really happening here.

Someone told me that in order to lose weight effectively, you need to get on the scale and see exactly how much you weigh. Without knowing your starting point in relation to where you want to be, how are you going to know how to proceed?

I will never give up on theatre, and I will be a part of the solution when it is safe again for theatre to happen in New York City, and if that’s true, I need to see exactly what is happening here in New York City, and not be a weepy baby about it.

So I took a deep breath, and continued on my pilgrimage.

I walked down “THE DISNEY BLOCK,” which is 42nd St between 8th Ave and Times Square, which was once, back in the 70’s and 80’s, a block of XXX movie theatres. Under Rudy Giuliani, who was the mayor of New York from 1994 to 2001, the Times Square area, and especially this block, was DISNEY-A-FIED as the XXX theatres were bought up and the sex shops were regulated.

Today, the DISNEY BLOCK was basically shuttered, other than Madame Tussauds, and believe it or not, Ripley’s Believe It Or NOT, the only other tourist attraction on the block.

I thought to myself:

“Hell, give me those XXX theatres back! Anything, please!”

I walked further down 42nd St, made a left, and I saw Times Square, and my heart stopped.

It was about 2:30 pm Matinee time on a Wednesday.

I sighed a deep and scary sigh.

“Where is everybody? Where are the people? Where are the theatre-goers?” and I had to laugh when I thought this:

“Where are the tourists?”

“Hell, give me back the tourists! And the reason they come here - BROADWAY! WHERE IS EVERYBODY?”

And only one Times Square character: the guy on the stilts dressed as The Statue of Liberty!

Where is Iron Man, and Batman, and, (I can’t believe I am saying this!) Where is THE NAKED COWBOY?

I stood there frozen holding in an avalanche of tears.

“I need to stay present.

I need to stay here and take this in…

and…

…I need to cry!”

The dam broke and it flooded on to my black mask, and I became that guy weeping in Times Square, that guy crying in a black hoodie, staining his black mask with tears, as the Statue of Liberty on stilts watched in silence.

“It’s gone.

Broadway is gone for now. Theatre is gone for now.

That is what I need to accept, so I can move forward.”

Suddenly, I remembered something… something that happened in Times Square, a little over a year ago.

When I was moving out of our theatre on 45th St, it was clear that we had accumulated way too much stuff, and because I was pressed for time, I had to find homes for everything pronto for I didn’t want to throw good stuff away.

It was a Sunday afternoon, right around Matinee time, and I loaded up a cart with about 20 folding chairs from our theatre, and I rolled it two blocks to Time Square.

It was hot, a real NYC August hot, yet still there were hundreds of people crammed into Times Square hanging out, taking pictures with The Naked Cowboy, The Statue of Liberty, Batman, Elmo and more. And then, there were others, theatre goers passionately pushing their way through Times Square to make a Sunday matinee performance.

There was a lean homeless man sitting on the pavement by THE GAP with a paper cup full of change in front of him.

I rolled my cart of folding chairs up to him, and said:

"Hey, would you by any chance want a folding chair for free? Then, you won’t have to sit on the ground.”

And what I saw was like nothing I could ever have imagined. His eyes lit up, he smiled a smile which seemed like the first real smile he smiled in a very long time, and then he said, “Sure, I would love a chair.”

I took one off my cart and handed it to him.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” he said.

He unfolded the chair, set it on his spot, and then turned it to face the Coca-Cola sign above the TKTS booth.

He then sat down on it like a KING on a brand new throne.

And instantly, I became that crazy man weeping like a baby in Times Square.

But I was weeping from joy.

That crazy hot August day, when I gave away the chairs, was one of the greatest days of my life. So many of the homeless were so thankful and happy, some even utterly overjoyed.

And all I did was give them something to sit on, and some respect.

And there I was today, again, weeping like a baby in Times Square, but this time, I was NOT weeping from joy.

I was weeping from the loss of a world I FEAR I will never experience again.

This Times Square was not the Times Square I remembered.

And then, I had the flash of The Time Square chairs.

I immediately stopped crying, and started to laugh through my tear-stained mask, and I am sure The Statue of Liberty thought I was crazy.

And Ms. Liberty was probably right.

I was crazy to get caught up in my FEAR.

I can’t change what has happened, but I can show up and LEAN into this brave new world, and choose compassion and choose to be a part of the solution. Times Square was again reminding me that even little things can make a big difference in your life, and in the lives of others.

A gift of a folding chair, and respect.

So do what you can.

And in that moment, I decided to take lots of pictures, share this story, and stop the weeping.

I took a walk by many of the Broadway theatres and I took pictures of the notices on their doors, in regard to closing, ticket refunds and more.

(Click on images to enlarge!)

And then I swung back around to Times Square and the TKTS booth, where, in my lifetime, I have spent many hours happily waiting on line for inexpensive Broadway tickets.

“WHERE

IS

EVERYBODY?”

“Where the heck is everybody?”

My stomach started to tighten again, as my tear ducts swelled.

I looked to my right and there were chairs and small tables that had been brought in by the city to create an eating area in Duffy Square, right in the middle of Times Square.

I grabbed a chair.

I walked around the TKTS booth, and placed the chair in front of the statue of Father Duffy. I sat down and I stared up at the Coca-Cola sign.

“I’m here in New York City.

And I am not going anywhere.

I am a part of the solution.”

And as I sat there, like a King on a brand new throne looking up at the Coca-Cola sign, I smiled the first real smile I have smiled in a very long time.

Here are some more pictures of my Times Square pilgrimage.

(Click on the smaller images to enlarge.)

The Current Tragedy on Broadway - Pt. 2

Current Tragedy on Broadway

“WHERE

IS

EVERYBODY?”