New York Can Reopen Theaters in April, But What Does That Mean for Actors?

Theater is coming back! Sort of. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that beginning April 2, live performance venues can reopen at 33% capacity, with a maximum of 100 people indoors and up to 200 people outdoors (excluding performers and crew members). And if all attendees present proof of a negative COVID-19 test prior to entry, that capacity can increase up to 150 people indoors and up to 500 people outdoors. 

“Social distancing and face covering will be required by all the attendees,” said Cuomo during his press briefing on March 3.

Unfortunately that does not mean Broadway shows are coming back, at least not any time soon. And what it means for performers (do they have to be masked?) is even more up in the air, because many producers are still figuring out safety protocols for actors and everyone else who works on a production.

It has, however, been confirmed that one Broadway house, the Music Box Theatre, will reopen in April in some capacity, as well as the Apollo, Park Avenue Armory, St. Ann’s Warehouse, The SHED, Harlem Stage, La MaMa, National Black theatre, and the Glimmerglass Festival’s Alice Busch Opera Theater. For the time being, those venues will be open to host NY PopsUp concerts, which are a series of over 100 events that producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal are producing, in conjunction with the state.

These smaller events will serve as test cases for how to create live performance in a way that’s safe for both artists and audiences. At a recent pop-up concert on the Lower East Side, for example, Gavin Creel and Shoshana Bean performed in a storefront. They were unmasked but seated six feet apart. The musicians and background singers were behind their own screens. The audience was outside. The artists were tested beforehand and there was a COVID-19 safety officer onsite. 

The New York State Department of Health and NY PopsUp are collaborating with theater operators to create specific safety plans for each participating building in the festival. The end goal is to increase audience size over time, which will culminate in the reopening of Broadway—though there’s no timeline for that. 

Actors’ Equity Association has also been working with PopsUp on a new agreement that would allow its members to be paid a fair wage and have the work count towards their pension and health insurance. 

“In just two weeks NY PopsUp has become the engine that drives the safe reopening of the arts throughout our state,” said producers Rudin and Rosenthal in a joint statement. “It’s a wonderful bonus to the opportunity to present 300 shows in 100 days, and to the enormous satisfaction in bringing artists back to work here. It’s incredibly exciting to see what the arts community and the state can do, together, when we all row in the same direction.”

That doesn’t mean that producers are jumping at the chance to reopen, though. For any producer outside of the NY PopsUp program, they have to figure out for themselves the best way to reopen safely, and negotiate with Equity if they want to use union talent. (Equity has its own guidelines, and must approve safety measures for each individual production.)  

Unlike the film industry, theaters in New York don’t yet have a universal safety protocol that all producers must abide by. That is why Meredith Lynsey Schade, producing director at the HERE Arts Center, created her own reopening and safety protocol for the theater, based on the guidelines from SAG-AFTRA and the major Hollywood unions. Those guidelines include different zones for different members of the artistic team, so only people within the same zone can directly interact with each other. 

HERE runs two Off-Broadway spaces in lower Manhattan and during the pandemic, they’d been doing virtual programming (including, currently, an audio opera). Their in-house reopening guidelines include all performers wearing masks “unless the core activity during technical rehearsals and/or performances require otherwise, in which case physical distancing will be adhered to as best possible.” 

And it also includes weekly testing for everyone working in a production, and testing every other day for actors or anyone who has to be maskless. “To date, this has been affordable because of the free testing that has been available throughout the city. As insurance companies begin to cut back on coverage for testing, we expect the cost for this requirement to rise in the months ahead,” said Schade.

But despite those guidelines, Schade said, “HERE likely isn’t going to fully reopen until we have the funds to bring our staff back full-time.” They are currently looking into applying for either a PPP loan or a Shuttered Venue Operators Grant, which would help plug their financial shortfalls from the pandemic and allow them to reopen their theaters in June or July. They are also looking into applying for an Open Culture permit from the New York City mayor’s office to do performances outdoors.

READ: A Timeline for Theaters Reopening

Schade says that their proposed Open Culture events will include rehearsals and readings that would be open to the public, and their performance events will most likely have the performers wearing masks and social distancing from each other and the audience. “Basically, we have strict guidelines and we intend to adhere to them,” she adds. 

Schade is not alone. According to the New York Times, Broadway producers are unlikely to bring their shows back unless full audience capacity is allowed. “For a traditional Broadway show, the financial model just doesn’t work,” said Broadway League president Charlotte St. Martin to the Times. “How do we know that? Because shows that get that kind of attendance close.”

And as for theaters that do plan to reopen, Backstage sent requests to several theaters asking what their plans were for workers’ safety. Those who answered were honest in saying it was still a work-in-progress. “Whether performers will be distanced from each other is also TBD,” said a representative from St. Ann’s Warehouse in an email. 

Equity has also publicly called for Cuomo to allow performers to become eligible for vaccines.

“As he wisely did when reopening restaurants, we hope that Governor Cuomo will again put workers first and prioritize getting members of the arts sector vaccinated,” said Equity’s executive director Mary McColl in a statement. “Much like workers in the restaurant industry, our members lack the ability to socially distance throughout their entire workdays, making vaccines critical for maintaining a safe workplace. We look forward to continuing to work with the state on reopening the live arts in a way that protects workers, as well as the audience.”

It seems that for producers, safety and proceeding with caution is paramount; moving forward to a full reopening at full capacity depends on it.

“We take the safety of our artists and community very seriously,” said Schade. “And we know that we are being held to the highest standard by society right now. We are viewed as the riskiest business—even though restaurants involve people who are permitted to not wear masks for hours at a time! And we know that one mistake, one transmission, and we will be held up for the world to see as an example of why theater shouldn’t be allowed to open. We’re not going to let that happen.”