Thursday, March 19, 2020
Broadway’s ‘Come From Away’ Producers On Coping With Coronavirus Crisis
Deadline: Come From Away, the hit musical that has routinely played to packed houses at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, was set to celebrate its third Broadway anniversary on March 12 when word of the unprecedented state-ordered theater closures hit the industry. Lead producers Sue Frost and Randy Adams were in London, just about to head back to New York. “We were getting on a plane that morning to come home,” Frost says, “and we both said, What do you want to bet when we get off this plane everything will be shut down?”
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I thought this article was very interesting because I feel like we hear a lot about how the actors and the crews are handling this and what is happening with them, but this is the first thing I have read from the producer side of it. It was really encouraging to me that these two producers had a pretty positive attitude toward this whole thing and they were thinking more about how to keep everyone safe rather than how to make money. It was refreshing to read something more about people and less about the money. The part at the end was interesting because I think originally so many people were thinking that maybe they could just live stream, but the producers are so right: if it were easy people would have done it already. So I really don’t think there will be any of that, but that is for the better because people shouldn’t be gathering in the theatres to film it anyway.
This was an interesting perspective to learn about as the events surrounding the novel corona virus continue to unfold. Of course, what we are seeing the most coverage of in terms of people coping with the drastic life style change has been more high profile people like performers and some designers. Hearing from Broadway producers is probably something we haven’t directly considered, even though we probably have asked questions about how business operates in situations like these. Something fascinating I read in this was the uncertainty that was still unfolding concerning paying actors. The perspective on the touring shows was also really interesting to understand. It is crazy how quickly people have turned around and just gone home. I am glad they addressed the questions involving recorded or live streamed performances. Doing something like that is a hefty operation which then could lead to piracy and create more issues that they started with. This was a very interesting perspective to dive into during this time.
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