Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Our next guest that we last checked in with her
Speaker 1: back in July, Paul, and this was on the heels
Speaker 1: of the news that there would be no Broadway theater
Speaker 1: this year. We got an update on that last week,
Speaker 1: no lights along the Great White Way until at least
Speaker 1: June of one. Let's get into it with Charlotte st. Martin.
Speaker 1: She's president of the Broadway League. She joins us once
Speaker 1: again on the phone in New York City. Charlotte, So
Speaker 1: glad to have you back with us. How are you
Speaker 1: well hanging in there? This is certainly not great news
Speaker 1: for all of the fantastic people that work on Broadway,
Speaker 1: but we're in the same situation as most everyone else
Speaker 1: these days. Yeah, my, I gotta say, my heart kind
Speaker 1: of broke when I saw that headline and we reported
Speaker 1: it last week, thinking, you know, I think we're all
Speaker 1: hoping just to hope, you know, just trying to get
Speaker 1: back to some sense of normalcy, but especially when it
Speaker 1: comes to you know, entertainment or live theater. Um, how
Speaker 1: did you guys kind of come up with the latest projection?
Speaker 1: Thinking June is this just all around a vaccine, you
Speaker 1: or what's the thinking behind it. Well, it's around all
Speaker 1: of the things relating to the protocols, uh, the fact
Speaker 1: that there hasn't been uh a verified rapid test that
Speaker 1: is secure, which we have to have for the cast
Speaker 1: and crew until the virus is gone. And that doesn't
Speaker 1: even address the audience, which we also have to get
Speaker 1: the right products for the audience. And with no news
Speaker 1: about that now, we just felt that we had to
Speaker 1: be as open and transparent as possible with the people
Speaker 1: that work for Broadway, work on Broadway, and our theater goers.
Speaker 1: So many of those nine thousand employees that depend on
Speaker 1: Broadway to work need to have as much advanced notice
Speaker 1: now as possible so that they can try to find
Speaker 1: other work. Since the extension is so far out, Charlotte,
Speaker 1: what do we know about the economic impact to date
Speaker 1: on those employees on the theater owners? I think about
Speaker 1: these beautiful theaters in Midtown Manhattan on the West Side,
Speaker 1: just sitting idle. Talk to us about some of the
Speaker 1: economic impacts you're hearing about. Well, for our last full season,
Speaker 1: the loss in ticket sales was almost two billion dollars
Speaker 1: and the loss to the city of New York was
Speaker 1: almost fifteen billion dollars. It's, uh, everyone loses with this,
Speaker 1: and it's hard when you're talking billions to put a
Speaker 1: face to it, but in fact, you know, the face
Speaker 1: has ninety seven thousand faces that are unable to collect
Speaker 1: a paycheck. And you know, most of the organizations I
Speaker 1: know have reduced their staff as much as they can
Speaker 1: so that they can reopen when we have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to reopen. So it's it's not good news anyway you
Speaker 1: look at it. I know I was thinking about and
Speaker 1: I guess I was reading something too, you know, just
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about people who go to theater,
Speaker 1: I mean they're all ages, but there's a lot of
Speaker 1: older theater goers, you know, lack of tours that are
Speaker 1: coming into the country now, and then you've got old
Speaker 1: theaters where the idea of trying to do social distancing
Speaker 1: it's just you can't do it, you guys have It's
Speaker 1: just really difficult on so many different angles. That's absolutely right.
Speaker 1: And while you know the average age of our audience
Speaker 1: is forty two point three, I think there's still certainly
Speaker 1: a large percentage over that age and a large percentage
Speaker 1: under that age. And these are hundred year old grandams
Speaker 1: in many cases our theaters. And you know, as someone
Speaker 1: said to me, have you ever watched a one minute
Speaker 1: costume change with three people making that change in the
Speaker 1: in the space the size of a phone booth? So
Speaker 1: you know that social distancing just does at work, Charlotte.
Speaker 1: Are there any parts of the world where live theater
Speaker 1: has come back? I'm thinking about you know, London or
Speaker 1: other Paris or other major markets where it's come back.
Speaker 1: Or is this kind of a universal thing? Now? This
Speaker 1: is universal? You have Korea is the only location that
Speaker 1: I'm aware of that has reopened without social distancing. And
Speaker 1: it's a brand new theater with giant lobbies and giant
Speaker 1: stages and big spaces, and uh, they have a culture
Speaker 1: of wearing masks and and behave much better than a
Speaker 1: lot of our lovely Americans who can't seem to put
Speaker 1: those masks on. So UM, for the most part, you
Speaker 1: have a few venues that are trying social distancing, and
Speaker 1: it's just you can't financially make it work. In New
Speaker 1: York City, we have seventeen union contracts that UM require
Speaker 1: our theaters to be over nine full just to return
Speaker 1: on investment for the people who make theater, and if
Speaker 1: we don't return, we don't get theater. So uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's still we have not found a solution to socially
Speaker 1: distanced in a safe way. Did you say they have
Speaker 1: to be ninety full? No, I said ninety Okay, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: because I remember us talking in the past, and it
Speaker 1: was this whole idea of you know, could you do
Speaker 1: something virtual or could you do something partial? But it's
Speaker 1: just the mathematics just don't exist, Charlotte. They don't, and
Speaker 1: we wish it did. But you know, everybody, the besides
Speaker 1: the people working, I mean the creatives, the theater owners,
Speaker 1: the producers, everything, the model would have to change, and
Speaker 1: I think we're not ready to do that just yet,
Speaker 1: because we certainly haven't. And when you talk to you know,
Speaker 1: when you talk to theatergoers, part of what the joy
Speaker 1: of going to theater is the shared emotion that people
Speaker 1: have when they're sitting next to people and laughing and crying,
Speaker 1: and you pick up the energy. And even the casts
Speaker 1: say they pick up their energy from the audience. How
Speaker 1: are those workers doing, um, Charlotte, I mean, it's such
Speaker 1: a big ecosystem. It's certainly the people we see on stage,
Speaker 1: but there's so many people behind it. There's so much support,
Speaker 1: people who build sets. Um, what are those working workers
Speaker 1: doing at this point? Well, many of them are not
Speaker 1: able to do anything because there's so few jobs available
Speaker 1: out there. Some have gone back home if home isn't
Speaker 1: New York, and you know, are working in different communities,
Speaker 1: and uh, some are not working at all. I think
Speaker 1: many were aided with the extended Unemployment Insurance and the
Speaker 1: Enhanced Employment Insurance, but of course that's uh not assured
Speaker 1: any longer. So it's you know, it's really tragic for everyone.
Speaker 1: I mean they have rent and food to put on
Speaker 1: the table, and health insurance and all of those things
Speaker 1: are at risk. Charlotte talk to us about the economics
Speaker 1: of staging at Broadway production. How is it typically done,
Speaker 1: how's the money raised, where does it come from? And
Speaker 1: is that whole process? Is that going to change now? Well,
Speaker 1: I suspect there will be a lot of changes as
Speaker 1: we move forward, but uh, there's not a set way
Speaker 1: it happens. There are some producers who get a couple
Speaker 1: of other producers and they financed the whole show. Many
Speaker 1: do it with many producers I mean, when you see
Speaker 1: a playbill and you see all that fine print above
Speaker 1: the title, all of those are the primary investors in
Speaker 1: the show. And with an average cost of fifteen to
Speaker 1: eight million dollars for a musical these days and three
Speaker 1: to five million dollars for a play, it takes a
Speaker 1: lot of people to uh to get a Broadway show up,
Speaker 1: and it often takes five to seven or eight years
Speaker 1: to get that show up. So they're you know, investing
Speaker 1: for all of that time and working in the hopes
Speaker 1: of getting a hit. So what is it? I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know forgive me for doing this, but I
Speaker 1: just do you have any like thoughts about what it
Speaker 1: does look like when we finally get back to normal.
Speaker 1: Is it that you bring back, you know, a show
Speaker 1: slowly to see how it goes or or or is
Speaker 1: it too early to even think about that. Well, no,
Speaker 1: we're certainly talking about those things. First of all, there
Speaker 1: were over thirty five shows playing or about to play
Speaker 1: when we had to shut down on March twelve, and
Speaker 1: there's no way we could open thirty five shows all
Speaker 1: at once, if for no other reason, in that there
Speaker 1: will be extensive re rehearsals for all of those shows
Speaker 1: plus the new shows, and you know, many of them
Speaker 1: share the same director or the choreographer, are set designers.
Speaker 1: So I mean, we hope that will have enough of
Speaker 1: critical mass to open and have some excitement. But I
Speaker 1: think you could look at a period of a month
Speaker 1: to six weeks as shows come on board. At least
Speaker 1: that's what we're hoping. I mean, I wish I had
Speaker 1: a giant crystal ball that was accurate, but I don't, Charlotte.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of your working assumption within the community
Speaker 1: that Broadway really doesn't have the opportunity to come back
Speaker 1: until there really is a widely available vaccine. We're not
Speaker 1: saying that because if we said that, we might not
Speaker 1: come back from even longer. We're saying until the scientists
Speaker 1: and the medical uh products that are brought out are ready.
Speaker 1: For example, if we have rapid testing for the casting crew,
Speaker 1: we could do that. I mean, you just saw the
Speaker 1: n b A who had almost no cases because they
Speaker 1: did it in there, you know, in a bubble, so
Speaker 1: to speak. Um, rapid testing is what we think it
Speaker 1: will take for the cast and crew. There are many
Speaker 1: products being tested that have um, what I would call
Speaker 1: cautiously optimistic promises that it will help make the auditorium safe.
Speaker 1: And then and then you have the advent of a
Speaker 1: lot of contact list services and products, whether it's you know,
Speaker 1: how we change the ingress and regress to the theater,
Speaker 1: contactless faucets and toilets, UH, play bills that are online,
Speaker 1: things like that. I mean, every single touch point is
Speaker 1: being analyzed by the forty two task forces working on
Speaker 1: various aspects of of getting back safely. So there's you know,
Speaker 1: there's much we still don't know yet, because just when
Speaker 1: we think we have good information, you learn new information.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it feels like you're going three steps spoward
Speaker 1: and two steps back. But at least we since that
Speaker 1: we're moving forward at this point. Yeah, the whole idea
Speaker 1: of touch points, um, I mean, are there's things like
Speaker 1: playbills online probably going to stay around forever? Is it
Speaker 1: just just to kind of get your way back potentially?
Speaker 1: I have no idea what will happen. I will say
Speaker 1: I know people collect their playbills, and I know people
Speaker 1: that have forty years of playbills, fifty years of playbills
Speaker 1: because it's it's part of their heart and part of
Speaker 1: their being. I can't imagine playbill going away. Maybe we
Speaker 1: will have to have uh the virtually for a while.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's the thought that you have the vendor
Speaker 1: puts the playbills down, let the theater go or pick
Speaker 1: it up. But then, as you've know, when you go
Speaker 1: to the theater, if there's a substitution, they have two
Speaker 1: stuff the playbills with whose substitute? And you know that
Speaker 1: requires manual labor. So there's just so many things that
Speaker 1: are still up in the air, and we're looking at
Speaker 1: it all. Yeah, all right, well, listen, we wish you well,
Speaker 1: and we wish you know, we hope that things start
Speaker 1: to get back to normal sooner rather than maybe that
Speaker 1: June date. Um, so our fingers across. Charlotte sat Martin,
Speaker 1: she's president of the Broadway League. On the phone in
Speaker 1: New York City,