Growing up in Las Vegas, Ilana Atkins started studying piano at six but eventually hit a wall with classical music.
“The music didn’t speak to me,” she said. “As I got older, the most consistent response I got was, ‘Oh girl, you’re light skinned and you play the piano, you could be the next Alicia Keys.'”Continue Reading
Jeffrey Seller, the lead producer of the blockbuster Hamilton and a producer of the film version that streamed on Disney+, received an emergency small business loan for his company backed by the federal government, according to Treasury Dept. data released on Monday.Continue Reading
EXCLUSIVE: The Public Theater, which has earned tens of millions of dollars launching Hamilton, received federal assistance meant to preserve jobs threatened by the pandemic.
The Public borrowed roughly $4 million through the Paycheck Protection Program, according to Shareeza Bhola, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit. The loans, which are overseen by the Treasury Department and Small Business Administration, may be forgiven when borrowers spend at least 75 percent of the money on payroll over eight weeks.Continue Reading
With no way of knowing when New York’s cultural life will resume, Lincoln Center Theater has suspended production of its summer shows.
Broadway can’t reopen without New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s permission, and it may be among the last sectors of society to get it, Broadway League President Charlotte St. Martin wrote to members and staff of the trade association this morning.
The Broadway League and American Theatre Wing indefinitely postponed the 2020 Tony Awards, which was scheduled for June 7 at Radio City Music Hall.
Broadway will go dark for at least a month — its longest shutdown in modern times — as U.S. performing arts and professional sports screech to a halt in an attempt to limit the public health threat of the coronavirus pandemic.
With Broadway in the thick of its annual spate of openings to qualify for Tony Awards, sixteen new productions — including Six, scheduled to have opened tonight — must reset as all eligible theaters go dark. Most off-Broadway shows also close beginning tonight.Continue Reading
The National Basketball Association announced it will suspend its season, after a Utah Jazz player tested positive for the coronavirus. Los Angeles Times story here. The announcement may put pressure on New York City and state to order Broadway to go on hiatus.
Other developments related to the outbreak:
A Broadway usher who worked recent performances of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Six tested positive for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. New York Times story.
Hit musicals are running longer and making more money than ever — which is illustrated by two fascinating interactive charts.
EXCLUSIVE: Six, the sizzling pop musical in which British Royals meet #MeToo, may be able to repay investors within 11 weeks of its first preview. That’s according to a projection distributed to investors, and assuming the production can sustain the momentum it’s built up through four stops in the U.S. and Canada, more than a year on the West End and ongoing tours in the U.K., Australia and at sea via the Norwegian Cruise Line.
Capitalized on Broadway at $5 million to $6.5 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Six could potentially make its backers whole faster than Hamilton. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s blockbuster took seven months after previews began on Broadway, in July 2015, to recoup its $12.5 million and make its first profit distribution. Should Six become another New York money machine, credit a witty and contemporary score about the divorced, beheaded and otherwise beleaguered wives of King Henry VIII. And its relatively tiny budget.Continue Reading
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