In this recently published book, we in the Broadway Community express our Longing for all that we have worked our Lives to do – our Faith that we will rise and do it again, our Hope that we can return not only to the fullest expression of our art, but to a new and better version that honors our time away from it and enables us to express even more fully what we have to share – that which we Love.

“But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” – 1 Corinthians 13

As Biblical Scholars have pointed out, Love is the greatest because it ensures that the quality of our interactions with others is Life-Giving, or put another way, Faith and Hope are our own – a more personal experience — whereas Love, we share among others. Faith and Hope get us to Opening Night, and after that comes the really good part: we get to share what we’ve created with the final and greatest collaborator: the Audience!

Broadway…that Fabulous Invalid!

Those of us who Live and Work in this Community have taken a Beating!

No audience gathered together in the dark to share our work…

It’s been a rough two years!

Broadway began the longest shut down in the history of its existence in 2020 when, as I call it: that weekend when the Full Moon, Friday the Thirteenth, and the Ides of March all converged at the start of the Lunar Year of the Rat!

At that time, we shut down for three weeks. Then it was extended through April. Then, Memorial Day… Labor Day… and then everyone stopped offering a projected return.

But BIDEN & HARRIS were elected & Democrats took the Congressional Majority – these events are not unrelated to that Fabulous Invalid’s recovery! The Shuttered Venue Operations Grant was passed by a Democratic Majority Congress, clamorously advocated by Senate Majority Whip, CHUCK SCHUMER. to support Theaters and Entertainment Venues in reopening.

Performances returned in June of 2021 with BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN bringing back his one-person show. Even before that, on Saturday Evening April 3rd, 2021, there was a trial run – JUJAMCYN THEATERS hosted a 40-minute performance at the St. James Theatre with SAVION GLOVER and NATHAN LANE taking stage for an invited audience, just to see how it would go to have people lining up a half hour early to have their vaccination cards checked, attend masked, and remain orderly. That was surprisingly successful. Before that, the most Beautiful Touchstone was the Virtual Remote Live Broadcast of STEPHEN SONDHEIM’s 90th Birthday Celebration with Luminaries of the Musical Theater singing Sondheim Songs live-streamed from their homes. And other than that, we were adrift… lost…hurting and searching for the obfuscated path of our identity that brought us all into the Theater in the first place.

SPRINGSTEEN was followed by ANTOINETTE CHINONYE NWANDU’s PASS OVER in August of 2021, and then HADESTOWN, and Broadway shows reopening steadily into September…October…November…then, Omicron! Cases and contagion levels of Covid-19 rose quickly and suddenly back to levels above what they were when the pandemic first hit!

Some 34 shows reopened or opened on Broadway by November of 2021.

Here it is less than three months later and we are down to 21.

Less than half of Broadway Theaters are occupied.

And yet, that Fabulous Invalid of the Theater is ever Hopeful, overall attendance this week is upwards of 80%, and plans continue to be enthusiastically announced for the Spring Season.

Along this bumpy and occasionally disheartening road toward what I prefer to think of as the Broadway Theater’s Great Reckoning and Rebirth, a performer by the name of ANDREW NORLEN started something. And it seems to me that Starting Something is always a Good Idea!

It’s a Book as a Fundraiser for THE ACTORS’ FUND.

The question was put out on Social Media last year, asking members of the Broadway Theater Community to write themselves a letter from the person they are now to their future selves, about what they envision life will be like, “WHEN THE LIGHTS ARE BRIGHT AGAIN!”

I am delighted that my letter was selected for publication – I believe I am the only working Casting Director represented in the book (The other person who identifies as such has transitioned to working as an agent during the pandemic).

And I am published on the page of the New York Area Code: Page 212!

I am sharing my letter here.

If you wish to support THE ACTORS FUND, by ordering a copy of the entire book, you may do so here…

After forty years in this industry, my name may be found in publications in and around and about the Drama Book Shop… as the Director of premiere productions of the plays of THERESA REBECK and JACQUELINE REINGOLD, in several Books on Auditions, most notably JOANNA MERLIN’s AUDITIONING: AN ACTOR FRIENDLY GUIDE, and hopefully soon on the Audition Book I am writing.

With Faith & Hope, I am Happy to report that the Lights are indeed getting Bright again!

We have survived so much, and I hope we will be back stronger & better than we ever were: Kinder and More Awakened – an even more Beautiful Community than we were before – all getting to do that which we Love!

I am proud to be a part of the Theater Community and I look forward to every step of the road ahead!

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