Broadway recently announced that theaters on the Great White Way in New York would be shuttered through May 2021. Because the effects also extend to touring shows, the long arm of the pandemic has devastated such companies as Dallas Summer Musicals, which on Wednesday announced just how bad the fallout will be.
The delays threaten to cripple DSM’s 2020-21 season, with four shows — Oklahoma!, Tootsie, Mean Girls and Come From Away — postponed until further notice. The Tony Award-winning 2018 play To Kill a Mockingbird, scheduled to open in Dallas last March, has, in the words of DSM, “been canceled and will be rescheduled for a later date.”
On a more optimistic note, DSM has scheduled Hadestown for May 18-30 of next year, but as its president, Kenneth T. Novice, said this week, that date is tentative at best.
Novice says the Broadway producers that supply the shows want full capacity, or, he said, that show will also be moved.
Others appearing on the tentative schedule for 2021 include Jesus Christ Superstar (July 6-18), Wicked (Aug. 4-Sept. 5) and Jersey Boys, Oct. 19-31. Most of the shows in the 20-21 season had been reshuffled once before, so the dates announced Wednesday are merely the latest revisions.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Novice said with a sigh. “We’re here to present Broadway, and people in Dallas seem to really love these shows. It’s frustrating for us not to be able to fulfill our core mission.”
When it comes to Hadestown, can they be certain of doing a show in May?
“That is a very good question,” Novice said, noting that he had been in frequent contact with the Broadway League and DSM’s producer, Broadway Across America, “and we spent a lot time on that topic, on reopening Texas. The truthful answer to it is, I just don’t know. It’s all so dependent on the coronavirus. And we don’t know where that’s going.”
Novice said he hopes Hadestown can take the stage in May, “but we also hoped that we could once again do shows starting in January.”
Partial capacity is out of the question, he said, because Broadway producers "need to sell a lot of tickets in order to recoup their costs. Unless they can play at full capacity, it’s an economic non-starter.”
DSM has laid off its part-time staff — about 200 ushers, box-office personnel and others — “because, of course, we’re not presenting shows.
DSM received about $750,000 from the federal Payroll Protection Program, which Novice said took away some of the pain. He has kept in close touch with such proposed federal measures as the Save Our Stages Act and The RESTART Act, “but all of that stuff is stuck because there has not been an agreement on a relief or stimulus bill. We hope that something will happen, but we just don’t know. People rely on this work for their livelihoods, and when we can’t stage shows, it takes its toll.”
DSM has about 45 full-time employees, a number, he said, that he has had to furlough by half. He says he hopes to bring them back as soon as full programming resumes.
“We all run on a shoestring in the theater business anyway,” he said. “We would bring back the people, because we absolutely need them. There’s no fat in these budgets in American theater.”
DSM’s annual budget varies widely from year to year, he said. When the Broadway super-show Hamilton played the Music Hall in the spring of 2019, the budget soared to about $45 million. In a “normal” year, he said, it’s about $25 million. During the fiscal year ending Oct. 31, it was $23 million.
He admitted that the pandemic has led to a budget deficit, which he said is, at the moment, about $1.2 million for the fiscal year ending Oct. 31.
Novice praised his team for “pivoting quickly” from live programming to streaming, bringing to the DSM such fare as Live from the West Side: Women of Broadway, a livestream concert series featuring Patti LuPone, Laura Benanti and Vanessa Williams that debuts with LuPone on Oct. 24.
DSM is thrilled, he said, at being able to keep its High School Musical Theatre Awards going in 2020, albeit in a virtual format. “And it was really good,” he said.
“To me, the biggest value in the virtual programming,” Novice said, “is that it keeps our audiences engaged. It keeps their appetite for Broadway, so that when we come back, they’re excited and ready to come back.”
In the wake of the pandemic, DSM also launched a program called Black Art Matters, which, Novice said, spotlights local Black artists in Dallas through interviews and performances.
“None of these things are big moneymakers," he said. "This will never replace the money that comes from putting on a show, but it keeps the audience interested and allows us to continue our education programs.”
As enticing as the digital alternatives are, “People crave live experience,” Novice said — and long to return to it. “I want to continue doing our virtual programming. It’s a great new thing that we’ve done, but I see it more as a marketing tool.”
When it comes to subscribers, Novice said, “There’s a great demand for Broadway shows, still. Even with the changes that we’ve announced, we’ve had very little falloff. Very few people have asked for refunds. Most have said, ‘Keep the money. I’ll come see it when you guys can do it.’ They really want to see the shows, and that alone has been keeping us going.”
