Broadway’s Unusual Reopening, and Amanda Petrusich Picks Three

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 October 2021

⏱️ 22 minutes

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Summary

Broadway theatres are welcoming audiences to a new season, mounting original works and restaging shows that closed in March, 2020. In this unusual season, Broadway is featuring atypical works such as “Is this a Room,” directed by Tina Satter, which stages the F.B.I. interrogation of the whistle-blower Reality Winner using the official transcript verbatim for all of its dialogues. But the most notable thing about Broadway this season is the record-breaking eight plays by Black playwrights, including Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s “Pass Over,” and the reopening of Jeremy O. Harris’s “Slave Play.” Two theatre critics, Alexandra Schwartz and Vinson Cunningham, discuss whether this diversity is a sign of change on Broadway or a short-term response to the racial reckoning that began in 2020. Plus, the music critic Amanda Petrusich shares three tracks from her playlist for a new baby—featuring Aretha Franklin, Paul and Linda McCartney, and the Velvet Underground.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.
0:12.2	I'm David Remnant.
0:14.6	Hit your head, jump out of bed, because we're turning off the light.
0:19.3	Yeah, it's time to awaken.
0:20.8	Waitress, we start a baking Broadway's back tonight.
0:24.5	Hey, New York time to pop your court because the future's looking bright.
0:29.0	The Tony Awards last weekend was quite a different event than in previous years.
0:33.8	But a year and a half after the pandemic, Broadway is coming back,
0:37.3	albeit with vaccination cards and masks and forehead thermometers, and of course, sanitizer by the handful.
0:45.1	Shows that closed in March of 2020 are now reopening. New shows are having their premieres. And the Broadway season is quite unusual in another way as well. It will feature seven plays
0:56.4	written by black playwrights, and believe it or not, that's a record. Vincent Cunningham and
1:02.1	Alexandra Schwartz both write about theater for The New Yorker. Everything has changed so much.
1:08.5	I mean, so are you, have you been to the theater lately? You know,
1:13.2	have you dipped a toe in yet? I've, I've been. I've been to several shows. A couple things off
1:19.2	Broadway. The first Broadway thing I saw was Passover by Antoinette Nwondo. And I, it was really, really, you know, excited in there.
1:30.5	People were, you know, doing their woo's and claps and stuff before the curtain even came
1:34.8	up.
1:35.1	It was like a sort of, everybody was really excited to beat back.
1:47.2	How about you? How about you going to be back to see a real Broadway play. How about you?
1:48.2	Have you been back in the seat yet?
1:51.1	I've been back in the seat in kind of the lowest key way.
	...

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