Directed by Amy Rice
Featuring Jewelle Blackman, Ginna Claire Mason, Adam Perry, Ernie Paylor, Peter Mcintosh
Unrated
Runtime: 1 hour and 33 minutes
In theaters December 5

by Megan Bailey, Staff Writer

Directed by Amy Rice, Broadway Rising documents the closing and subsequent reopening of the Great White Way due to COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021. But it also explores how the pandemic affected different facets of the industry, including the under-discussed roles of ushers, costume makers, and dry cleaners in keeping shows running, and the racism faced by Black creators and actors, especially how the reckoning after George Floyd’s death has impacted the opportunities available to them.

Interestingly, the documentary opens with a reference to 9/11, when Broadway shut down for an unprecedented two days. Over a commercial from 2001 featuring “New York, New York,” asking people to return to Broadway, we’re reminded of not a simpler, or less fraught, time, but perhaps a time softened by memory. This reference is intentional as the documentary closes with another performance of “New York, New York;” this time it’s the cast of Hamilton on the first night that Broadway reopened after the pandemic.

While I understand why the comparison was made, and what the filmmakers are trying to do with it, 9/11 comes with so much cultural baggage that it feels a bit odd to say, basically, “Remember 9/11, a previous social trauma that was abused by the government to fund war? Anyways, let’s talk about COVID and Broadway.” These are two big cultural events that we’ll probably never process properly, but the circumstances are so different.

From there, the first half focuses primarily on the shut-down and the closures in 2020, including highlighting a handful of the many workers who got sick: Ernie Paylor and Peter Mcintosh, two ushers who got sick; Adam Perry, a performer in Frozen; and Nick Cordero, a performer who ultimately died due to COVID-19. Their lives were forever altered by the illness, even more so than the people who’d been put out of work by the pandemic. It’s a reminder that COVID took so much from so many.

The doc also calls attention to the racism baked into the industry. Black workers in the industry—including Jewelle Blackman, an actress and playwright; Lynn Nottage, a playwright; T. Oliver Reid, cofounder of the Black Theatre Coalition; and Peter Mcintosh, an usher—talk about their experiences during the George Floyd protests and afterward. This reflection helps put into context how much Broadway needed to change when it reopened. The insight here is interesting, and I think could have been carried through the doc a bit more in order to really hammer it home. As it is, it’s touched on, but the conclusion here, that growth was needed but not totally completed, isn’t fully formed.

Shots from Instagram and phone recordings are intercut with the official interviews and clips. It reminds me of the start of the shut-down, when just about every celebrity went live on Instagram, since there wasn’t much else to do. A lot of these clips are used to illustrate how performers made money during the pandemic, including Ginna Claire Mason, who started teaching classes, and Adam Perry, who began working as a florist. There are also eerie shots of empty New York streets and theaters, which could only be from the early days of the pandemic. No other time could you go to New York without seeing anyone around. These shots together remind us of the uncertainty and fear that fueled those early days.

The second half focuses on the reopening and how COVID has affected different sectors: Costume makers are expected to work even faster than before, shows have epidemiologists now, and a whole cluster of performers left the stage due to illness or simply unwillingness to live with as much uncertainty as stage performers must. Including these downsides along with the wins helps keep the doc honest. There was no way Broadway was going to reopen as a wholly positive experience. There’s been too much loss.

On its face, the ending sequence focused on the reopening of Broadway is heartwarming. It is amazing that so many shows were able to reopen and that so many people were excited to see them. But it turns my stomach a bit to realize that five of the eight shows prominently featured—Frozen, Jagged Little Pill, Pass Over, Waitress, and Lackawanna Blues—have closed. Several of them closed shortly after reopening. Only about a year out from the reopening, three of the feature shows remain: Wicked, Hadestown, and Six.

While the doc also focuses on how Black creatives are underrepresented on Broadway, especially in the higher positions, there’s not quite a happy ending there either. Yes, there were more works by Black writers on Broadway in 2021. But that’s a low bar, and one that we have to aim above in order to make real strides. An unintentional, though interesting, point to notice in this documentary is that all the producers featured are white men. These are the people opening doors—and closing them—on the people of color trying to get a foot inside.

I only moved to New York after the shut-down, and I’ve been lucky enough to attend several shows since the reopening. But this documentary gave me a new perspective on just how strange life was for the Broadway community during the pandemic, beyond the weirdness that I felt as someone with an office job who abruptly switched to working from home while living alone. Broadway was much slower to rebuild than Hollywood, for instance, since those don’t require a live audience, and there was no way of knowing when New York would allow them to safely reopen.

Ultimately, I think this is a well-done documentary, especially considering its scope. When viewed with a wider lens, it’s much sadder than originally intended. I wonder how the editors felt as they put this film together, slowly watching more and more of the shows close by the end of 2021. Broadway Rising now serves as a time capsule of where the theater world was at that exact moment, and in the future, it’ll be interesting to see what’s changed and what hasn’t since then. Ultimately, I hope Broadway continues rising, as there’s certainly more room to grow.