“After a show last year, someone commented on my weight while talking to me in the lobby. Her friends stood around speechless. I was speechless too.”

“Did you hear the one about the Broadway musical so bad, so horrible, so huge a flop that after it closed, the company that owned the theater sold it to a church group?

No?”

According to cheated customers, Brown Paper Tickets’ customer service is a mess. Phone calls and emails aren’t being returned. If there is a response, it’s automated and provides very little details. Questions over what happened to their funds aren’t being answered. And now, to top it all off, they shut down their phone support.

I accidentally introduced myself to Broadway about five years ago and I couldn’t help but notice how theater culture on Broadway differs from the theater culture that I know: the theater culture in Latvia.

“If audience members are tortured by a play, it should be because the playwright is forcing them to deal with life’s difficult issues.  It should not from lack of craft, or because the playwright is rambling on with nothing of substance to say.”

“Full of that dark humour and nihilist thinking that Beckett is so famous for, it really spoke to me on that day. What I didn’t know, however, was what it was teaching me for our very near future, a.k.a. our present lockdown.”

“While most productions big and small across the country did cancel or postpone, unlike Broadway or the West End’s ominous shuttering, a few productions in Korea have remained open. Korea’s approach elucidates hints of what the Broadway community should expect, or perhaps demand, from theater owners, audiences, producers, and marketing in order to move forward together.”

“Many dance celebrities are taking advantage of the time at home by offering live-streamed classes, many of which are free. And if you've never danced before, or if you've hesitated from taking classes because you're self-conscious when surrounded by a group of 20+ people, this online at home approach could be the perfect opportunity to try out something new. “

“And for everyone else, we were given a gift last night, a beautiful reminder that theater and Broadway are not gone; the ghost light stays on for us all.”

“There are tons of TikTok accounts dedicated to musical theater already, whether because users are creating theater-themed sounds following the “put a finger down” game trend for people to use, or they’re participating in riff challenges inspired by Christina Aguilera’s iconic one in Burlesque.”

“You can rise from the valley of the "no" and travel the mountain back up as a better actor to the "yes" of the future.”

Whether it be said in jest, or not, we as performers have heard the lot!