Host Frank DiLella on how the intimate 'Nice Performances' reopening documentary that includes Andrew Lloyd Webber and Kristin Chenoweth follows Broadway's return past the stage.
It was March 12, 2020, and NY1 reporter and “On Stage” host Frank DiLella’s telephone was lighting up.
“I used to be at my desk and was beginning to get textual content messages from buddies who had been on this Broadway League assembly. The texts had been saying ‘Broadway’s shutting down, Broadway’s shutting down,'” DiLella remembers of the assembly with NY city and state authorities officers at first of the pandemic. It was a gathering that might in the end shut the curtain on Broadway — an business DiLella says “that brings in more cash to New York Metropolis than all the sports activities groups within the tri-state space mixed” — for an unprecedented 18 months.
On the time, the close to 20-year journalism veteran took to his present to inform viewers that Broadway would doubtless be shutting down and that he and his staff would make one certain dedication to the neighborhood: “We'd be there when these lights return on.”
However DiLella was additionally having conversations with fellow reporters, together with a longtime buddy and veteran anchor at NY1, that had a really totally different bend. “They had been like, ‘Frank, that is going to be longer than what we thought was going to be a few weeks.'”
Forward of the two-year anniversary of the shutdown — and amid Broadway’s omicron surge — DiLella launched one of many newest chapters in PBS’ Nice Performances collection, Reopening: The Broadway Revival.. The doc, like a number of others to debut in fall 2021, chronicles the Nice White Approach’s comeback. However in contrast to the others, it doesn’t finish at reopening night time’s curtain name. The Broadway Revival options Broadway icons like Andrew Lloyd Webber, Adrienne Warren, Sara Bareilles and Kristin Chenoweth, who all assist seize Broadway’s battle to return in September and the ups and downs of working by way of the pandemic fall.
DiLella spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about how he teamed with PBS, what it took to get his inside take a look at Broadway’s return off the bottom amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the most important challenges of delivering a documentary amid a shifting public well being panorama.
You’ve reported on Broadway by way of the pandemic, however when did the concept for this documentary first come to you, and when did you begin engaged on it?
We on my staff at “On Stage” began doing these pillar episodes each month, monitoring the neighborhood and the way they had been getting by way of all this. When the Black Lives Matter motion took heart stage and the Broadway neighborhood actually felt this and demanded change, we did an entire episode devoted to that. In September of 2020, once we had been monitoring artists who're attempting to outlive, we went to Tony nominee, Broadway performer and ballet dancer Robbie Fairchild’s house on the Higher West Facet, the place he was promoting flowers out of his house. I noticed then and there, that there was one thing right here.
Then out of the blue in Might of 2021, I received approached by a manufacturing firm in L.A. saying we’ve been following your tales and we love what you’re doing for the theater neighborhood. We’d love to speak to you about some issues that we may work on collectively. I and certainly one of my buddies and collaborators at “On Stage,” Cody Williams, had talked and joked round, saying, there’s a documentary right here in regards to the reopening. Then when this manufacturing firm reached out to us, we simply began having conversations after which in the end PBS expressed curiosity after which we hit the bottom operating. In order that’s the lengthy story of how this all got here to be.
You weren’t simply there for the street to opening night time. You traced the reopening by way of the autumn. What was it like having to seize all this throughout the pandemic?
We use some footage, which you do see within the movie, that was taken throughout the top of the COVID pandemic, in order that’s how we had been capable of plug in these components. By way of the interviews themselves, we really prematurely began gathering interviews with folks simply in case. We knew we had been very near PBS signing off and giving us the inexperienced gentle. Like Sara Bareilles was all carried out whereas she was in rehearsal, and that was in the summertime. However for all of those of us, what you see within the movie is what you get. We’re following them as they go into the rehearsal room for the primary time, as they go on stage for the primary time. Michael James Scott from Aladdin, particularly, we see him from the very starting, attending to the rehearsal room, determining his physique shouldn't be as in form because it was when he was doing this two years in the past.
Then, I’ll always remember, on Sept. 28, they'd their reopening, and the subsequent night time the present shut down. The day after they reopened, after which once more, shut down for 10 days. We had been there for that complete factor. I bear in mind calling Cody, the director of the movie saying, “What can we do?” He’s like, “Frank, that is a part of the story.” We had been planning on being together with his complete household that weekend as much as the present, and going backstage, however as an alternative, we’re on the terrace of his house, and he’s speaking in regards to the present being closed for 10 days. So they're all within the second. We tracked these of us from, I’d say, August up till the top of November, early December.
You could have fairly a couple of main Broadway stars on this speaking fairly overtly and intimately about their expertise returning to the stage. The way you had been capable of get all of those folks to talk so vulnerably about what they'd and had been nonetheless experiencing?
Once we had been casting the movie, when it comes to who to comply with, numerous these of us had been simply telephone calls. Adrienne Warren was on the point of reopen Tina on the time, and I bumped into her on the park. She was strolling her canine in September, and I used to be like, “Hey, how are rehearsals going?” “Making an attempt to recollect the present, attempting to recollect the present,” she form of laughed. I bear in mind I then referred to as her on a Sunday and mentioned, “Adrienne, we’re placing collectively this documentary. I do know you’re busy. I do know you've got 3,000 movie tasks within the works. I do know you’re on the point of do the Tonys and reopen your present, however please do that documentary. It’s for Nice Performances.” She mentioned to me she grew up loving PBS. “It modified my life, so you'll be able to rely me in.”
For Kristin Chenoweth, we did a Broadway is again particular for NY1. We rented out The Majestic Theatre, I hosted it and referred to as on Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jessie Tyler Ferguson and Kristin Chenoweth to come back go to me on the theater the night time The Lion King, Depraved, Chicago and Hamilton all reopened. Kristen was very supportive of this and she or he mentioned, “No matter you want for the documentary, I’m in.” She was like, “After I do your present at The Majestic Theatre on Sept. 14, I’m going over to Depraved to do their welcome again speech, after which I’m going over to Lion King. You need to have a crew simply comply with me round. I’ll work together with the Glinda, you’ll see me interacting with the stage crew.” That was her advice. She was like, “Simply have somebody include me within the automotive and comply with me round. We have to let folks know Broadway is again.”
We shot within the non-public Schubert penthouse above Sardi’s. Nobody has entry to that. They by no means put that on the market. However Charlie Flateman, who was one of many heads of the Schubert, mentioned “I like what you’re doing. You wish to use our area? Nobody shoots up there. We don’t permit it, however go arrange store.” All of the areas had been donated to us. David Rockwell simply constructed a resort in Midtown, devoted to the theater. It’s Broadway-themed. They had been beneath building throughout the time we had been filming, however he was like, “Simply use our resort totally free.” They'd cease building so we may movie in that bar space. That was the form of help that I received placing this movie collectively.
Significantly with the PBS partnership, how else did you need your documentary to be totally different from others?
The one factor we actually needed to hit residence, and I’m talking for Cody Williams, who directed the movie and likewise govt produced this with us, is that we needed to form of present the center of the business, the energy of the business. That is an business that was the primary to close down and the final to come back again. That is an business that fuels inns, retailers, parking garages. New York Metropolis shouldn't be New York Metropolis till Broadway is again in full drive. So we needed to point out what that meant with this all gone and the energy of those folks — how resilient these of us are — to push ahead even in a world of a lot uncertainty. We needed to ship this to PBS in early December. So, clearly, that was earlier than omicron actually hit Broadway locally, however because it was taking place, I bear in mind speaking to the producers on the venture. There may be one other ending that we had that sadly couldn't get loaded in due to the stations throughout the nation. The neighborhood has been hit actually arduous, however even with omicron, there’s nonetheless this preventing spirit that this neighborhood has. That was so vital for us to convey with this movie, and I feel that does come by way of.
What had been a number of the greatest challenges of getting this off the bottom?
By way of challenges, it was 1-2-3-go for us. We received the inexperienced gentle from PBS in early September. We had been taking pictures on our personal, simply figuring out or having that intestine feeling that the whole lot was going to undergo, however we actually received the inexperienced gentle proper across the time Broadway was reopening. So the most important problem for me was doing my day job and maintaining our viewers in control on the whole lot that was taking place after which inserting right here and there each single time we may get a crew to sit down down with the parents that you simply see and that we comply with within the movie. Entry was a no brainer. The difficult factor was managing time and the crew’s time. By way of hiccups alongside the best way, I might say the most important one for me was Aladdin having that transient pause, which form of foreshadowed what we noticed occur in December with numerous these Broadway reveals. Thankfully for us, Disney and the folks concerned with Aladdin, it got here again, and it’s going sturdy.
Nice Performances’ Reopening: The Broadway Revival is presently streaming, concurrent with broadcast on all station-branded PBS platforms, on PBS.org and the PBS Video App by way of Feb. 15.