In every way possible, the Covid pandemic smothered live theater. Broadway shut down. Audiences vanished. Crew and actors clocked in as nonessential.
In compliance with strict lockdowns, professional theater companies went even further than schools and restaurants, with some policing themselves into near nonexistence. Where big theater companies cut back and gobbled up relief funds, smaller ones simply died off.
Three years out, live theater may be clawing its way back. Gross Broadway ticket sales are slightly higher than they were last year. But for regional theaters around the country, and particularly on the West Coast, the recovery is anemic.
The trend of fewer plays, canceled seasons, and closed theaters is now so prominent that even The New York Times is noticing. With worried theater folk mulling culprits — inflation, streamed entertainment, the exodus from cities, pandemic relief running out — few are seeing another, perhaps deadlier factor: regional theaters’ excessive focus on race, social justice, and woke ideology.
Displeased audiences may not be as unified (or viral) as those protesting Bud Light, but they are responding — by not buying tickets. Theaters in New York City, Chicago, and even Kansas City watched this happen in real-time, when plays with obvious social justice-flavored topics (racism in boxing or the daily struggles of immigrant life in a sanctuary city, to name a few) underperformed dramatically. But along the scenic West Coast, that flavoring is a heavy saturation, and the number of popular, destination-driven theater companies nearing collapse is jaw-dropping.
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