Broadway’s Daryl Roth: ‘It’s a war’ prepping for return of theater

Daryl Roth. Multiple Tonys. Backs Pulitzers. Co-produced Broadway’s “Kinky Boots.” Broadway just announced its theaters are dark for the rest of the year. So doing what about the East 15th theater named for her?

“Working on arranging the configuration. Off-Broadway’s more flexible than Broadway since our seats are movable. Look, it’s a war. We’ll work out how our audiences are safely gathered, then we have to battle the backstage purity. Keep our stagehands and crews safe . . . Questions get decided with help of the Broadway League. Committees are talking. Many different people talking. Will it now be a smaller space? Will we seat 1,500 or 300? In-depth conversation is to follow government protocols, make it safe. We’re dealing with consultants and compromises. We’ve worked on temperature control and air purification.


“Somebody set a police car on fire near my theater, which is a landmark, so constructed a plywood wall around it. And the walls are talking. Not with graffiti, but with words. We had an artist paint quotes over it from famous playwrights. There’s a magnificent mural called ‘Black Lives Matter,’ where names of people who have died are memorialized.”

“For now, I’m stuck home like everyone else. Watching birds from my window. Reading scripts. Grateful for my dog, Lily. Happy at least I live near my doctors. Obsessing on many who depend on a livelihood and are now unemployed. The world yearns for theater. It’s a great healer.”

Pol position turns

Activist, fighter for women’s rights, longtime Dem congresswoman Carolyn Maloney just helped AOC - may her tripe decrease. She talked up AOC, backed her, helped this creature. Up for re-election herself, Carolyn figured this way the looney lefts wouldn’t fight her and would then support the re-election of Carolyn Maloney.

Yeah, right. Now a really really left leftist Suraj Patel, whom most of civilization didn’t know and whom Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thought could beat Carolyn, is running against her. Maloney’s copy of the Good Book may say “No good dead goes unscrewed.”


What I hear

Meanwhile, others are out doing. Julianne Moore’s off to play a sharpie con artist in Apple’s thing “Sharper” … Josh Gad? In England doing some brilliant HBO job whilst muttering: “I’m busy wiping down every damn thing with sanitizers, like those Clorox handwipes” … As the world rages, LeBron James is producing a doc about the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921.
Hat in the ring

John Catsimatidis. If he got off his radio stations long enough, he’s itching to be next New York City mayor. Getting in shape, he’s lost 60 pounds.

So - if he doesn’t exactly run for office - he could now very definitely walk fast for it. Due to a greatly reduced behind size, his new pants come from JoS. A. Bank.
Please try to pay attention

Bolton’s bullbleep book burbled Trump thought Finland’s under Russian control. I am told Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin since snarled: “We thought the same thing about the United States.” Finland, known for absolutely nothing except for being Santa Claus’ home, might shut up. As should this not-so prime minister, who need realize even Santa looks to get the hell out of that country once a year.


Yanks for new memories

Yankee Stadium can seat - give or take a few behinds - 54,251. Today, finally, it’ll open for six - could be, maybe, eight - executive-level rear ends. In their offices. To prep. No peanuts, no Cracker Jack. But Allahu Akbar - God is great. Come July, it’s root-root-root for the home team. In Tahiti, the national pastime is making love. Us dumbdumbs - we picked baseball.