Watch Highlights: The Return of Broadway at The New Yorker Live – The New Yorker

How we respond to this moment is what our grandkids are going to ask us about, the Tony Award-winning actor and director Ruben Santiago-Hudson said, on Tuesday, during the latest installment of The New Yorker Live, the magazines monthly event series for subscribers. Broadway is preparing to reopen next month, after the pandemic forced theatres to take a year-and-a-half-long hiatus, and the industry faces a changed world. Santiago-Hudson and David Byrne, the musician and producer best known as the front man of the Talking Heads, joined the New Yorker staff writer Vinson Cunningham to discuss how they hope to shape the contours of this age.

I will not allow Broadway, or any theatre, to assume that they can come back with the same attitudes that they had prior to the pandemic, and prior to the racial strife that tore this country apart, Santiago-Hudson said. His noted solo show Lackawanna Blues, an autobiographical, blues-inspired play about the woman who raised him, returns on September 14th. American cultural institutions are reckoning with racial injustice and looking for ways to address it, both in the substance of their work and in the way that their organizations operate. Santiago-Hudson said that he had called on the Manhattan Theatre Club, which is presenting his show, to rise to the challenges of the moment: Acknowledge the land youre on; acknowledge the labor that built this country. Look at your staff and revaluate the percentages in there. Revaluate the parity of men and women; look at the pay-scale differences. Look at what youre developing, where youre seeking your art from. What does your board look like? But, he added, One thing I know for certain: they want change as well.

Byrne said that the events of 2020 and 2021 have altered his perspective on his own show, the Tony-winning theatrical concert American Utopia, a performance based on Byrnes 2018 studio album of the same name. Adapted by Spike Lee into a film for HBO last year, the live show, which combines themes of protest with a tone of resilience and joy, reopens, at the St. James Theatre, on September 17th. Some of the things that I address in the showwhether its voting, race, immigration, all those thingsare, if anything, more relevant, more of the moment than they were then, he said. Which is kind of hard to believe.

The two also discussed the public-health challenges of reopening theatres while the Delta variant is spreading, and why the communal experience of live performance is irreplaceable. Both are eager for Broadway to returnsafely, of course, in accordance with the guidance of the Actors Equity union and the C.D.C., including mask wearing for audience members and special protocols for ticket taking. And yet the need that we have to be together is justits overwhelming, Byrne said. It really is part of who we are.

The clip above includes highlights from the New Yorker Live discussion, including how the Broadway community fared during the shutdown, how to speak the truth through songwriting, and why its important to make art that reflects what the country looks like. Subscribers to The New Yorker can watch the full conversation, as well as all previous installments of The New Yorker Live, at newyorker.com/live. Check the page in the weeks ahead for details about upcoming events, and subscribe to gain access.

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Watch Highlights: The Return of Broadway at The New Yorker Live - The New Yorker