NEW YORK
Section 4 of 6
Broadway is forty-one rooms and a union rulebook
Broadway is not a neighbourhood. It is a roster of forty-one buildings, and a lease signed in one of them triggers a union contract, an award eligibility and a line in a public weekly table. Everything the street is famous for follows from that list.
In this section — 3 pieces
- Broadway is a list of buildings, not a placelongThe designation is contractual. Forty-one theatres qualify, most of them clustered in a few blocks, and everything from union agreements to award eligibility follows from that list.
- Every week’s takings are publishedmediumThe Broadway League reports weekly grosses, which makes it the most transparent commercial theatre in the world and the most brutally comparable.
- The show that opens is not the show that started previewsmediumPreviews are paid rehearsal in front of an audience. Numbers are cut, orders changed and endings rewritten while tickets are being sold.