The first tunes heard on Broadway after nearly 16 months of pandemic-darkened theaters weren’t penned by Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, or Rodgers and Hart. They were belted by another songwriting legend: bridge and tunnel hero Bruce Springsteen.
The Boss (or the Boardwalk Balladeer, or Steinbeck in Leather, or whatever you want to call him) is back with his hit show, Springsteen on Broadway, which has moved from the Walter Kerr Theatre to the St. James on West 44th Street in Manhattan. The show aims to delight 1,700 fans with Springsteen’s storytelling, autobiographical patter, and stripped-down hits dating back to his 1973 debut, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.
Charlotte St. Martin, head of the Broadway League, called Springsteen’s return “exciting” and said, “it’s the beginning of the reopening of Broadway.” (Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s play, Pass Over, will be the next show back up on August 4th, while crowd-pleasers such as The Phantom of the Opera and Hamilton will return in mid-September.)
But even The Boss can’t win over all of America in an age of rampant Covid conspiracies: Approximately “three dozen, vocal, anti-vaccine protesters” rallied outside the theater, according to the Asbury Park Press (the foremost authority on all Springsteen-related news forever and ever, amen).
The demonstrators opposed the fact that the theater required proof of vaccination to attend the show. (Relatedly, when I attended a different, non-Broadway full-capacity show recently at the Beacon Theatre, an usher briefly glanced at my vax card the first night, and no one asked for it on the second.) To the assembled protesters, such basic measures to ensure public health safety amounted to fascism and civil rights violations.
“We learned in the ‘60s that segregating people isn’t right,” a woman holding a “Bruce Springsteen is for Segregation on Broadway” sign told the APP. Another man with a bullhorn shouted, “Welcome to Nazi Germany.”
However, the show went on. Springsteen on Broadway has always allowed for nightly wiggle room in lieu of a set-in-stone program. (For example, most nights Patti Scialfa makes an appearance to duet with her husband on “Tougher Than The Rest” and “Brilliant Disguise,” but not always.) And on Saturday, Springsteen didn’t shy away from addressing the current political environment.
Of the protestors, Springsteen reportedly said, “I understand those folks out in the street. It’s scary, scary times filled with confusion.” His 2000 song, “American Skin (41 Shots),” originally written in reaction to the police killing of Amadou Diallo, made its way into the program, recognition of the murder of George Floyd and subsequent unrest last summer.
“We are living in troubled and troubling times,” he said.
One can watch Springsteen on Broadway on Netflix or stream it on Spotify, but audiences are clearly thrilled to have him back for this limited run through September 4. Good luck finding a ticket under $300 on the resale market right now, though Springsteen, always going the extra mile for his fans (even if it means getting in trouble), has set up a lottery system securing 32 face value tickets per night for folks who don’t have that kind of bread.
Opening night’s proceeds went to a collection of New York and New Jersey-based charities.
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