March 12, 2021 marks a year since the COVID-19 pandemic gripped New York, forcing theatres shutdown. While theatres remain dark, the driving force of Broadway is not its stages but rather the people who make it come to life performance after performance. In honor of the many artists who have navigated the pandemic off the stage, the Ensemblist reunited over 90 performers to the theatre district for a portrait with theatre photographer Michaelah Reynolds.
“To mark the anniversary of Broadway’s shutdown, we wanted to create a contemporary take on Langdon Clay’s iconic image of 42nd Street from 1979,” the Ensemblist co-creator Mo Brady explained. “Working with photographer Michaelah Reynolds, more than 90 New York stage actors came together to be photographed along the same block adhering to COVID precautions. Although the images were taken more than 40 years apart, they each show one of the world’s most famous roads in a time of crisis. Our goal was to create a striking visual that simultaneously showed isolation and community.”
A Look at The Ensemblist’s Tribute to Broadway a Year Into the Pandemic
Featuring performers from Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations, Aladdin, Beetlejuice, Caroline, or Change, Chicago, Come From Away, Company, Frozen, Hadestown, Hamilton, Jagged Little Pill, Mean Girls, Moulin Rouge!, Mrs. Doubtfire, Once Upon a One More Time, The Book of Mormon, The Inheritance, The Lion King, The Phantom of the Opera, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, West Side Story, and Wicked.
