Producers have experienced a wide variety of headaches while shooting across the past year, but one mostly unforeseen plus has perked up amidst the pandemic: The amount of Broadway talent available for television, with New York’s esteemed theater district down for the long term. 

Stage stars are popping up in the cast of HBO dramas Succession and Mare of Easttown, Epix dramedy Bridge and Tunnel, and a range of Hallmark Channel holiday films, including Mix Up in the Mediterranean. 

Michelle Vicary, executive VP of programming at Hallmark parent Crown Media Family Networks, said the network has been keen to tap Broadway talent for a couple years, but saw more opportunities open up when Broadway went on hiatus. “Our goal as we move forward is, we want to continue to work with them.” Vicary said. “With Broadway down, our ability to tap into this amazing talent is really obvious for us to do.”

Mare of Easttown, with Kate Winslet playing a detective in a working-class Pennsylvania town, has Broadway talent such as Joe Tippett (who starred in Waitress) and Neal Huff (who was in To Kill a Mockingbird) in the cast. Tippett plays Dan, husband of Mare’s best friend, and Huff portrays a priest. 

Mare of Easttown creator Brad Ingelsby was on board with Broadway talent right away. “Brad inhaled it,” said casting director Avy Kaufman. “He loved it.”

Good TV projects appear to be a logical pursuit for a stage actor stuck at home, waiting for theaters to reopen. “I would imagine those actors would be looking for an outlet; I hope they’re getting work,” Ingelsby said. “I hope the ramp-up in the TV world and the movie space would provide opportunities.”

Triple Threats

To be sure, Broadway talent has long appeared on television. One needs only to leaf through a Playbill to see how many cast members have turned up in the various Law & Order shows. More of the thespians are available to work these days. “A lot of it has to do with availability,” Kaufman said. “People just plainly were not available. Now, it’s let’s just keep people working.”

Stars of the stage often bring unique gifts to the set that may not be available from a veteran screen actor. Shooting Epix’s Bridge and Tunnel, about a group of college grads on Long Island pondering their grand life plans, creator Edward Burns acknowledged “access to such a deep pool of actors” in New York. “With Broadway down,” he added, “it’s a deeper pool.”

Barrett Wilbert Weed, who starred in Mean Girls on Broadway, plays Lizzie, who sings in an all-female punk band in Bridge and Tunnel. “She’s a big deal on Broadway, a major singer,” Burns said. “She’s probably not available otherwise.”

The Hallmark Christmas movie One Royal Holiday initially did not have a musical number. But when Broadway standouts Laura Osnes, whose stage credits include playing Cinderella in Cinderella and Sandy in Grease, and Aaron Tveit, who starred in Moulin Rouge!, came on board on the project, they suggested a song. The pair ended up performing a version of “Winter Wonderland” that opens the movie. 

Vicary said it’s usually a smooth transition for a stage star to do television. “They are consummate professionals who are able to navigate the TV screen as easily as they do Broadway,” she said. 

What helps the theater stars work out at Hallmark is that a Broadway show and Hallmark movie have similar goals in terms of reaching an audience. “So much of what Broadway does is what Hallmark does — it makes you feel good, feel positive, feel better about the world,” Vicary said. 

Curtain Raiser Come Fall

Last month, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city plans to set up a coronavirus vaccination site on Broadway to give shots to theater industry workers, in addition to a mobile vaccination unit to serve theater workers beyond Broadway. 

Theaters in New York State were permitted to open April 2 at 33% capacity, with a limit of 100 people indoors. That’s not enough to make Broadway productions viable. 

Mayor de Blasio hopes to reopen Broadway theaters in the fall. “This is going to be a year to turn things around,” de Blasio told The New York Times. “It’s time to raise the curtain and bring Broadway back.”

Other TV productions boasting Broadway talent include Succession, which has three-time Tony nominee Linda Emond on board to play a senior White House aide in season three, and the Showtime drama Rust, which borrows Bill Camp and Dallas Roberts from the stage, and whose lead, Jeff Daniels, played Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. 

At Hallmark, Jeremy Jordan, who starred in West Side Story and Waitress on Broadway, had the lead in movie Holly & Ivy last year (“one of the most beautiful projects we’ve done,” said Vicary), and stars in Mix Up in the Mediterranean, which premiered on Hallmark Feb. 20. That one is about a small-town cook who impersonates his twin, a big-city chef, to compete in a culinary contest, and falls in love. Jordan played both. 

Even when Broadway is up and running again, Hallmark execs hope stage talent will think about doing their movies in between Broadway shows. “What an honor it’s been to broaden our work with these amazingly talented people,” Vicary said. “It’s such a win for our network, and we look forward to doing more.” 

 Disney Plus has released a first-look trailer for the film version of the hit Broadway pay Hamilton, which debuts on the streaming service July 3. 

The film, which was slated to debut in theaters in fall 2021 but in May was moved up to launch on Disney Plus, was filmed at The Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway in June 2016is and stars Lin-Manuel Miranda, who earned a Tony Award for his starring role in the play as Alexander Hamilton. 

Disney will move its film version of hit Broadway play Hamilton from the theaters to Disney+ in July.

The film, which was slated to debut in theaters in fall 2021, will stream on Disney+ beginning July 3, according to Disney executives. The movie, which was filmed at The Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway in June 2016, is produced by Jeffrey Seller and Thomas Kail, as well as Lin-Manuel Miranda, who earned a Tony Award for his starring role in the play as Alexander Hamilton. 

The Hamilton film provides Disney+ with new, high-profile content in the midst of a content production slowdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“No other artistic work in the last decade has had the cultural impact of Hamilton—an inspiring and captivating tale told and performed in a powerfully creative way. In light of the extraordinary challenges facing our world, this story about leadership, tenacity, hope, love and the power of people to unite against the forces of adversity is both relevant and impactful,” said Robert A. Iger, Executive Chairman of The Walt Disney Company in a statement. “We are thrilled to bring this phenomenon to Disney+ on the eve of Independence Day, and we have the brilliant Lin-Manuel Miranda and the team behind Hamilton to thank for allowing us to do so more than a year before planned.”

Added Lin-Manuel Miranda: “I’m so proud of how beautifully Tommy Kail has brought ‘Hamilton’ to the screen. He’s given everyone who watches this film the best seat in the house. I’m so grateful to Disney and Disney+ for reimagining and moving up our release to July 4 weekend of this year, in light of the world turning upside down. I’m so grateful to all the fans who asked for this, and I’m so glad that we’re able to make it happen. I’m so proud of this show. I can’t wait for you to see it.”

[embed]https://twitter.com/Lin_Manuel/status/1260181905909129216[/embed]

Network, The 1976 film about a ratings-challenged news anchor who vows to kill himself on the air, and sees his Nielsen numbers skyrocket as he delivers loose-cannon jeremiads about politics and media and corporate America to viewers, is set to premiere on Broadway. Bryan Cranston plays anchor Howard Beale.

While the story is set four decades ago, the play — and the not-so-dated movie before it — raises some pressing and familiar issues about the media’s role in our lives today.

Beale is wrestling with the public’s dedication to the almighty box sitting in their family rooms. “This tube is gospel, this tube is the ultimate revelation,” he shouted on the stream-of-consciousness-driven Howard Beale Show, which took the place of his staid newscast. “This tube can make or break presidents, popes and prime ministers. This tube is the most awesome goddamn force in the whole godless world!”

The Howard Beale Show is something of a precursor to the personality-driven, soliloquy-rich content one finds on cable news today. The film, said The New Yorker, “was uncannily prescient about our outrage-fueled news-as-entertainment culture, foreseeing the likes of Sean Hannity, Jerry Springer and Laura Ingraham by decades.”

Every night, some 27 million to 29 million people tuned in to see Walter Cronkite deliver the CBS Evening News, according to Forbes magazine. Beale did a little better than the Most Trusted Man in America as his new program took off. As the anchor starts to become unglued, he’s visited by a ghost. He asks the apparition why he’s been approached. Because you have 40 million Americans watching, he is told.

People loved watching Beale’s “angry prophet” routine, but as happens with viewers, they lost interest over time. His boss, Diana Christensen — she’s played by Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany — tells Beale he’s “dropping like a stone” when his audience share falls below a 40.

Network chiefs today can dream about that 40 share. The average audience for the evening newscasts on ABC, CBS and NBC stands at 5.2 million viewers apiece, said comScore TV Essentials, a 7% drop from the year before.

But that’s not to say people aren’t consuming awesome amounts of media. Last year, Fox News Channel generated some $2.67 billion in revenue, CNN tallied $1.59 billion and MSNBC took in $798 million, according to SNL Kagan. Seeking to reach its consumers on the go, Fox News launched its OTT product Fox Nation last week. For six bucks a month, users get on-demand programming starring the likes of star-polished personalities Tomi Lahren, Britt McHenry and Sean Hannity.

Fox News senior vice president of development and production John Finley likened the new channel to a combination of Netflix and Facebook Live. “It’s kind of a hybrid mix between the two,” Finley said, “in terms of format and offerings.”

It’s safe to say Beale would be blown away by Netflix, even though he would probably be disappointed by the platform’s lack of news. Netflix is spending close to $13 billion on original content this year, according to The Economist, way up from $8 billion a year ago. If one can’t swing the eleven bucks a month, one can simply stand in Times Square, a quick hop from where Network shows at the Belasco Theatre, and watch the massive digital billboard showing Netflix clips all day long.

Standard Deviation

Beale also lamented the breakdown in the lofty standards the news business once held itself to. “Television is not the truth,” thundered Beale. “Television is a goddamn amusement park. Television is a carnival, a circus, a traveling troupe of acrobats and storytellers, dancers and jugglers and sideshow freaks, lion tamers and football players.”

Speaking with The New York Times, Cranston — who, of course, played methamphetamine-making Walter White on Breaking Bad — shared his own thoughts on the state of news media. “We’re seeing it now, very clearly: agendas of different outlets, to promulgate their ideology,” he said. “Whether it’s liberal or conservative. It doesn’t matter, it’s out there. And you listen to the people who agree with you for affirmation, and you listen to the other side so you can get angry and shout at them.”

TV news today, Cranston added, is a “news-entertainment program.”

Fittingly, oversight of Beale’s program gets shifted from the news division to programming, with all the entertainment series. As programming chief Diana Christensen discusses the show with news president Max Schumacher, played by Tony Goldwyn, who portrayed the U.S. president on Scandal, she doesn’t think much of the network’s news standards. Its newscasts are “straight tabloid,” she says, mentioning a recent 1½-minute story about a naked lady riding a bike through Central Park. “I don’t think I’ll listen to any protestations of high standards of journalism,” Christensen scoffs. “If you’re gonna hustle, at least do it right.”

Speaking of U.S. presidents, Beale might be prepared to leap — rather than scream — out the window over a president who derides stories that criticize him as “fake news,” and famously denied a press pass to a CNN reporter he often clashed with. (Jim Acosta’s credentials were restored days later.) Just last week, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to express his desire for a federal news network, because, he said, CNN does not do a good job of portraying the U.S. A “worldwide” network would “show the World the way we really are, GREAT!” he said on Twitter.

The general public’s opinion of TV news isn’t a whole lot higher than the president’s. Some 50% of U.S. adults get news regularly from television, according to a study earlier this year from Pew Research. That’s down from 57% a year before that.

Around 46% of Americans turn to local TV for news, ahead of the 31% who use cable news and 30% who turn to broadcast network stuff.

And 43% of Americans often get their news online, while Pew said a whopping 93% of U.S. adults get at least some news online. Plenty of online sources are legit, with veteran reporters covering the basics of journalism. In the coming weeks, CBSN Local premieres, marrying CBS News’s four-year-old streaming channel with its local news outlets. WCBS New York is first.

But countless other online news sources fit the president’s fake news description.

Remote Vote

Christensen, Network’s network programming chief, says TV networks have little responsibility to deliver responsible, virtuous content. “We’re not in the business of morality,” she tells news chief Schumacher. “We’re in the business of business.”

Its TV network was just one aspect of the portfolio belonging to Communications Corporation of America, the fictional behemoth in Network. CCA presaged the corporate monoliths controlling the media today.

Can we hold our news sources to higher standards than Christensen does? After all, the viewers are ultimately the ones who decide if a news network thrives or dives. Might we take a more active role, with remote or mouse or phone in hand, in clicking off the outlets offering news that does not hit our standards?

Howard Beale implores his viewers to take a stand against the untruths he felt were streaming out of the tube back in the ’70s. “Turn off your television sets!” he howls. “Put an end to this madness. Strike a blow for sanity. Right in the middle of this show. Turn off your TVs and set yourself free, goddamnit!”

His bosses weren’t wild about that message from their ornery host, but it didn’t end there. “Get up out of your chairs right now, stick your heads out the window, and yell,” Beale memorably exhorts, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”

Netflix will stream Grammy Award-winning singer Bruce Springsteen’s one-man show, Springsteen on Broadway, this December, the streaming service said Wednesday (July 18).

The special will run Dec. 15, which coincides with the final night of the show’s 236 sold-out performances on Broadway. Springsteen on Broadway is a solo acoustic performance written and performed by the Tony Award, Academy Award and Grammy Award winner, according to Netflix.

“We are thrilled to bring Bruce Springsteen -- a master storyteller, humanitarian and voice of the everyman -- to Netflix in this historic one man show, said Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s Chief Content Officer in a statement. “This groundbreaking experience defies the boundaries of theater, concerts and film and will give our global audience an intimate look at one of the biggest cultural icons of our time.”