Cardiff has a theory — somewhat half-baked, he admits — that only when Broadway has fully recovered from the pandemic will we know that the overall US economy has also fully recovered. The necessity of proximity to strangers made Broadway as an industry a perfect target for the pandemic, and so it may well be one of the last industries to return to its former health.

And with the return of theater visitors to New York, we may also see the return of jobs for performers and workers on Broadway and at the myriad restaurants, bars, and hotels that cater to these visitors. The labor market remains nowhere close to having recovered these jobs in the leisure and hospitality sectors, and New York City’s own unemployment rate is more than double that of the US overall.

So, to explore this theory and get a Broadway 101 primer, Cardiff called up Lee Seymour, a journalist who covers Broadway and is himself a Broadway producer and Tony Award winner. They discuss the business of Broadway, how the industry fared through the shutdown, and how its nascent recovery is going.