Broadway shows back in business

THEATREGOERS lined up for tickets yesterday as Broadway returned to business following a crippling 19-day strike that cost producers and the city millions of dollars.

Tickets sold at a discounted $26.50 (€17.95) as people lined up for the musical Chicago.

“I never thought I’d have the opportunity to see a Broadway show. And the price is right,” said Susie Biamonte. The play was re-opening with a new cast — Aida Turturro and Vincent Pastore of Sopranos fame.

The stagehands and producers reached a tentative agreement late on Wednesday, ending a strike that kept more than two dozen shows dark for nearly three weeks. The strike took an economic bite out of New York, with businesses like restaurants, stores, hotels — even hot dog vendors — losing an estimated $2 million a day.

Most plays and musicals that were shut during the walkout, which began November 10, were expected to be back up and running yesterday evening.

Negotiations, which began last summer, were difficult, right up to the last day as both sides struggled with what apparently was the final hang-up: the issue of wages. It concerned how much to pay stagehands in return for a reduction in what the producers say were onerous work rules that required them to hire more stagehands than are needed.