Broadway industry leaders reversed themselves on Tuesday and decided to dim the lights on their 40 theater marquees in honor of Joan Rivers, after an outcry from theater producers and artists like Audra McDonald and Harvey Fierstein that Ms. Rivers deserved the tribute.
“Joan Rivers loved Broadway and we loved her,” said Charlotte St. Martin, executive director of the Broadway League, in announcing the change of course in a statement. “Due to the outpouring of love and respect for Joan Rivers from our community and from her friends and fans worldwide, the marquees of Broadway theaters in New York will be dimmed in her memory tonight, at exactly 6:45 pm for one minute.”
On Monday Ms. St. Martin disclosed that a committee of the league – the trade group of theater owners and producers – had decided against dimming the lights for Ms. Rivers, saying the honor was reserved for actors and others who had been active on Broadway recently or were “synonymous with Broadway – people who made their careers here, or kept it up.”
Ms. Rivers had performed on Broadway three times, earning a Tony Award nomination for best actress in a play for “Sally Marr…and Her Escorts” in 1994, and was a fixture at show openings and a cheerleader for Broadway shows. Ms. St. Martin said a Tony nomination alone was not enough to have the marquees dimmed.
The news that marquees would not be dimmed for Ms. Rivers led countless theater artists and others to campaign for the honor, using the hashtag #Dim4Joan on Twitter to rally support for urging the league to reverse its decision. Ms. McDonald, a six-time Tony winner who sang at Ms. Rivers’s funeral on Sunday, tweeted on Monday: “#Dim4Joan plain and simple. She deserves it.” Thousands of people also signed an online petition.
The Tony-winning costume designer William Ivey Long, the chairman of the American Theater Wing, which helps run the Tonys ceremony with the league, sent a hand-written note to executives at the Shubert Organization – which owns 17 of Broadway’s 40 theaters – describing Ms. Rivers as an extraordinary member of the New York theater community who was worthy of the honor.
By late Tuesday morning, several Broadway theater owners had acted unilaterally to make plans to dim their marquees for Ms. Rivers: Jordan Roth at Jujamcyn Theaters (which operates five houses), Disney (which has one), Roundabout Theater Company (which has three), and the Helen Hayes Theater, where Ms. Rivers performed in 1994 in “Sally Marr.”
Several friends of Ms. Rivers said this week that they knew of no bad blood between her and theater owners on Broadway, the Shuberts and the Nederlander Organization, whose leaders would be influential in any league decision about the theater marquees. Executives at both companies did not immediately return theater messages on Tuesday.
Some producers said they believed that the original decision was in no way intended to slight Ms. Rivers, but rather to tighten up the practice of dimming marquees. Last month Broadway theaters dimmed their lights for Robin Williams, who made his acting debut on Broadway in 2011 and had an earlier stand-up show there, but had fewer credits and was less of a Broadway fixture than Ms. Rivers.
William Ivey Long’s note in favor of honoring Ms. Rivers, sent Tuesday to Robert E. Wankel, the president of the Shubert Organization, which owns 17 of Broadway’s 40 theaters.
Text:
Dearest Bob:
I am deeply distressed by the decision not to dim the lights in honor of Joan Rivers.
She was an extraordinary member of the theater community, one of our very own Tony nominees and a close personal friend to so many of us in the industry.
This seemingly arbitrary and capricious decision not only reflects poorly on Broadway, but it also tarnishes the Tony Awards brand.
All the best,
William Ivey Long