Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids (BCEFA) needs our support now more than ever. Twice a year, the theatrical community comes together to raise money for BCEFA but due to the Broadway shut down, they are unable to participate in their regular post-show fundraising activities. BCEFA helps men, women and children across the country receive life saving medications, health care, nutritious meals, counseling, and emergency financial assistance. They are one of the leading industry-based nonprofit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organizations. Since 1988, they’ve raised more than $300 million and last year, the Broadway community raised $6 million!

Broadway theatres shut down on March 12th by order of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and if you’re anything like us, you miss it every day. Right now, theatres have refunded tickets up until January 3, 2021, but the uncertainty of the COVID-19 crisis leaves thousands of performers, backstage workers, and audience members with no real answers.

This is the first time Broadway theatres have gone dark for a prolonged period since the stagehand strike of 2007. Unlike today, that shut down was due to contract negotiations and union disputes. The Broadway stagehands – backstage workers who install and operate the sets, lights and props – had been working without a contract since July 2007. Anyone who’s seen Newsies knows what happened next.

When the queens of Six landed on Broadway in February, they already the fans – some 75,000 on Instagram alone. Most Broadway shows develop for years, through workshops, readings, out-of-town tryouts, and previews before opening on the Great White Way. Six claimed its crown a little differently, in a way that was utterly on-brand and completely millennial. The idea began the way so many good ideas do – while Toby Marlow was not paying attention in poetry class. Here’s the story of how Six took back the microphone and made her-story to land on Broadway.

The Lunt Fontanne Theatre opened on January 10, 1910, and was originally named the Globe Theatre to honor Shakespeare's famous playhouse in London. Charles Dillingham, a legendary American producer, had the theatre built. Dillingham was an extremely lavish man and wanted the theatre to be a representation of himself. He hired the architects Carrere and Hastings to create what most consider to be one of the most amazing theaters architecturally on Broadway. The architects got creative with this project and built in cooling and heating vents under each seat. My favorite fun fact about this theatre is that it is the only theatre in the history of Broadway to be built with a retractable roof. Insane right!? Theater historians have never found any evidence that the roof was ever opened, and during its restoration, the opening was sealed shut, but I still love knowing that it's there.

The other day I was wondering which Broadway theatre still standing now was the oldest… So I did some serious research and made a list! Granted, over the decades many of these theatre's names have changed several times and all of the really old buildings have undergone major reconstruction and restoration, but they are in the same spots their original structures stood on.I hope some of you enjoy this list and sorry I’m not sorry for being a mega nerd. If you're as interested in this stuff as I am, then I highly recommend checking out the website Spotlight on Broadway. I just love theater history, am obsessed with New York, and feel inspired whenever I walk into one of these beautiful theatres.