Insane, right?

With Broadway shut down and no sure re-opening date in sight, who would invest in a new Broadway theater?  Or Off-Broadway Theater?  Or any theater?

Warren Buffet might.

It was Oracle of Omaha himself who said . . .

“Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful”

And, well, a lot of people are scared $hitless about the future of the theater.

Not me.

And apparently a few others have been thinking about acquiring real estate as well.

In this article in Forbes (written by one of Broadway’s best data crunchers, Marc Hershberg), a bunch of Broadway theaters are listed as potential acquisition targets.

Will some of these theaters change hands?

Maybe.

But what I’m really interested in, will any NEW theaters be built?

But where?  How?  What land would be used?  (These were the questions posed pre-pandemic if anyone ever suggested that a new Broadway theater should be built.)

Enter COVID.

And last week, THIS article, about the closure of a handful of midtown’s biggest hotels, made me think.  Could we make theaters out of ballrooms?  Could some of these big buildings be reconfigured into Marriot Marquis-like venues?

And what about all the empty retail there is going to be on our midtown streets in a year?  Could we see a Chicago storefront theater movement right here in New York City?  I mean, I love me a 24-hour Krispy Kreme, but what if there was a 24-Hour Shakespeare Shack?

Never mind the office space that could be turned into black boxes?

There could be a lot of opportunities to put down theatrical roots in the city in the next 12-24 months.

Nah, seems, crazy, right?  No way.  Who would do such a thing?

Someone with resources.  Someone with passion for the theater.

And someone who understands that the theater has survived for thousands of years, who knows that there will be a day when we’re even bigger than we were before.

Someone like . . .

Excuse me, I’m going to go stalk Warren Buffet now.

Want to hear more about what Broadway could look like when it returns from the smartest and most creative minds in the biz? Click here.