Broadway Crises: #MeToo Controversy and COVID-19 Closures
This essay examines two significant crises that struck Broadway in 2020, drawing on reporting from The New York Times. The first concerns the casting controversy surrounding actor Amar Ramasar in the revival of West Side Story, which raised complex questions about victimhood, agency, and the role of the #MeToo movement in defining harm. The second concerns the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating impact on Broadway and global theater, with particular attention to the contrasting responses of American and British theater communities. Together, these cases illustrate how the performing arts navigate urgent social and public health challenges.
- Introduction: Overview of two Broadway crises in 2020
- The West Side Story Casting Controversy and #MeToo: Ramasar casting row and Maxwell's response
- Defining Victimhood: Individual Agency Versus Social Accountability: Who defines harm in the #MeToo era
- Broadway and the Early COVID-19 Response: Theater's initial attempts to stay open
- London's Theaters and Cultural Responses to Crisis: British theater resistance to pandemic closures
- Conclusion: Cultural responses to crisis and future study
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The essay uses concrete, well-sourced journalistic examples to ground its analysis, drawing on three distinct New York Times articles that together map a compressed period of crisis for Broadway.
- It raises a genuinely difficult ethical question — who has the authority to define victimhood in the #MeToo era — and presents both sides of the tension without forcing a resolution.
- The transition from the #MeToo discussion to the COVID-19 crisis is handled naturally, with a brief chronological bridge that frames both as distinct but related pressures on the theater world.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates the technique of comparative cultural analysis, juxtaposing the American and British theatrical responses to the pandemic to draw a broader observation about how historical national identity (Britain's "carry on" wartime ethos) can shape — and sometimes complicate — public health decision-making.
Structure breakdown
The essay moves in three clear phases: first, an examination of the Ramasar casting controversy and its ethical implications; second, a pivot to Broadway's early attempts to stay open during the coronavirus outbreak; and third, a cross-cultural comparison of how American and British theater communities responded differently to the mounting crisis. A brief works-cited section grounds all claims in named, dated sources.
Introduction
Two significant crises struck Broadway in 2020, each illuminating how the theater world navigates urgent social and ethical challenges. Reporting from The New York Times on both the #MeToo casting controversy surrounding the revival of West Side Story and the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on global theater provides a revealing window into these pressures.
The West Side Story Casting Controversy and #MeToo
Julia Jacobs' article in The New York Times, "Dancer Tries to Quell 'West Side Story' Controversy: 'I Am Not a Victim,'" raises important questions in the #MeToo era — namely, who can and should define what constitutes a victim of sexual assault. A controversy arose over the casting of actor Amar Ramasar in the Broadway revival of West Side Story, stemming from the fact that Ramasar had been found to have shared nude photos of his girlfriend, the ballet dancer Alexa Maxwell, in a punitive act after the couple had separated.
Maxwell stated that she had forgiven her former boyfriend and had even felt pressured to pursue legal action against him after a prominent attorney in the #MeToo movement contacted her about the toxic culture at City Ballet, where both Ramasar and Maxwell had danced. Maxwell ultimately opposed Ramasar's firing from the production.
Defining Victimhood: Individual Agency Versus Social Accountability
Given that many women minimize the harm done to them — and that many artists in the challenging and competitive field of the arts do not wish to be associated with being difficult — a central question emerges: should the victim alone determine the terms of any condemnation of a sexual act? On the other hand, allowing society to make that determination would seem to disempower the victim, which is precisely what the #MeToo movement seeks to avoid.
The need to balance the interests of the individual, who may wish for privacy or to move past a disturbing incident, against society's interest in bringing such concerns to light, is sharply highlighted in this case. There is no easy resolution: centering the victim's voice risks enabling minimization, while overriding it risks replicating the very power dynamics the movement aims to dismantle.
Broadway and the Early COVID-19 Response
The Jacobs article was written well before the coronavirus pandemic darkened Broadway. Michael Paulson's article "Broadway, Seeking to Stay Open, Suggests Stars Keep Their Distance" captures a moment when Broadway was still searching for ways to reconcile its tradition of stars greeting fans at the stage door with the new realities of a public health crisis. At that point, Broadway decided to discontinue the practice, given that its audience tends to skew older, and older people were considered to be at higher risk for serious complications from the virus.
At the time, some actors and patrons were willing to accept the risk, choosing to wash their hands frequently and limit the most dangerous close-contact behaviors. Yet as New York became the epicenter of the crisis, such cautious half-measures quickly came to seem inadequate — even quaint in retrospect.
Conclusion
Although Britain's theaters eventually closed in response to public pressure, the different cultural responses to the crisis remain worth future study. Britain's leadership initially suggested that the primary vehicle of transmission was close contact within the home rather than in public spaces, and the British public seemed relatively unconcerned at first, even as theaters reported a drop in attendance among tourists. These contrasting national responses — American caution versus British stoicism — reflect deeper cultural attitudes toward risk, authority, and collective responsibility that extend well beyond the theater world.
Works Cited
Jacobs, Julia. "Dancer Tries to Quell 'West Side Story' Controversy: 'I Am Not a Victim.'" The New York Times. 31 January 2020.
Marshall, Alex. "Broadway Is Closed, but London's Theaters Carry On." The New York Times. 20 March 2020.
Paulson, Michael. "Broadway, Seeking to Stay Open, Suggests Stars Keep Their Distance." The New York Times. 11 March 2020.
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.