Broadway lights go up in post-Sandy NYC

The Associated Press, Wednesday, October 31, 2012, 9:18am (PDT)

NEW YORK (AP) -- The lights were to go up again on Broadway Wednesday for the first time since Hurricane Sandy hit New York, as entertainers strove to head back to work in a city still wracked by power-outages and a suspended subway system.

Though some Broadway shows, including "Mary Poppins" and "The Lion King" were remaining dark Wednesday, the curtain was to rise for many of the other 38 shows, including "Cyrano De Bergerac." Patrick Page, who plays the villain Comte de Guiche in the production, was heading back to the theater for a matinee performance, even if he was unsure if there would be anyone in the seats.

"Broadway is as important an icon of New York City as the subways, so to get back to work is a sign that we can bounce back," he said. "This has been such a tough time for so many and it's vital that we show the lights are on and there's great work being done onstage."

Page said he spent a restless time off in his Upper West Side neighborhood, worried about his in-laws along the New Jersey shore — he is married to actress and TV personality Paige Davis. He said he checked Facebook to find out how friends were fairing, obsessively watched the news and went out to check that neighbors had ridden out the storm.

"We're New Yorkers," he said. "We'll get through this."

That was also the spirit of New York's late-night TV hosts, all of whom were to be back in production Wednesday. The remaining holdouts — Jon Stewart with "The Daily Show" and Stephen Colbert with "The Colbert Report" — were to join David Letterman ("The Late Show"), Jimmy Fallon ("Late Night") and Jimmy Kimmel ("Jimmy Kimmel Live"), who is doing a week of shows in Brooklyn, on the airwaves.

Out of safety and caution, Letterman taped Monday and Tuesday's episodes in front of an empty Ed Sullivan Theater. Fallon did the same at Rockefeller Center on Monday.

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AP Theater Writer Mark Kennedy contributed to this report.

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