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[0:06] Josh Mitchell: Hey there, theater folks one and all. My name is Josh Mitchell, and this is the We Are Theatre Podcast. I am joined today with someone I have met in person, which is interesting for me running a podcast because that's something I don't get to do very often. Tim Dolan, hello sir, how are you?

[0:26] Tim Dolan: Oh, I'm wonderful. How are you?

[0:28] Josh Mitchell: I am so excited to have you here. As I said, it's been nearly 10 months to the day since we last had our conversation, and what a 10 months it has been.

[0:39] Tim Dolan: Yeah, it feels like eight years ago in many ways.

[0:44] Josh Mitchell: BroadwayCon was only January. That was 10 months ago. Holy crap.

[0:49] Tim Dolan: Yeah, this is like November is when we should be prepping for the next BroadwayCon.

[0:53] Josh Mitchell: Yeah. I mean, I don't think I've seen any postings and it's definitely not happening, but I don't think it's happening.

[1:00] Tim Dolan: Oh, it's just like it's been in a sense. I was reading through, for anyone that wants to do some interesting reading, there's a timeline of the COVID pandemic on Wikipedia. And I was reading through it, and just how we underestimated the reportings here from like the time we were at BroadwayCon, which is January 24th to 26th, I think it was. Everything was everybody was just so chilled. They were like, oh cool, let's just close down China and that'll be fine.

[1:34] Tim Dolan: And then like it's yeah, I just I don't think the world or at least anyone like in our time really. I mean, of course there was a Spanish flu of 1918, which many people referenced, but in America, but I don't think there's any there was anything to compare it to that would really be on this grand of a scale. I mean, I had tour operators that we work with because we work with lots of large groups on our tours. I had people up until like March, you know, eighth and ninth that were like anything in New York. And I was like, ah, I mean we've had a couple of cancellations internationally, but for the most part, you know, everything's pretty normal here. Maybe a couple masks, but nothing crazy.

[2:13] Tim Dolan: And then of course March twelfth was in it when everything on Broadway closed. And it just blindsided me and everyone else. Yeah, it's it must be wild to look at that timeline and be like, it was there. It was coming, but we had no idea.

[2:30] Josh Mitchell: Yeah. And for those of you that don't know, Tim, do you want to just run through what you do with Broadway Up Close?

[2:37] Tim Dolan: Yeah. So I we started in 2010. I'm an actor by trade, mainly I do musicals. Our schedule a lot of people you know think it's say it's instable or there's a lack of stability and I say there's an emphasis on flexibility. It's an interesting schedule where you work at night or you're auditioning during the day. And so you have a lot of time in your schedule to do other things and financially it can be all over the place. So instead of waiting tables being the cliché job that every actor does, 10 years ago I started a tour company where we stand you in Times Square, we tell you all the things you didn't know you didn't know that you really want to know about the 41 Broadway theaters history, ghost stories, all the inner workings, architecture, money, society, anecdotes really we cover about everything on our tours we have five exterior tours that we offer three that focus on the theaters, one that's called the Ghost Light Tour, which is the haunted theaters, the Hamill tour, the tour where it happened, which is all the sites of of course Hamilton the musical.

[3:38] Tim Dolan: And then in October, we opened our first interior tour, which is of the oldest Broadway theater, Hudson Up Close, working with the Hudson Theater team, who's an incredible team who runs that theater. We partnered with them to do fully immersive interior, you know, most of the time we go on stage, stand on a Broadway stage for many people for the first time tours. And we just opened that in October to great success, thankfully, but then of course everything's shut down in March. And then in April of last year I opened a gift shop in the middle of Times Square with a six-foot tall Broadway marquee sign of big marquee letters and 150 light bulbs that spells out our favorite word which is Broadway.

And so that has been my main source of income during all of this, you know, taking the entire gift shop that's closed currently standing in front of the Lion King and moving the entire thing online. And then as if we don't do enough we also offer classes for student groups called our Broadway of closer workshops where a student group comes on a tour and then they go and dance with someone or meet someone from a show they're seeing and so we do a lot of those in the springtime when the student groups are coming so we've we started with just one singular idea of stand on a sidewalk and tell a story and that has kind of blossomed into a full umbrella of what we call many Broadway experiences.

[4:53] Josh Mitchell: I love that and guys if you haven't been on one of Tim's tours, I haven't unfortunately I will put my hand up and be the first one to say that that'll be the first thing I do when I come back to New York please jump on and check that out links will be in the description box below it is awesome. Being the history node that you are being on the ground when things were closing down, what was that experience like, knowing like, oh, this is one of those moments where people are gonna look back on it?

[5:22] Tim Dolan: Yeah, it had a moment of maybe this won't be as bad as we think, but let's take the precautions. So there is a moment of how bad is this? A mild awareness, but for the most part, everything just started happening so fast that it was I was just struggling to kind of adapt and keep up. In 10 years, we've probably had 10 people cancel in 10 years. In one hour, you know, I think I had 50 cancellations in an hour, and then by the end of the four days, I had refunded almost everyone for the next two months of tours because that was the initial deadline. And so you're on the ground just kind of watching money and watching all of this slip through your fingers as fast as humanly possible, like sand and you can't catch it.

And then you're looking around and you're seeing, you know, your friends who are in shows in that moment, you know, leaving their theaters or walking down the street or stopping by and being like, I don't know, we're not stage dooring anymore, and I guess now we're gonna close for a couple weeks.

[6:26] Tim Dolan: And so seeing that kind of uncertainty, and then I'll never forget closing our gift shop that Sunday was a weird moment not knowing when we were going to reopen, how long this would go on, and just kind of locking it up and going, all right, see or fingers crossed that yeah, I don't know. So it was a weird moment. And you know, while all of this is happening, I'm surrounded by 330,000 people standing in the middle of Times Square. So you're still seeing people, most are not wearing masks. You know, all my staff, we started to just, you know, your bathing in hand sanitizer and all of this. But even then, I don't think that even that that weekend where Broadway shut down and all of these theater goers were stranded in Times Square with nothing to do.

So some came on our tours or some bought merchandise. You know, I don't even know if that weekend we were wearing masks. I see, I think even then still it wasn't it wasn't what it was. And then of course, by two weeks later, of course, it became this crazy thing.

[7:31] Josh Mitchell: It's insane how quick, like we how much uncertainty there was, even around the world. Because like I remember standing at closing night of Six here in Sydney, and I had a literal discussion with somebody being like, 'There's no signs of it here.' And then the next day, it was everywhere.

[7:49] Tim Dolan: Yeah, I mean, there were news reports too that was like a guy on the L train tested positive. So anyone who uses the L train, go, you know, keep an eye out. And I was like, I remember watching this report and being like, well, I mean, on one train, there's thousands of people. What do you mean if you've taken the L train and this one guy? You know, and then within days, it was basically here's a hot spot here. I remember it was New Rochelle, it was north of the city. That was the first, like, there was 10 set up in a parking lot. And you know, I don't know. And then just from there, it was like the dominoes fell and they fell very fast.

[8:30] Tim Dolan: And with the shutdown came the weird side of an empty Times Square. So what was that like saying that for the first time? Like usually you get that at kind of two, three a.m. in the morning where you're lucky probably to see six people in there, but to walk through Times Square in the middle of the day and have nobody there.

[8:49] Tim Dolan: Yeah, it was, you know, a lot of New Yorkers, it's a badge of pride. They hate Times Square because of the tourists. I love Times Square. It's my entire life. The magic and still a lot of it, and even now on November 16th, as I'm telling you this, a lot of the magic is was gone, is gone. And I think the magic is theaters and theater goers and forty thousand people descending, you know, eight times a week on those ten blocks. So there was a sense of lawlessness. There was a sense of nineteen sixties, nineteen seventies, CD Times Square, where a lot of New Yorkers long with nostalgia of these days. And I just look around and I, you know, the magic is gone and it will come back, certainly, but it made me I don't know, I had a lot of conflicted feelings.

I didn't love it, if I can be so bold. It just I don't know what another way to say it other than the magic was gone. And I've had a couple tour goers who live in the surrounding states that were like, I think maybe I'll come in and visit. Is it worth it? And I'm like, you know, just wait. There's nothing, you're not missing anything. There's not a lot to do. There's not a lot of places to go to the bathroom, but a lot of stores are closed. It's, you know, other than to say the magic will return, it's just not returned yet fully. And I don't think that'll be until the theaters reopen. You're not missing anything. And if you are missing something, just go to my Instagram and watch me walk around a half empty Times Square and I'll fill the void until it fully comes back.

[10:31] Josh Mitchell: I love that. So with the shutdown, obviously to keep Broadway Up Close up and running, you've had to adapt a little bit. So what has been your process through these last couple of months to kind of create content and keep people kind of engaged in your business?

[10:50] Tim Dolan: Yeah, I like most actors, where I thrive, I think, and where we thrive on our tours is the in-person live performance. So the initial instinct, of course, is let's go virtual, let's bring things online. And I was very resistant to that. So we didn't do that initially. I said, well, I spent seven weeks truly just kind of heartbroken and doing more refunding than I've ever done in my life. That was the first two months. And then from there was okay, if this is gonna go on, so then I think they extended it to the end of the year. You know, it said if this is gonna go on for a while, then let's use this as an opportunity of time to do things that we wouldn't normally do. But there's this word that many businesses put out of the atmosphere, which is pivoting.

You gotta pivot to stay alive. And for me, a pivot is we're on one track going straight, and then we suddenly take a right turn and go in a different direction. And to me, that didn't make any sense. I said, my graphic designer right now is kind of my right-hand man because we're creating so much content, especially physical product and merchandise. I said to him, I think we have to design things and create things and find a way to make money that enhances and kind of emboldens what we're already doing, so that then on the other side, whenever we're back up and running fully, this just is an enhancement of what we were already doing.

[12:15] Tim Dolan: So new merchandise and really, really custom, never before seen Broadway merchandise is where we've been focusing a lot of our efforts. Um, I bought a piece of machinery that is literally this huge laser engraver and laser cutter. And in my apartment, I am woodworking literally next to me in my living room. And we're making with my graphic designer, Chris, who's a genius, we are literally just, I have a million ideas of things that I'd always wanted to see. And you're like, how do you make that? And I was like, I don't know, let's try it. Let's make it in my living room and then let's find a way to manufacture this that doesn't feel Etsy and homemade. Feels really polished and really professional, like you would get at a souvenir shop, but has a is imbued with Broadway love and magic and is handmade.

So, you know, we're striking that balance. So we have a whole bunch of new stuff. We have a whole bunch of Christmas ornaments coming out that we've been working on for a while, picture frames, custom ticket stubs where we take all the information from your ticket stub, we turn that into a souvenir. Um, and so it's when our gift shop reopens in person, I think it'll be even better because people will be able to see the craftsmanship up close that we can't really we're doing well, we're selling stuff, people are being unbelievably supportive and getting us through this. Um, but I think even then they're buying it more on a love for me and Broadway Up Close and the support, and then they get it and they're like, oh my God, this is actually beautiful.

I couldn't tell from the photo. I just had a belief that you do things and I'm gonna buy them, um, which I'm so thankful for. So I think once you put it in Times Square and people can pick it up and pick up a picture frame that is custom and handmade and there's nothing else like it in Times Square, I think, you know, it'll I hopefully it'll be a home run. And then on the tour side of things, non-merchandise side, um, I did a program just to keep me mentally focused on what our mission is, which is spreading these stories about these 41 theaters. We do a one theater a week virtual Broadway tour series, which is free to anyone who follows us on social media. So that will end the final week of February 2021 is when we'll do the final theater.

Um, then we just worked in collaboration with Playbill for the last couple months. We've been doing virtual tours, which are literally exactly what we do on a sidewalk, but on a computer screen with screen sharing and polls and trivia questions and chat. Uh, and in a lot of ways, I didn't think it was going to work, but it still works. The magic of what we've created on these tours, even through a computer screen still works. So that, um, that has led to our own in-house tours, and we still have this collaboration with Playbill. So I'm as busy as I ever was. Um, I went from a staff of 22 to essentially just me and my graphic designer. So it's, it's I hustle the hustle has never been more real here at Broadway Up Close, but um, but mentally it's, uh, the creative juices are flowing and it's gonna get us through, I think.

[15:15] Josh Mitchell: Yeah, I love that. And I could tell you passionate about this industry and everything like that. So what do you think? Um, right now, looking at where the industry is with blackouts across the world, uncertainty about return times, things trying to open up and then having to close again. What do you think right now we could look at and be like, hey, we need to adapt this industry in a way that we can move forward and also be prepared for if something like this happens again, we don't have to put hundreds of thousands of people out of jobs worldwide. Is there anything that sticks out to you um as an industry that we could adapt to make it more viable in the future?

[16:00] Tim Dolan: Yeah, I mean, I think there are things that they are doing, which is some updating of these old buildings and HVAC systems. I know that some of the theater owners are doing that. I don't know that they're all doing it, but I know a sizable chunk of them are from the rumors I've heard. So I think they're doing things like that. Um, at the end of the day, theater is a communal experience in a tight space in an old building, especially with Broadway. Yeah. So I don't know that there's a lot of things you can do to stop something that is airborne person-to-person contact. You know, of course, masks, of course that, but uh, you know, on stage, the performers, everything we do is passionate, is fueled by face-to-face contact and human-to-human storytelling.

So I don't, you know, I don't have a lot of great ideas of ways this could have been avoided or ways that we can get back sooner. I think the theater owners from what I have heard, I haven't I've only spoken to one or maybe one or two personally, but I think they're they're kind of just waiting. You can't really until there's vaccines and there's more protocol and tourists. I mean, you can't do anything without any people here. So it would be silly, you know. I just saw a thing with the owner of Juniors, the restaurant who he has two restaurants in Times Square which thrive when we're not in a global pandemic. And he said you can't open now. You there's no people there. You know, it's a losing battle to reopen too early.

Um, so you have, I think, the shot. You have a chance to wait it out until it's truly safe, and the numbers warrant a strong attempt at safety and efficacy of it going well, and that's it. And in the meantime, as a small business, as an actor, you just have to stay sane, you have to stay in it, um, and whatever that means to you. But as the Broadway adjacent business is how I think of mine. Um, you have we have to just do these things to stay alive so I have a business intact so that when we are back up and running, I can hire my staff, hopefully give them raises on the other side of this, and just hit the ground running and go. But until then, you're kind of at the mercy of the whole world turning back on.

[18:25] Josh Mitchell: I love that. That's pretty solid summary of where things are at right now. And aside from theater shutting down as well during this last 10 months, we've had a huge kind of social and political shift as well with the election just happening. So let's start back in July, August with the Black Lives Matter movement that came through. What was that like um in New York? And for you personally, what was your kind of intake information overload that you went through during that period?

[19:01] Tim Dolan: Yeah, all of that. I mean, I think it's um, you know, it's such a crazy situation that I as a straight white man, I don't think I knew, of course, it's a problem, but I don't think I knew the depths of the problem, or the people in our industry that had had so many experiences that were because of their race or all of these things. I just I don't know if I was blind to it, or it's just not my experience. Um, but I there was some guilt there of like I can't believe I didn't realize a moment that stands out very tangibly in my mind was I was doing b-roll, uh taking video footage on my iPhone of the theaters for this social media series. And I was standing in front of the Winter Garden Theater where the opening production was a show called La Belle Paris, starring Al Jolson, who appeared in Blackface, and this made him a celebrity, this made him a star, this made him Al Jolson in Blackface.

At a time in 1911, when that was very socially acceptable, that was part of the industry, and then of course, obviously, over the next 20 years it fades out and becomes socially unacceptable. But I'm staring at the walls of this theater where this thing happened, and out of nowhere, truly, I mean, you didn't, I didn't hear anything until suddenly there's an entire protest in between me on one side of Seventh Avenue or Broadway, and here is the uh no Seventh Avenue, and here is the Winter Garden in front of me. And in between comes probably a thousand people chanting Black Lives Matter, and it was the most emotional moment I've felt through the entire thing. Their visceral yells. I mean, I can I it gives me goosebumps still.

It's it was a call for help, it was a call to arms, uh figuratively. Um and I it sticks out in my mind as like that's these are people who are have been wronged and they are trying to make their voices heard literally in the streets. And so to be part of that, I mean, you would wake up and uh you know, I live in Hamilton Heights, a subsect of Harlem, and I'd be out my window, you'd hear, you know, protests going by, and I don't know. I just think people raising their voices up and making their voices known is such a great right that we have in America, free speech. And uh, you know, I think it's indicative of uh of how big this problem is. And I hope on the other side of this, once our industry gets plugged back in and we start the engines start to chug again.

I hope we can layer so much of this reconciliation or this reckoning in this moment. I hope we can layer a lot of that in. I think a lot of the structures of the industry just to get it back on its feet are gonna go right back to what they were. And I hope then we, you know, then we file in this change, is my hope. Um, and we use this again as an opportunity of this moment where we're all home to understand more of what our fellow neighbor who looks different than us is going through, and then apply that to our own industries that are always so inclusive, but maybe not as inclusive as we once thought.

[22:09] Josh Mitchell: Yeah, I think this was someone was like, what is someone asked me, I was like, why now? I was like, why not now? Like, yeah, everybody has to listen right now. There's nothing to distract anything, like this is the perfect time for any issues to arise, not just Black Lives Matter, but absolutely everything in the world, because everybody's at home listening and has the time to self-reflect and look at things and be like, oh, okay, I didn't say it that way. Like, let me go and do I've literally got a book up in my room. Um, why I'm not talking to white people about rights anymore. Um, and it's just about that mindset that and it's really open my eyes. I'm like, like, there's a lot of things that again, I'm the same straight white male like it it's kind of like a blurred vision almost that until it's like stuck in your face you're like oh okay yeah and that guilt really yeah I totally understand that.

[23:13] Tim Dolan: Yeah and it's good I think it gives you time especially as of us creative people where we spend so much time being on and with other people I think it gives you a time to self-reflect and to figure out where if you fit into that conversation at all where you fit or to just do kind of some personal soul searching so that on the other side of this we're all better humans I think is all we can really bare bones hope for.

[23:37] Josh Mitchell: Yeah, being a tour guide in New York City of all places where you're surrounded by thousands of people a day what was it like to go into that kind of social seclusion and be away from people and have to kind of quarantine and oh not quarantine but like stay away yeah from heaps of people.

[24:19] Tim Dolan: All I do all day long is talk, excuse me, talk to people. And so when you suddenly take all of that away and you can't go into a theater and you can't connect with people, you know, it kind of leaves this empty shell of, oh gosh, this is very different than how I operated just days, just weeks ago. And I'm not very good or I haven't been very good about social media in the fact of like getting on Insta Story and doing Insta stories prior to March 12th, I never did it. I never thought, oh, I'll pull up my phone and I'll record me dropping off these gifts at the post office. I'll never, I never did it. And my staff really said, I think this is a time where you like, you know, put yourself out there a little more personally because you know if you're not on a tour, you know, writing an email, it's like you're not doing it.

So I said, okay, I'll try this. And you know, my social media manager's furlough, so okay, I have to do it myself anyway. And so there's been a lot of connection that I found through social media, Instagram and Facebook, people have been wonderfully supportive and reactive to what we're doing. We also started this thing called the paper crane project, which on a whim once the last extension of things came down I was feeling really bummed and sad and you know okay now the goalpost is moved again and we've got to figure this out. And my friend Jose had sent me some paper cranes, which of course is a Japanese tradition that if you have a thousand paper cranes, a wish comes true. It's a big thing in their culture.

And I had read a book years ago about a girl and these cranes and I sat down on my couch, I looked at my dog I was like we're gonna do this. We're gonna collect a thousand cranes, put them in Times Square as like hope for our industry. And so I started this thing called the Broadway paper crane project literally on a whim and I said here's my address send me in a crane write your wish for Broadway's future on it or whatever. I'll collect a thousand and we'll make this big display. What I didn't anticipate is when people would send in these cranes, they would also send in letters and just like what they were doing or what they were going through or what this crane meant to them or the connection they were feeling to New York City through me going to the post office on my Insta story or whatever.

And I was saying to my mom, I was like, it's really cathartic for me. I didn't anticipate having as many feelings as I have about their reactions because so much of what we do is one-sided, and you're just speaking into a computer or a camera or whatever. So there's been so much feedback from people that has made up for the loss of personal in-person connection that in many ways I feel just as connected to even more people around the world than I did before.

[26:59] Josh Mitchell: Yeah, and like seeing that reaction, what's it like to like you're obviously reading passion essentially on page? What's it like to know that there's like especially for me? Like I have these conversations. I've been running a podcast for those of you that haven't listened to the first episode. I've been running a podcast around Sixter Musical for the last 12 months, and I've been chatting to all the performers and crew and all that through this time, and just hearing the passion in people's voices and writing about what this not only the show, but like the industry means to people. Like, what is it like kind of reading that and just saying that raw emotion, especially right now where people are so open and just wanting to talk and get things out there? What's it like? What was it like reading those stories?

[27:47] Tim Dolan: It's really special. Everyone has their own kind of take of where they fit into the industry, especially on the theater going side as opposed to our theater-doing side. So when they have a playbill or a show or a theater or a trip or this moment in their lives that really sticks out to them, and we do something that reminds them of that. Or some of the cranes, people have taken playbills from shows they've seen and sent those in as their cranes of the shows that they love. Yeah, it just it really, you see why we're all so insane to be in this world of theater and professional theater and Broadway and all of this. You know, it's just a whole bunch of very passionate people on all sides of it who have apparently really great memories.

And so if we can't make new memories, we might as well, I guess, cherish the memories that we've had prior to this until we can make new. So it's wonderful. It really, I open my mailbox every day, and there's a couple cranes in there, a couple packages, and it makes me smile. As of this moment, we're at 974. And so when we hit a thousand, I have made a, I've made the full crane display will come in the spring when we reopen our gift shop, but I've made what I'm calling instead of a wall of fame, it's gonna be a ball of fame. Modeled after the Times Square ball that I made because this is my life now. I'm making things, and so I made a replica of the Times Square Ball out of wood. And when will this episode come out? Do you know when this will air?

[29:29] Josh Mitchell: Not yet.

[29:32] Tim Dolan: I don't have a date, but if you're listening to this, it's out now. Yeah, I was gonna say it's probably, it'll probably be out before this airs, hopefully, or if not, spoiler, here is what it's gonna be. I haven't told anyone except my graphic designer and now you. But it's a recreation of the Times Square Ball. We're gonna paint it silver, and then we're gonna engrave all the names of everyone who sent in a crane on this ball. And so it'll sit in Times Square, and I made a wooden paper crane that'll be green that sits on it, like a little butterfly sitting on top of the world. And so it'll be what I'm calling our Times Square Ball of Fame with all the names engraved, and then there will be the huge display of all the cranes in some sort of, I have it in my mind, but we haven't even started talking about building it yet, but some sort of display where you'll be able to walk up and see all of the cranes.

So if you sent one in, you could find your crane like in glass. Yeah, and then that'll be at our gift shop as kind of a beacon of hope. We're hoping to open our gift shop. We'll probably open maybe the weekends before Broadway reopens, whenever it reopens. So this will be should you find yourself in Times Square before, and then of course, you know, well, I'm sure we'll have it there for at least a year of all the people visiting who sent in cranes as one little piece of collective good hope and passionate will in the middle of Times Square.

[30:52] Josh Mitchell: I love that so much. Perfect way to wrap up this episode is when Broadway reopens. What are you most excited for?

[31:04] Tim Dolan: I'm most excited to see 40,000 people descend at 8 p.m. on the theater district who aren't taking this experience for granted. I think the moment we step back into a theater, it's just gonna be who knows the protocols, the protocols I don't care about. The will we have masks that stuff doesn't interest me. What interests me is that we'll all be stepping into a theater and realizing this is a special moment. Whether the show is garbage or not, also doesn't interest me. What interests me is that experience of communal people sitting in a theater and having a communal experience where we're no longer looking at each other like weapons or looking at each other like could you hurt me with your virus?

But instead sharing stories together with people who have been waiting over a year to share that story as they have prior. Yeah. And so I just think that moment, you know, someone was saying when Glinda comes in at Wicked and says it's good to see me, isn't it? The audience will lose their mind, of course. You know, Come From Away with this beating of this music, I think. You know, Six with them live. It's, you know, I just, you can see these moments of that first moment back. Feeling what you're talking about right now, like you can kind of, you can feel that like buzz that there's gonna be and I'm saying Frozen here in Australia in two weeks. It opens here in two weeks, and it's just gonna be, I'm like second row dead center.

I'm like, let's go. Yeah, it's, yeah, even Tom Schumacher from Disney. I just read this morning he's in Australia now quarantining before they let him unleash him onto the streets of, yeah, it's gonna be glorious whenever it happens. So it'll just be a matter of all of us getting to that, whatever we have to do to get to that moment, and then hopefully, you know, the full industry is still intact.

[33:10] Josh Mitchell: Yeah, and last thing because that kind of segued into my thought. Obviously things are in place right now, shifting forward with COVID protocols with President Elect Biden putting things into place. So, what was that whole election period the two weeks like for you? Because I did not take my eyes off CNN for solid like 96 hours. Friends were like, you have to stop watching it. I was like, I'm literally making picture frames and ornaments in my living room. Every once in a while I'll take my dog out, but really I just sit and watch.

[33:43] Tim Dolan: It was wild, it was a crazy two weeks, and it's a crazy two weeks in New York City. New York City always kind of heightens every emotion. And then when he won, or when they announced he won, I think it was Saturday because I was about to do a thing we do for on social media live, and I suddenly heard this cheers. And I looked at Palasco, I was like, what is that? And in your mind, you're like, is it a protest? Is it, you know, is it the 7 p.m. clapping, you know, that was for all the healthcare workers? You get so used to these communal moments that you're like, what is it? And then you're like, oh, it's just people cheering that it's been announced that Joe Biden is president-elect. And it went on for like a half hour, and you went outside and just people were smiling.

I just, a weight felt like it had been lifted. And it was, you know, New York City is the highs are highs, the lows are lows. If you're having a great day, this city is like all the car horns are honking for you, and you're walking and the streets are paved with gold. And if you're having an awful day, they're like, get out of my way, you idiot, and they're honking at you because they're trying to kill you. And there is really no in-between. And so in those glorious moments of celebration, New York City really does it right. The people come together. They are very vocal, literally and figuratively about their feelings, and it's a fun place to sit in surrounded by this on every side of my apartment walls.

[35:20] Josh Mitchell: Perfect. Well, Tim, while we wait for Broadway to open, that will wrap us up here. Thank you so much for coming and joining us here at We Are Theatre. We really appreciate you spending the time to come and chat.

[35:31] Tim Dolan: My pleasure. Yeah, good luck with this. This is a great idea. You're a great conversationalist, so I'm sure I have no doubt it'll do well. And thank you for having me be one of your first guests in this new endeavor in your life.

[35:44] Josh Mitchell: No worries. Thank you so much, sir. And for you guys listening at home, if you don't follow me or Tim already, please check out the description box below where all our links are. You can check out everything to do with Broadway Up Close over there. I don't have anything cool like merch, I just have social media, so go spend all your money with him because it's worth it. And we will see you next week with a brand new episode of We Are Theatre.

[36:07] Tim Dolan: See you later.

[36:08] Josh Mitchell: Bye.