Federal aid of $ 16 billion will soon reach New York’s theater district thanks to a bill passed by Congress to help performance venues that have been forced to close due to the pandemic. The first Broadway shows are not expected to open until September, but small venues are expected to resume very soon.

Carolines on Broadway comedy club will be the first location in the Times Square area to come back to life after more than a year.

“It’s so good! We’re about to reopen, to get back to normal. I can’t tell you how relieved I am. I had more tension and stress not to be open than do it all now, ”said owner Caroline Hirsch.

The sound of silence was deafening at the club, but soon the laughter will bounce off the walls again.

“We had to take things in hand,” said the owner of the club that bears her name.

His first show since the pandemic began in March of last year is scheduled for Thursday, May 27, and Donnell Rawlings is the headliner.

“To be able to see this club come back to life and be able to make this person and that person laugh, I’m super excited about it,” Rawlings said.

Rawlings has a 20-year history in Carolinas, and their shows typically sell out, but the club won’t be at full capacity this weekend.

“We’ll probably be at half our capacity at this point, or a little less,” Hirsch said. “I hope that in the next few weeks we will be at full capacity.”

She has been called a ‘mother hen’ for a generation of comics that have become famous in her club, but after more than a quarter of a century of activity, the pandemic has proven to be her biggest challenge.

“Places like mine: places of entertainment, theaters, cultural places have been closed by the government. Okay? It was a warrant. It wasn’t like you could be a restaurant and deliver food or open 25%, 10% or whatever. We were totally closed, ”Hirsch said.

This is why Hirsch is eligible for US government aid – aid that has not yet arrived.

“There are already a huge number of bills that have piled up,” she said.

And Memorial Day weekend is kind of a test, “a push in the right direction to get things started again,” she said.

“People have been locked up for so long that they want to do something, and what gets us through the most difficult times in our lives? Comedy! We have to find something to laugh about,” Rawlings said.

During the pandemic, he found a silver lining in the dark cloud. Rawlings got to hang out with his 4-year-old son after years on the road, and he even found a way to perform. He was one of a series of shows put on by his old friend Dave Chappelle in an Ohio cornfield where fans could stay socially distant.

But now Carolines on Broadway will be closer to business as usual.

ALSO WATCH | “Ghost Light: The Long Intermission of Broadway” | Full documentary

———-
* Get information on eyewitnesses
* More New York News
* Send us a news tip
* Download the abc7NY app for last minute alerts
* Follow us on youtube