On Monday night, New York City police officers closed one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares to car traffic so that performers from three Broadway shows — “Just in Time,” “Buena Vista Social Club” and “Ragtime” — could rehearse outside Macy’s flagship store at Herald Square, at 34th Street and Broadway.
With Thanksgiving just days away, this could mean only one thing: Scores of Broadway actors, directors and choreographers were about to make their childhood dreams of performing at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade come true.
Before banks of hot lights and hundreds of passers-by standing behind metal barricades on the sidewalk, each show rehearsed numbers that had been arranged specifically for the parade appearance on Thursday, each about three-and-a-half minutes. (Though, not all cast members participate in the parade numbers.)
The choreographer Patricia Delgado smiled brightly as dancers from “Buena Vista Social Club” effortlessly executed lifts while Natalie Venetia Belcon performed “Candela.” Lear deBessonet, the director of “Ragtime,” observed Joshua Henry and Nichelle Lewis wrap up “Wheels of a Dream” before her ensemble of 37 swirled into formation to sing the show’s rousing title number. And Shannon Lewis, the “Just in Time” choreographer, huddled with Jonathan Groff and six dancers before they began their medley of “Beyond the Sea” and “Splish Splash.”
Other performers rehearsed too, including the singer Conan Gray and the University of North Alabama marching band.
Amid it all, the stage manager, Eddie Valk, consulted with each of the show’s directors and choreographers to ensure that the many cameras, including a Steadicam and others mounted on a dolly rail and a jib, properly caught the shots of that had been in the works for weeks.
During an interview last week, Lewis said she worried as much about the cameramen as she did the cast.
“If you’re watching something shot on a Steadicam, the operator is doing basically the choreography backwards,” she said.
This late-night rehearsal was a year in the making. On Thursday, the 99th iteration of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will step off at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, and will be broadcast live on NBC and Peacock.
Jen Neal, the executive vice president of live events and specials for NBCUniversal Entertainment, said that representatives from NBC and Macy’s spend time “scouting, dividing and conquering” Broadway each season to determine what shows are resonating. They also want to become more familiar with how the shows’ subject matter and scale might translate in a controlled street environment.
Broadway shows can pitch on their own behalf, but ultimately NBC and Macy’s make the final call. Invitations arrive in the fall, sometimes as late as October. Alex Timbers, the director of “Just in Time,” said the show got word just three weeks ago. Since then, he and his team have worked quickly to choose songs, finesse choreography and determine the number’s dramaturgy.
“It’s a milestone,” Timbers said. “As a native New Yorker, it’s cool to be part of that legacy.”
The three shows spent weeks working with creative and production teams from NBC and Macy’s on contingency plans, including for any mishaps and for an element out of their control: weather. Thursday sounds like a wintertime win, with the forecast calling for clouds and temperatures in the 30s.
The performances are not taped; they are aired live, and the singers actually sing. But it will hardly be a surprise that the actors and musicians are supported by recorded tracks that include vocals and music. Not that entire numbers are lip synced: Groff said he will sing “Beyond the Sea” live.
The tracks are crucial contingencies in case of technical hiccups, and are a big help to performers who have to dance up a storm in the cold, hardly a typical Broadway environment. Neal said NBC works with each show to ensure that what they’re putting forth “is how they want everything represented in the best entertaining way.”
Macy’s does not disclose any costs associated with the production of the parade, which last year averaged 31.7 million telecast viewers — its biggest audience ever. Neal described the relationship between the parade and Broadway as “promotional.”
Will Coss, the parade’s executive producer, put it this way: “What we like to say is that the parade is a gift to America, and with any gift, we don’t really talk about the price and the cost.”
If there is one cost that nobody’s afraid to mention, it’s sleep. The call for most performers is 4 a.m., not that much longer after the curtain comes down on their two-show Wednesdays — a “turnaround that becomes almost like a very long Wednesday,” as Delgado put it. Most of the actors will gather at their respective theaters in Times Square before buses ferry them down to Herald Square.
Once Santa makes his way to 34th Street, the parade officially ends. But its footprint doesn’t. Coss said that after the parade, cranes and other heavy machinery dismantle the floats so they can be packed up and returned by truck to Macy’s Studios, a production facility in New Jersey. Traditionally, the parade is off the streets by 5 p.m.
As for the Broadway folks, once their numbers are over they are free to call it a day: All three shows are dark on Thanksgiving. But the performers can’t get too cozy: All three have two-show Fridays.
Brandon Uranowitz, a “Ragtime” cast member who’s making his parade debut, said he plans to catch up on sleep instead of preparing his favorite Thanksgiving cranberry chutney. That will have to wait for next year.
“I’m going to do a number from ‘Ragtime’ outside in the freezing cold,” he said. “I’m deeply excited about that.”
Like many Broadway actors, Groff grew up watching the parade, glued to the Broadway numbers.
In 2002, at 17, he even recorded the “Thoroughly Modern Millie” performance and memorized the choreography, which he later put to use at an open call for the musical in front of its choreographer, Rob Ashford.
“He was like, ‘How did you learn this dance?’,” Groff recalled last week, his brow sweaty, during a break in rehearsals at New 42 Studios in Midtown. “I said, ‘The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.’”
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