{"id":316752,"date":"2026-08-08T15:48:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T15:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/316752\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T15:48:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T15:48:12","slug":"one-mans-crazy-plan-to-create-broadways-version-of-woodstock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/316752\/","title":{"rendered":"One man’s crazy plan to create Broadway’s version of Woodstock"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hutton Company Brick Works literally built New York brick by brick. For over a century, thousands of brickmakers mixed, molded, dried and baked the city\u2019s most essential building blocks on a 100-acre site along the banks of the Hudson River, in the city of Kingston. Look inside the walls of the Empire State Building, Grand Central Terminal, the Cloisters<\/a> and many other New York landmarks, and you will find a brick bearing the Hutton stamp.<\/p>\n

The kilns went cold in 1980, and the yards sat in ruins for decades. But when Broadway enthusiast Joshua Saltman<\/a> first saw the old brickyard, he knew this was the missing block for building his own grand vision: a Broadway \u201cWoodstock\u201d \u2014 just down the road from where the original festival took place.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hutton\u2019s old crane overlooks the Hudson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe area where there\u2019s going to be performances is built on a landfill of millions of broken, discarded bricks<\/a>. It feels historic,\u201d he told The Post in the days leading up to The Festival \u2014 aka Broadway Fest \u2014 his one-of-a-kind, three-day theater extravaganza taking place next weekend.<\/p>\n

Can he move 42nd Street a hundred miles north for the weekend? And will audiences come?<\/p>\n

The Festival\u2019s main pavilion stage sits beneath the roof of one of the original factory buildings. Two other stages, along with dining venues, campfire grounds and a \u201cstage door\u201d area for autographs, are planned among the site\u2019s hulking ruins. On one side, derelict kiln sheds serve as an industrial backdrop. On another, the gantry crane that once loaded pallets of bricks onto barges still reaches out into the river.<\/p>\n

The Hutton Brickyards sit near the original Woodstock site.<\/p>\n

The revitalized Hutton Brickyards \u2014 recast in recent years as a luxury venue \u2014 is a fittingly unexpected setting for what will be a music-filled \u201cweekend in the country,\u201d as The Festival is billing its Friday-night opener. The Festival\u2019s VIP talent is star-studded: Scheduled singers include Audra McDonald, Kelli O\u2019Hara, Ren\u00e9e Elise Goldsberry, Christopher Jackson and Brian Stokes Mitchell.<\/p>\n

Starting Friday afternoon, more than 40 Broadway personalities will perform some three dozen shows across three separate stages, including several musical previews, ending in Broadway \u201craves,\u201d piano-bar \u201chijinks\u201d and campfire singalongs.<\/p>\n

Cabins throughout the site and other local accommodations will house the hundreds of staffers \u2014 dancers, musicians, stage managers, lighting crew, video crew, sound crew \u2014 that must be brought in to mount the unprecedented multistage event in this small town that was, for a brief moment in 1777, the state\u2019s first capital. Shuttle buses are scheduled to run to and from area hotels and offsite parking throughout the weekend for the thousands of ticket-buyers planning to attend.<\/p>\n

The lineup Broadway fest 2026 brags of big names.<\/p>\n

The founder and main backer of The Festival, Saltman, is an unlikely impresario. Walking around Zabar\u2019s, he easily blends into the Upper West Side crowd. Now 56 years old, he is a Broadway obsessive with a self-deprecating veneer. He is also my wife\u2019s cousin with an eye on the bottom line. (Despite years of festive family reunions at Barney Greengrass, we still had to buy our own tickets to his festival.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

A native of southern California, Saltman attended Columbia College and Law School. During his studies \u2014 he describes law school as a low point in his young life \u2014 Broadway became a second home. \u201cIt became a bit of a refuge for me,\u201d he says. Jerry Zaks\u2019 Tony Award-winning revival of \u201cGuys and Dolls,\u201d which ran on Broadway from 1992 to 1995, proved to be a particular lifeline.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho knew that \u2018Guys and Dolls\u2019 was such a fun thing? That was a watershed moment for me. I feel like there\u2019s no better sort of well-crafted songs than the American Songbook,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuys and Dolls\u201d is pictured on Broadway in 1992. Getty Images<\/p>\n

After beginning his legal career in New York, Saltman moved to Los Angeles to join Disney as in-house counsel. Still, Broadway kept bringing him back. Over the years, he accompanied friends to California\u2019s Coachella Festival. He also vacationed with his wife, Jill, on Broadway cruises. Along the way, he wondered if his interests in festivals and Broadway could somehow be combined.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do these rituals that give our life meaning,\u201d he explains. \u201cThe experiential nature of being able to go do something that is a destination, immersive, and to see music and learn music and experience things with like-minded people \u2014 that kind of setting became very appealing. I was with my friends all sitting around one year and I remember saying, \u2018What if we did a Coachella for Broadway?\u2019 We joked about it. Mandy Patinkin instead of Radiohead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saltman says he was also feeling his age at the pop festivals. \u201cAs I got older, the music got younger, and so I\u2019m like, I don\u2019t need to wait till 11p.m. to see Ariana Grande. She doesn\u2019t want me there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As his idea for a Broadway festival took hold, Saltman first pitched it inside Disney. \u201cI called it \u2018Mous-chella.\u2019 It never got traction.\u201d<\/p>\n

After working on his idea for a decade, he struck out this year on his own to build a production team of festival and Broadway veterans with producer David Schwartz and directors Jerry Mitchell and DB Bonds.<\/p>\n

He also reached out to Adam Pascal, a star from the original cast of \u201cRent\u201d (and one of those Broadway-cruise performers). Pascal, it turns out, is still in touch with the original cast. \u201cThey have a text chain,\u201d Saltman says. A 30th anniversary \u201cRent\u201d reunion became the anchor for The Festival\u2019s Saturday show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Adam Pascal will be performing. Courtesy of Broadway Fest 2026<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be very emotional,\u201d Saltman says. \u201cAdam emailed me the other day. He\u2019s like, the \u2018Rent\u2019 reunion\u2019s an hour. Can we have an hour and a half?\u201d<\/p>\n

The roster grew from there. When Saltman learned McDonald could only join on Sunday, he extended the initial schedule from two days to three. His musical supervisor, Dan Lipton, also reached out to each performer to see what they would like to sing, and with whom.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m like, okay, yes, yes, yes, \u2018Suddenly, Seymour\u2019 is in there,\u201d Saltman says. \u201cKelli O\u2019Hara and her daughter are going to sing a song together. Kelli and Ren\u00e9e are going to sing a beautiful duet from \u2018Carousel.\u2019 Adam Pascal, Lauren Patten, Jenn Colella and Norbert Leo Butz are going to do Crosby, Stills & Nash. Chris Jackson from \u2018Hamilton\u2019 is going to sing some James Taylor. The songs are incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

I suggest that seeing it come together must be exciting. \u201cExciting for you, terrifying for me,\u201d Saltman says between rehearsals with choreographer Jon Rua and venue tours as his cellphone goes off.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is so many logistics, the transportation and housing infrastructure for all of the people coming up.\u201d He was still deciding where to put the step-and-repeat for photo shoots.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kelli O\u2019Hara will duet with her daughter. David Noles<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Karl Slovin, the owner and developer of Hutton Brickyards, says The Festival is \u201cexactly the kind of thing we built this place to make possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Festival is a seven-figure gamble. Saltman says he expects to sell 2,500 tickets. Nearly 2,000 weekend passes have already been purchased at the time of writing, ranging from $400 for general admission to $1,500 for VIP access. Limited day tickets are also available. But a little back-of-napkin math reveals it\u2019s unlikely he turns a profit.<\/p>\n

Saltman confirms this. He says he will not make back his investment. He just hopes to build enough goodwill among Broadway audiences and performers that they will want to come back another year.\u00a0\u201cThis can easily be profitable. It\u2019s just going to take me a couple years to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Broadway fest will take place August 14-16. Rebecca J Michelson<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a crazy idea, because it\u2019s a tremendous personal expense to me,\u201d he says. \u201cYou have to bring in everything. So I\u2019m bringing in three stages. I\u2019m bringing in lighting and sound and rigging and massive video screens. I got to bring in 3,500 chairs, right? I do. That\u2019s a lot of chairs. And I\u2019ll be housing 150 people.\u201d<\/p>\n

He jokes his parents are still not quite on board with the passion project. \u201cI think my father might be calling in complaints to Page Six.\u201d<\/p>\n

James Panero is executive editor of The New Criterion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hutton Company Brick Works literally built New York brick by brick. For over a century, thousands of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[207,4619,232,9,24,55,54,56,34384,11831],"class_list":["post-316752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-broadway","tag-events","tag-lifestyle","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-off-broadway","tag-postscript"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}