New Broadway by the Boardwalk Free Concert Series Encourages Accessible Art

Hudson River Park introduced Broadway by the Boardwalk, a series of free concerts featuring fan-favorite Broadway stars, to New York City this summer, helping increase accessibility to the arts without barriers of entry like expensive tickets.

The inaugural lineup of performers included Eden Espinosa on July 15, Ramin Karimloo on July 22, Bradley Gibson on July 29, and siblings Adam Jacobs and Arielle Jacobs on Aug. 5. Broadway by the Boardwalk was produced in partnership with 6W Entertainment and performer Erich Bergen, who also hosted the weekly concerts at Hudson River Park’s Clinton Cove.

Accessibility was key to Broadway by the Boardwalk, with efforts taken to make sure tourists and theater regulars all could enjoy live performances in Clinton Cove—or, as Andrew Ronan, vice president of partnerships, programming and events at Hudson River Park Trust describes it, “Broadway’s Backyard.”

“We literally provide a Broadway experience, but without a lot of the things that get in the way,” Ronan said.

This increased accessibility was effective, with each performance seeing great turnout (Ronan reported that week two brought in nearly 1,800 people).

These audiences spread across the lawn at Clinton Cove had the opportunity to see more personal performances than they could find in a theater.

“It’s really just them playing songs they enjoy and connecting with the audience on a very personal level,” Ronan said. Gibson saw this as an opportunity to create a concert that felt more natural to him than what he is typically asked to perform.

“Sometimes when I’m asked to do concerts, it’s more on the line of, like, a cabaret ... which, honestly, for me, is not not my jam,” Gibson said. “Who wants to hear about when I was born and my first song and all these things? I would much rather just engage with an audience of people that are just here to listen to great music.”

A week later, though, the Jacobs siblings came to the same stage at the same park with almost entirely opposite goals for their concert. Their Broadway by the Boardwalk performance was a modified version of a show the siblings have performed all across the country.

“There’s not a lot of opportunities for us to be in shows together, because there’s not a lot of, like, brother-sister stuff,” Jacobs said. “So we decided, let’s try to make our own show and perform that, and we talk about our lives, [and], you know, our childhoods, and growing up and how we got here.”

“We share some personal stories that not a lot of people know about, and we don’t talk about,” Arielle Jacobs later added. “It’s a different style of singing that the Broadway fans might not usually hear us do — very bare bones, acoustic, just voice and piano and just very open-hearted, vulnerable points of our lives.”

Vulnerability played a large role in song choices for Gibson and the Jacobs siblings, with both concerts featuring tributes to their grandparents. Near the end of his show, Gibson sang “(If You’re Not in It for Love) I’m Outta Here!” by Shania Twain, remembering his late grandfather.

“I sing country music with a smile on my face because it makes me think about him,” Gibson said. “It’s funny we’re by this river, because I can see him sitting on the dock with his fishing pole and the boombox playing country tunes.”

The next week, Adam and Arielle Jacobs performed an arrangement mixing “I Can See It” from “The Fantasticks” and “Something’s Coming” from “West Side Story” after describing how their grandfather made it to the United States.

“Our grandfather was a Philippine scout in World War II, and he always dreamed of coming to America, and so much so that he wrote a letter to the United States every week [in the concert they said every month] for 13 years,” Arielle Jacobs said. “Eventually, a law got changed that allowed the family to come. We were the first family from the Philippines that came under that new law. So we sing a song about his dedication.”

“Broadway is a part of what makes New York City, New York, right?” Gibson said. “Having these opportunities to expose tourists and New Yorkers to free Broadway entertainment—to make it accessible for everyone—is incredible. So to be a part of something that’s new and fresh and just getting started is an honor, because I know that it’s just going to continue to grow and get bigger and bigger and more and more gorgeous.”