Broadway ready to act out

Be still my heart. Exhale. Breathe in, breathe out. The Tony Awards are soon upon us.

Tis a time to curl up on the couch, hug your dog or whatever’s available, watch CBS from 8 to 11 p.m. on Sunday, June 7, listen to Pink, who’s this year’s emcee, plunge into stale potato chips and know it’ll be as exciting a night as celebrating your 35th wedding anniversary.

Understand, there can never be New York City without Broadway. No, not, can’t happen. Odds are Fauci will grow to 6-foot-10 before that happens.

Question is, que pasa — what’s happened to the former Great White Way? Biden will play racquetball before Broadway gets narrower. Teenage temp Mayor Zero Crapdammy will first become a right-winger.

Forget filth, garbage pickup, double parking, scaffolding, sky-high rents, stores shutting, pharmacies closing, doctors disappearing, one or two politicians you temporarily trust, impossible taxes, gasoline costlier than hookers, outdoor restaurants under bus wheels, homeless people, homicides, whatever happened to Madison Avenue.

But lose the Great White Way? Never. Even though traffic’s so bad you miss the first act just trying to get there.

Today, prices are too high. If you can’t afford bread, a ticket to B’way’s latest hit “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” and if you know where to go — you wangle a discount. You could now get $94 off. $94 off? A show ticket? Whothehell can afford that? Drinks cost. Transportation costs, intermission drinks are now the same as your taxes.

So, why’s it so expensive? Production costs they say: directors, musicians, assistants, designers, stagehands, wardrobe, teachers, choreographers, electricians, writers, agents, wig makers, makeup people, underwear people, wardrobe people, managers, tailors, dialogue coach, p.r. types for the out-of-work former big names, prop people, cleaners and that little person who schleps in sandwiches between performances on Wednesday matinee days. Plus a few for the writer, dialogue coach, prop guy, wardrobe helper for whoever is guest starring this week — plus a partridge in a pear tree.

So that’s the reason for repeats, re-dos, snatches from London or even crapola tried out so far downtown that it really opened in wherever’s Colorado.

Amateurs began on this continent in 1665. (Our theaters do not go back quite that far.) The first professional did his thing in New York in 1730s. By 1750s it’s “Richard III,” “The Merchant of Venice.” 1767 brought the John Street Theatre. And apologies to the visiting British king, but those Brits forced it shut. Theater devotee George Washington, when not waterlogged in the Delaware, took part in amateur theatricals.

Do not! Look for President Trump to do “A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to Mar-a-Lago.”

Actors — like big-time John Wilkes Booth — earned $5 a week and were required to supply their own clothing. Admission? 25 cents, box seats $1.50.

Then Broadway got classy, with names like Gwen Verdon, Lauren Bacall, Mary Martin, Jessica Tandy, Warren Beatty, Sidney Poitier.

And now, for a half-inch of 50s you can see whatever you want.

Broadway, it’s only in New York, kids, only in New York.