PRODUCER’S PERSPECTIVE Ken Davenport, Broadway Producer, Off-Broadway, Theater

Please DO feed the animals.

I went to the zoo on Friday.  Right in front of the monkey pond there was a sign reminding zoo-goers like me not to throw food to the monkeys.

I went to a sushi restaurant on Saturday.  Right in front of the hostess there was an giant aquarium with a sign taped to the glass telling raw fish eaters like me "Please, do not tap on the glass."

I went to a baseball game on Sunday.  There were a whole bunch of signs all over the place reminding fans of the fines for jumping on to the field (someone did it anyway).

It is a human being's natural instinct to want to interact . . . especially with things put on display. It's so much of the majority's curiosity that we have to put up signs telling us not to, when it's not appropriate or not safe.

I also went to see a show on Sunday.  This show took advantage of our natural curiosity and had actors handing out programs, had the star talking to the audience, and even had a couple of audience members on the stage.  And a better time was had by all as a result.

It's simple, and not ground-breaking, but it works every time. Why?  Because it's part of who we are.  

We want to feed the animals.

So give your audience that chance in whatever way is appropriate for your show.  Maybe you can't have audience members on stage. Maybe you can't break the fourth wall.  

But there's gotta be something you can do.  And you're creative enough to figure it out.

Favorite Quotes Vol. XXI: the first of many from Mister Abbott

I just finished reading George Abbott's autobiography, so expect a few Favorite Quotes from him in the coming weeks.  Frankly, I could put half of the book up here, the writer/producer/director had so many great things to say.  He is the original Mr. Broadway, working on more than 100 Broadway shows.  And it's no coincidence that this prolific director tutored another prolific director, Mr. Hal Prince.

The book is hard to come by now, and while George can be a little self-indulgent sometimes, it contains some great lessons in how to create Broadway entertainment.  So get it, if you can (you know what's really amazing about the book?  It was published in 1963, when George was 76.  And he lived another 31 years!!!). 

Here's a great quote for the writers out there, as George remembered one of the greatest lessons he ever got.

Professor Baker was an inspiring man.  He gave you no nonsense about inner meanings and symbolisms; he turned your whole thoughts and energies into a practical matter of how to make a show. If it was good, a farce of a melodrama was just as important as a tragedy.  One of the things he kept hammering on was, "Get the greatest given emotional result from the given scene."  Don't have the character just come in and pick up the letter and go, but have him pick up the letter, then look under the bed, and go.

I mean, it doesn't get much simpler than that.  

Acting and Advertising have a lot in common.

The first rule of advertising when launching a new advertising campagin for a product is to test, test, and test.  And when you're done, test again.  Because no matter what you think of a logo or a tag line, it's not until it's in the market that you know if it works or not.

And with each set of results, you tweak your campaign until you better the results.  Simple.

Acting is no different.  Yes, you need to have a firm grasp on how to present your character before you "launch," but once you get in front of that audience, you may find that they respond a bit differently than you thought they would. 

You could be stubborn, and not allow the audience's response to affect what you do.  Or, you could treat it like an advertising campaign, and make little tweaks here and there, depending upon the audience's reaction, to allow them to enjoy your performance even more (provided, of course, that these tweaks [and I'm not talking about making changes to the actual text, mind you] are with the Director's approval).  

That's what's great about acting for the theater, as opposed to film.  Once that film performance is in 'the can,' you can't make a tweak, no matter what.  You couldn't even dodge a tomato if it was thrown at you.

But in the theater, you can, and you should, because having a live audience is like a having a focus group in front of you every single night.  

To ignore them, would be like a marketing person ignoring metrics.

At the Broadway League conference: Day 1/How many movie turned musicals have made money?

It's that time of year! It's the Broadway League Spring Conference!

This week, the umpteen Broadway League members from all the states across the Union descend on New York City to feast on all the new shows, and on Frankie and Johnny's steaks.

In between the shows and the cocktail parites, there are a bunch of sessions about marketing, union relations, more marketing, new economic models, and then we hit marketing one more time.

Today was Day 1, which saw some interesting panels, including a return visit from Ben Self of Blue State Digital who spoke at the Winter conference.  Ben was responsible for the Barack Obama online campaign which raised a bazillion dollars . . . online.  

But what got me thinking at today's conference was some coffee break chatter about the movie-to-musical trend.  Someone asked if this current craze was bearing fruit . . .

Good question, my fellow Broadway Leaguer!

We've talked about how Hollywood adaptations were gaining market share on Broadway in this post . . . but the most important question is . . . are movies making money?

You all know me well enough my now to know that I couldn't leave this unanswered.  So, I went www.IBDB.com and did some quick figuring.  

I counted 32 musicals made from movies in the last 20 years.  Of those, only 9 were financially successful. That means only 28.125% of musicals made from movies are making money, which is 8.125% above the anecdotal average that states 20% of broadway shows make money (the 1 in 5 ratio).

So maybe there is a little edge. But not much.  I certainly wouldn't go buying 20th Century Fox's library on 8.125%, that's for sure.

Cuz it's never about the source of the material. It's about the story in the material.

What I learned from Hal Prince and Steven Spielberg.

I watched Schindler's List again last night. 

Schindler's List is Mr. Spielberg's most criticially acclaimed film.  It won a total of 7 Oscars, including one for his own personal mantlepiece and is #9 on The American Film Institute's list of Top 100 films of all time.  

And although I've never met Spielberg, I'd bet money that if he could be remembered for only one movie, Schindler's List would be the one.  

It's the kind of piece so many artists want to make.

And Spielberg did it . . . when he was 47 years old, and after making movies for well over 20 years.

Seeing Schindler's, and looking at Spielberg's career, reminded me of some great advice Hal Prince gave me once.

I was fortunate enough to work on three of Hal's shows (Show Boat, Candide and the workshop of Parade).  One day, I found myself in Hal's office, telling him that while Company Management was a fantastic day job, and teaching me a ton, what I really wanted to do was produce.

And I wanted to produce the Great American Broadway Musical.   

So I pitched Hal everything I had ever thought of for a show.  The biggest ideas you can imagine.  And in the middle of pitching something that I probably thought could have the musical significance of a Schindler's List, Hal smartly shut me up . . . and he asked me if I remembered what the first show he produced was?

I couldn't remember.  (Tip of the "Duh" - read important people's biographies BEFORE meeting them one-on-one).

"It was Pajama Game," Hal said.  "Don't come out of the box trying to produce West Side Story.  That was my 4th show.  Be happy if you get the Pajama Game.  It ran for over two years, made a lot of people money and made a lot of people laugh."

I'm sure the Pajama Game isn't the one show Hal would want to be remembered for, just like I'm sure Jaws or Duel (or his real first . . . Amblin') aren't the movies Spielberg would choose.  

The masterpieces for both of these gentlemen came later.  (Non-coincidental side note:  Spielberg named his production company, the one that produced Schnidler's, after Amblin:  Amblin Entertainment).  

As young artists we all want to change the world, and create the next great thing that will be remembered forever.  The truth is, we should just worry about creating the next thing . . . period.

I went home that afternoon after meeting with Hal and started working on The Awesome 80s Prom; a show that I had come up with the idea for about five years earlier, but never started because I didn't wanted to be remembered for an interactive show that was about drinking, and dancing, and bachelorette parties.  It didn't seem "important" enough to start.

Looking back?  Starting The "Unimportant" 80s Prom, was the most important thing I ever did in my entire life.

The masterpiece will come later.  :-)  As it will for all of you . . . once you get started.  

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Only 1 Day until the 1st Theater Bloggers Social!

Thursday, April 23rd.

6 PM

Planet Hollywood

For more info and to RSVP, click here.

America loves stories of underdogs.

And so does the rest of the world.

Check out Great Britain's underdog here, Ms. Susan Boyle, who has pulled in a stunning 9 million views on the UTube in only the last couple of days . . . and counting!

Oh, and while you're watching, make sure you take note of the audience response at the end.  

That's the kind of response you want for the underdog in your story. 

Thanks to Bruce L. for the nudge.

You know what else is cool about Susan?  

1.  She sang a musical theater tune (like Les Miz need another 9,000,000 views)

2.  She said she wanted a career like Elaine Paige, a musical theater star, not a career like Madonna.

Do you think she's gotten an offer to play Mama Morton in Chicago yet?  

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Only 7 Days until the 1st Theater Bloggers Social!

Thursday, April 23rd.

6 PM

Planet Hollywood

For more info and to RSVP, click here.

What do soaps and subscription houses have in common?

Barring major breaking news, you can count on your soap to be on every day.  Same time, same channel (and same story line).

Barring a major financial crisis (!), you can count on your non-profit to produce X number of shows a year as well.

They've put themselves on a schedule and by doing so, they become internally committed to delivering product (and at the same time trained their audience).

Or what about sitcoms?  When a sitcom is green-lit, the team is committed to writing, casting and producing 13 of those shows.  The first may be awful, the second may be great, the third may suck wind, the fourth may be so-so.

But they are on a schedule so they keep on creating . . . because their calendar tells them too.  And their hope is that the season is fantastic.

Commercial theater producing is hard, because we hire ourselves. No one green-lights and pays for 13 shows in a row, or a five episodes a week, or even five shows a year.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't put ourselves on some kind of similar schedule.

Successful commercial theater producers, like successful sitcom writers or successful stock pickers, are about the long term.  Sure, one great episode or one great stock is fantastic . . . but what you want is much more than that.

To get it, you have to be willing to have an awful show, a great show, a suck-wind show, a so-so show, and so on.

So if you're a producer, tell yourself you're going to do a show a year. 

If you're a writer, tell yourself you're to write a play year, or a scene a week.

 

If you're an actor, tell yourself you're going to audition for five projects a week.

Put yourself on a schedule, because on this side of the biz, no one else is going to do it for you.

And believe that over the long haul, you'll have one hell of a season.

In defense of the screen to stage adaptation.

While watching Honeymoon In Vegas the other night, I took a twitter poll asking for a quick thumbs up or thumbs down on the idea of making Honeymoon into a musical (a project that is currently in development).

Thanks to my recent linking of my twitter and facebook status, I got a flock of a lot of responses before you could say "Wasn't Sarah Jessica Parker in that movie?".

Here are a few:

Enough with the "from the screen to the stage" and "remake" crap, please. 

There are so many amazing new works we can enjoy... :)

I totally agree with this [the above post] in the nicest way possible. :)

Aren't there any original ideas?

I think they need to start bringing originality back to Broadway.

No more musicals that were movies - unless it's Beetlejuice!

Yikes.  Insert sound of clawing kitty here.  

Original sounds awesome.  And it's what I'd prefer any day of the week.  But it's not as easy, prevalent or desired as you think. 

I've written about the rise of screen to stage musicals before, but this time, let's look at stats on originals: 

This season, there will be only three completely original new musicals on Broadway that were not based on any pre-existing source material, movie or otherwise:  13, Title of Show and The Story of My Life. 

What do they have in common?  I'll give you a hint.  They all closed.

Last season, there were only three original musicals on Broadway as well:  In The Heights, Passing Strange and Glory Day (plural cruelly omitted purposefully).  Kudos to Heights, but disappointment for the other two.

Two seasons ago?  No originals.

Three years back?  Two:  In My Life and Drowsy Chaperone.  Chaperone worked in a small window, and then went away.

Four years?  Two:  Brooklyn and Spelling Bee (The Bee was actually based on an improv play, but since the play hadn't achieved any sort of notoriety, we'll include it here).  The Bee succeeded but the Brooklyn investors would have been better off buying a bridge.

What's interesting about these stats is not the winners.  I just named 10 shows and 2 recouped and that's consistent with the commonly quoted stat that 1 in 5 shows make money.  We're on par.

What's alarming is that the other 8 shows were very quick flame outs, resulting in a loss of the entire capitalization or close to it (or in some cases, maybe even more?).

Now, all you tweeters  . . . knowing these much higher risk statistics, are you really surprised that Producers and Writers look to source material before their own brains for ideas?

Flip the analysis around and look at some of the most successful musicals during that same five year period:  Wicked, Jersey Boys, Lion King, Mamma Mia, and so on with un-originals and so on.

In fact, look at the longest running musicals of all time:  Only 2 originals in the top 10 (I don't count Oh! Calcutta!)

I love an original musical.  Falsettos is one of my favs.  But the fact is that their artistic degree of difficulty is exceptionally high (and those critics that scream about lack of original ideas on Broadway should score them like Olympic gymnasts and give them extra points for the attempt).  The financial risk is the highest, and they have a recent history of lower returns.

The truth is, some of those originals I mentioned above were simply not very good.  And despite the statistical history, a great show can always make this post null and void.  So anyone dissatisfied with the lack of originality on the GWW (Great White Way), should get out there and write a great show and I'll be the first to line up to produce it.

But we do have to remember that Broadway is a very specific place.  It's a very thin slice of real estate in the center of the world.  Producing and creating theater is different from producing and creating Broadway theater.  And original just doesn't always work here, whether we like it or not.

Think about it this way.  Broadway is like a museum.  You know, like MoMA.  Unfortunately, not every painter gets his art hung in MoMA, no matter how good they are.  It's a museum of modern art.  The people that go there, go to see a specific type.  That's what they want.  And the curators have to pick shows that are not only going to satisfy their patrons, but are going to thrill them. 

That doesn't mean that painters of other styles should stop painting.  It just means that MoMA might not be the place where their art has the best shot at success (interestingly enough - a heck of a lot of painters adapt their images from subjects or landscapes, don't they?)

So don't blame the Curators or the Producers or the Writers.  You might just want to pick a different museum.

Still sticking to your guns and think that what audiences really want is originality?  We wondered that same thing on 13 . . . and then we tested a tag line that called the show the most "original new musical on Broadway" (Title of Show used a similar hook).  The results were as follows:

6% of those surveyed were definitely interested in the show based on that tagline.
15% were intrigued by the tagline.
79% of those surveyed said that this tagline "made them NOT interested in seeing 13."

These results are another example of what those of us on the inside would prefer is not necessarily what the majority of our audience prefers.

So maybe that Beetlejuice idea isn't so bad after all . . .

How To Get A Producer To Read Your Script.

As someone who gets a minimum of 10 script submissions a week, I can tell you first hand that I know how hard it is to get a Producer to read your script and give it even 1/10th of the time and energy that you gave when you wrote it.

So what can you do to get that Producer to take that first step to producing your show and actually sit down and read your script? 

Here are five tips on how to get a Producer to read your script:

1.  THE ASSISTANT APPROACH

Surprise, surprise, most people who work in Producers' offices love plays and musicals, and have similar tastes to their boss, or at least know what the boss likes or doesn't like (no one in my office is bringing me absurdist operas about Dadaism and its effect on South African monkeys). 

Odds are that these people don't get a minimum of 10 scripts a week sent to them like the guy or gal with their name on the door.  So find a way to get your script to them (which will probably make them feel pretty special and they'll be even more inclined to like it).  If they do read it, and if they do like it, they'll have 40+ hours a week to push it to the Producer.  If the Producer has already hired that person, then they already trust them, so odds are high that he or she will read it.  I know I'd read anything that my staff asked me to.

2.  THE TREATMENT APPROACH

Time is moolah, so sitting down (or standing up) and reading a script is a major investment for someone with a busy schedule.  I once did NOT read a play simply because it was 187 pages.  It could have been the next August: Osage County, but the thought of flipping 187 pages when I looked at my schedule made me throw up in my mouth (BTW, I did give it to an associate to read, and it was NOT August: Osage County).  The last thing you want is the taste of vomit in a Producer's mouth before they've even glanced at your script.

Why not send a paragraph or one page treatment to whet the appetite of the Producer.  Or just send one of the best scenes (Producers tend to make up their minds quickly about plays and if your first few pages don't grab the reader . . . don't start by sending the whole play which starts with the first few pages!!!) 

Along with the treatment, include a postage-paid postcard with a box to check to request the full play, or ask him or her to reply to an email if he or she wants to read the full play.  Not every show is for every Producer, and that doesn't mean it's a bad script.  God knows, the Dadaism opera could be the next Jersey Boys, but I still wouldn't want to produce it.  Why waste the Producer's time and the Earth's trees if the show isn't a concept that appeals to the Producer? 

Anyone can read a page.  Bait the Producer.  Get him or her to ask YOU for something.  Make them beg for it.  It'll put a little psychological power back in your court.

3.  THE PRODUCTION APPROACH

Produce the show.  Anywhere.  Anyhow.  Produced shows have more value.  I don't care if it was up at a community theater, a black box on the lower-east side, or in your college dorm room.  Get it up, and tell me that it was up, and show me some good reviews.  A few random quotes from a Philadelphia paper is what got me interested in the book writer of Altar Boyz's work.  Without those quotes, he and I never would have met, and the show wouldn't be the same.

It doesn't even matter what the production values were like or if you only sold 2 tickets.  Just give me the highlights . . . like a (here we go) baseball game on the 11 PM news.  Show me the game happened.  Show me that you won.  And show me a couple of great 'plays'.  But I don't need to know everything.

4.  THE PAY THE PRODUCER TO READ IT APPROACH.

Just kidding.  ;-)

5.  THE CONTEST APPROACH.

Can't get a show up?  Win a contest.  There are zillions of playwriting contests out there.  Enter a few.  Win a lot.  Slap that seal of approval all over your cover page that you send with your one-pager.  Awards are cool and even if it's from an organization I've never heard of, it still makes Producers sit up and take notice.  (By the way, contest deadlines are also great ways to motivate yourself to finish something if you're having trouble setting a deadline for yourself)

There are many other ways to get Producers to read your script.  Just put yourself in their shoes.  Imagine that they don't know you or what it took to write your baby.  What would make you read it?

Oh, and what do you do if you try all this, and do your follow up, and they still say they don't want to read your script?

Move on.  #$*&( 'em.  You can thank them for passing on it when you win your Tony Award, because there was obviously someone better suited to produce it.

You just have to get that person to read it.

It worked once. It’ll work again, right?

Lightning in a bottle is hard to capture once. 

So, when people try to use the same bottle to catch another bolt, I always get nervous (this is one of the reasons I won’t be coming out with another interactive show anytime soon).  

The popular fiction biz depends on trying to catch secondary bolts.  John Grisham writes a best selling legal thriller like The Firm and immediately his publishers put  him on a schedule of producing a novel a year to earn his paycheck, praying that his readers "subscribe" to his novels.  And all of the novels have similar settings, and similar structure. 

But were any of his later books ever as good as The Firm?

That’s what made me nervous when I stepped into the Mark Taper Forum this past Sunday to see the Deaf West production of Pippin (a show that I’ve never been a huge fan of).

This production has the unique distinction of using "deaf, hard-of-hearing and hearing actors as voice and American Sign Language are interwoven with music, dance, and joyous storytelling."  (i.e. there were two Pippins).

Unique, right?  Absolutely . . . except that there was a revival of Big River on Broadway a few years ago brought to us by Deaf West and The Roundabout.  So, I walked in with an expectation of what I was about to see and hear . . . something I knew was special . . . but something that, well, I had already seen and heard.

Get this.  They exceeded my decent-sized expectations.

Maybe it’s because Pippin lends itself to a more theatrical treatment like this than Big River. 

Maybe it’s because the newly redesigned Mark Taper Forum provided one of the most comfortable theatrical experiences I’ve ever had (the lobby, the seats, the restrooms, and even the ticketing-system were extraordinary).

Maybe it's because I had been disappointed by the actors-as-musicians Company after seeing Sweeney Todd.

Or maybe it’s because the creative team led by Jeff Calhoun knew that they couldn’t just serve up what we’ve seen before, and they worked their asses off to prove that they weren’t trying to catch lightning in a bottle.

They were trying to create the lightning.

So if you want to do something similar to what you’ve done before, or what someone else has done before (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say, “I’ve got the next Blue Man Group!  Or “I’ve got the next Mamma Mia!”), go for it. 

But go for it twice as hard as you went after it the first time.