Chapter 13 – Image Makers: Producers
There’s no business like show
business.
—Irving Berlin
Chapter Summary
• Producers are responsible for financing productions, for
hiring and firing the artistic and managerial personnel.
• Producers are frequently all things to all people: money
machine, mediator, friend, tyrant, boss, enemy, gambler,
investor, consultant.
• The producer’s job is to make the play happen.
Broadway
• Around 36 theatres
• At least 16 owned by Shubert Organization
• Very expensive to produce a Broadway show:
– $8 million for a musical
– $800,000 or more for a dramatic play
• High cost leads to collaboration, sharing of resources
and knowledge among producers
Broadway
• Why so expensive?
– High labor costs
– Limited opportunity to replace labor with technology
– Limited distribution:
• Cannot be “canned” and delivered to millions (e.g.,
like film)
The Broadway Option
• Playwright’s agent shows play to producers.
• Producers may “option” play:
– Payment advanced to playwright against royalties
– Grants producers right to produce play within limited
amount of time
• Playwright (or agent) may send script directly to artistic
director theatre:
– Regional theatre
– Off Broadway
The Broadway Option
• When script is optioned:
– Playwright works on script in workshops, rehearsals,
tryouts, previews.
– Reaction to play may lead to rewrites before New
York opening.
– Playwright must satisfy several interests (especially
director and producer).
• In meantime, producer begins process of securing
financial backers (“angels”), assembling cast and crew.
Broadway:
Associations and Craft Unions
• League of American Theatres and Producers (founded
1930):
– Represents theatre owners and producers in
negotiations with unions and associations
Broadway:
Casting and the Casting Director
• Casting director receives “breakdown” of roles:
– Includes outline of desired qualities for each role
• This information is posted with agents.
• An audition space is reserved.
• Actors’ agents submit names and resumes to casting
director.
• The casting director selects names for audition.
• Casting director is present at auditions, but director and
producer make final decisions.
Broadway:
Nontraditional Casting
• Casting actors in roles for which they might not have
been considered in the past
• Colorblind casting:
– Ignores race or ethnicity
– Casts actors on talent and suitability to a role
• Conceptual casting:
– Alters the race or ethnicity of characters to bring
about a new perspective on the play
• Casting inversions:
– Denying ethnic roles to minorities
Broadway: The Agent
• Acts on behalf of artists to find theatre, film, television,
advertising, and publishing contracts
• Negotiates contracts and royalties
• Artist’s lifeline into commercial theatre:
– It is through the agent that the actor or playwright is
usually seen and heard by directors and producers.
Broadway:
The Preview (or Out-of-Town Tryout)
• Traditionally, productions premiered in other cities before
going to New York:
– “Trial run” to fix problems in staging, script
• Less common today: too expensive
• Other approaches:
– Preview (short run in show’s permanent theatre)
– Transferring successful regional theatre show to
Broadway
– Recreating successful London production
Broadway Openings (and After)
• Night after opening:
– Cast, crew gather to await critic’s responses.
– Reviews collected by press agent, read aloud.
• Morning after opening:
– Producers, press agent, company manager meet.
– If reviews are good, advertising budget planned.
– If reviews are bad, show will likely be closed.
– If reviews are mixed, stakeholders must decide
whether the show has potential to recoup investment.
Off Broadway
• Refers to smaller theatres (100 to 499 seats)
• Smaller box office potential
• In past, less bound by unions, contracts, financial
requirements
• Today, simply a smaller version of Broadway
Regional Theatre
© Liz Lauren /Goodman Theatre
(pictured are Mary Beth Fisher and Ian Lithgow)
• Sometimes called
resident theatres,
resident companies
• Nonprofit
• Often first choice for
premiers of new works:
– Cheaper than
Broadway
– Play can develop
without risk of being
“killed” by critics
Mary Beth Fisher and Ian Lithgow in
Boy Meets Girl at the Goodman Theatre
in Chicago
Regional Theatre
(c) Eric Y. Exit/ The Goodman Theatre
(pictured are Gabriel Byrne & Cherry Jones
• Run by artistic or
producing director:
– Defines theatre’s
artistic, social mission
– Deals with board of
directors, funding
sources
– Plans theatre’s season
– Hires artists
Cherry Jones and Gabriel Byrne in
A Moon for the Misbegotten at the
Goodman Theatre
Producers and Regional Theatre
•
•
•
•
Deal with contracts, unions
Produce a season of plays (eight to eleven months)
May direct one or more shows in a season
Develop, manage budget for expenses:
– Artistic salaries and fees
– Administrative salaries and costs
– Travel and housing (for casting and artists)
– Marketing and development costs
– Production and personnel expenses
– Equipment, facilities maintenance, and services
Regional Theatre: Money
• Funding:
– Endowments
– Federal and state money
– Foundation and corporate sponsorship
– Donations
– Subscribers
• Staff:
– Permanent staff of artistic leadership and
administrators
– Small core of part-time actors:
• Low pay often results in “talent drain.”
Regional Theatre: Money
• New York commercial theatres a potential solution to
fiscal woes:
– Shows established in regional theatre then moved to
Broadway (with added capital):
• Caroline, or Change from the New York
Shakespeare Festival Theatre
• Death of a Salesman and A Moon for the
Misbegotten from the Goodman Theatre, Chicago
• Proof and Doubt from the Manhattan Theater Club,
New York
• Having Our Say and Electra from McCarter
Theatre, Princeton
Regional Theatre: Staging Diversity
Maurice, Meredith Courtesy of St. Louis Black Repertory Company.
Scene: The Ladies who sing with the band.
J. Samuel Davis (Actors Equity—as Ken) and Eddie Webb (Andre)
• African American theatre
companies:
– New Federal Theatre, New
York
– Penumbra Theatre
Company, St. Paul, MN
– St. Louis Black Repertory
Theatre
Ain’t Misbehavin’, produced by
the St. Louis Black Repertory Company
Regional Theatre: Staging Diversity
• Asian American theatre
companies:
– East West Players, Los
Angeles
– Ping Chong and Company,
New York City
Regional Theatre: Staging Diversity
• Native American theatre
companies:
– Native American Theatre
Ensemble
– Spiderwoman Theatre
Courtesy El Teatro Campesino
Latino/Hispanic/Chicano Theatre
Companies:
– El Teatro Campesino, San
Juan Bautista, CA
– Bilingual Foundation of the
Arts, Los Angeles
– Gala Hispanic Theatre,
Washington, D.C.
El Teatro Campesino’s La Conciencia Del Esquirol
Core Concepts
• Producing means making a lot of difficult decisions about
art, people, and money.
• Producing can mean firing your favorite actor, director, or
designer.
• A producer has to have the personality and experience
to influence people, raise money, hire, dismiss, mediate
disputes, encourage and assist, option wisely, soothe
bruised egos, and be all things to all people.
• Most important is the ability to get money from investors.
• In the American theatre, the Broadway musical is the
pièce de résistance of producing—the costliest, the most
lucrative, and the most popular of the theatrical arts.