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The official statement:
Read more here.
Are you an Un? If so, then you should be looking for a new job.
What's an Un? Unemployed, uninspired or under-appreciated.
Don't wait for your old job to call you back if you got laid off (that's like staying home on a Saturday night waiting for a girl/guy who dumped you to call), and don't sit back and wait for your current job to get better. It won't.
Look for another opportunity, or even better, create your own.
Here are a couple of job opps that appeared in my inbox this week, including one gig with a subsidiary of my company:
1. NEW YORK MUSICAL THEATRE FESTIVAL SEEKS DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT
The Director of Development will be responsible for overseeing and executing the organization's development and marketing strategies, including: maintaining relationships and communication with diverse sources of contributed income (including individuals, corporations, foundations, and government agencies); identifying, cultivating and soliciting potential funding prospects; overseeing the fulfillment of member, patron, and sponsor benefits; maintaining development mailing lists and research files; and supervising development interns, grant writers, and other part time employees or independent contractors who are engaged by NYMF to assist with development activities.
The person who fills this role will ultimately be responsible for maintaining and building the community of support for the organization to enable the strategic growth of the organization and to ensure that the festival can continue to be an affordable and accessible venue for independent artists.
Excellent writing, oral communication, and customer service skills are essential. Computer proficiency, including MS Office (Excel, Word, Outlook). Prior experience in development or fund raising.
The ideal candidate will be a creative thinker and strategic marketer interested in growing with the organization.
Salary is $30-45k, commensurate with experience.
Interested applicants should email Elizabeth Lucas at eal@elizabethlucas.com.
2. EDITOR/CONTENT MANAGER FOR THEATRICAL WEBSITES
Davenport Theatrical Enterprises, Inc. is seeking an Editor/Content Manager for three websites which it founded and manages:
www.BroadwaySpace.com
www.BestOfOffBroadway.com
www.DidHeLikeIt.com
Responsibilities will include:
- Coming up with feature story and video ideas
- Coordinating the production of feature videos with our crew
- Writing daily news blurbs and feature stories
- Managing reviewers
- Uploading photos, videos to websites
The ideal person for this position would possess the following skills and qualifications:
- Experience in theatrical media (preferably websites)
- Relationships with theatrical press reps
- Strong computer skills (graphic design, photoshop, video editing and HTML a plus)
- Excellent and exciting writer
- Organized and outgoing
- Interested in getting involved with a start up business and helping it grow.
We see this as a part-time position that would lead to full time. There may be the possibility to work from home.
Salary commensurate upon experience.
Interested applicants should email info@broadwayspace.com.
Good luck in becoming an un-Un!
At a New Producer's Panel of The Broadway League last night, the topic was social networking and just what it could do for shows already running and those still trying to get out of the starting blocks.
No one knows more about starting their show off with some social networking than my own Ryann "Fergie" Ferguson, who works in my office by day and writes musicals by night.
Here's what happened to VOTE! The Musical, thanks to Web 2.0, in Fergie's own words.
One of the biggest questions we faced once our musical, VOTE!, was "done" and we had put on our first private industry only reading, was how we would be able to continue in our process of refining/work shopping it. Our answer came in the form of a new model of both getting shows produced, as well as finding material to produce.
From the beginning, we wanted to utilize the internet to reach a young audience that was right for our show. We started with a MySpace page. We posted songs and even made a music video. One of our fav cast members, Andrew Keenan Bolger, vloged about it. We made an effort to put out as much material from the show as we possibly could for critique and to build a fan base.
And we got critique. And we got a fan base. And you know what else we got? We got several offers from young aspiring producers who wanted to premiere the show at their college, community theatre or Fringe Festival! We had offers from as far as Australia and London, but ultimately, we decided to stay a little closer to home when got an offer from a young producer in Indiana named Eric Anderson, who really seemed to get what we were all about.
Eric contacted us directly about premiering the work regionally with students and creative team from the Indiana University Theatre Department. My co-writer and I saw it as a great opportunity to workshop the show during a five week rehearsal period (five weeks of rehearsal in NYC is a luxury almost no young writers/producers can afford). And we even got them to use our director!
I had a bit of separation anxiety turning over the show at this stage in its young life, but knowing that our director would be there to oversee made the process easier. And, the internet and social networks have kept us closer than we could have been just a few short years ago. We helped cast the show by watching videos of the auditions, and we've tracked progress and any script changes by watching frequent YouTube video postings of rehearsals.
I'm headed out there for the final two rehearsals and openings and, so far, I would recommend the experience to anyone with a show . . . and a social network.
Fergie hit the developmental lottery here. Remember her first two goals: build a fan base and get critique? She just found a way to get both of those on a bigger scale . . . while someone else is paying for it . . . while it's all under the watchful eye of her trusted director.
The lesson? There are people out there that want to do your show, if it's what their audience is looking for, and if it's good. You've got to find them . . . and make sure they can find you. And, surprise, surprise, social networking is a great way to get discovered.
It's happened for many a musician. It can happen to musicals.
If you're going to be in Indiana on March 6,7 or 8th, check out VOTE! Here's how. And look for Ferg . . . she'll be the one that looks like a mom the day her baby quits crawling, and takes that first little step.
If any of you have sold your show on MySpace or the web, comment away and share your strategy.
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.
I was speaking to a class at Columbia today, and right after we solved all of the problems of producing on Broadway, I got this question: "What happens if my first show right out of the box is a flop?"
I've gotten this question a few times before, and frankly I remember asking it to myself.
The first "anything" always seems to have more pressure, higher stakes and oodles of anxiety (shoot, I made a show about one of those firsts).
So what happens if your first producing venture doesn't work? Does that mean you're dead in the H20? Does that mean you hang your head and go back to WhereverYou'reFrom, USA to work at the local bank (if it hasn't gone under)?
You can, I guess. Or you can do what I do.
Whenever I feel nervous about failing with a show, I play a game called "FIND THE FLOP!".
Wanna play? You can't win an iPhone with this game, but you can win some confidence and perspective.
Here's how to play:
One of the hardest things about being a theater producer ain't union deals or authors agreements, or even the New York Times. The hardest part about being a producer, or any business owner, is that we hire ourselves. So if we fail, we've got to get up and do it again, because no one is going to do it for us. If we don't hire ourselves, then we don't work. And we have to find something else to do. Or we don't eat. Period.
How do I stay motivated to hire myself? (Can you smell a sports story coming? Here goes . . .)
Baseball players strike out all the time. And even if they "backwards K" three times in a row, if the team cycles through the lineup, they have no choice but to step back up to the plate again. It's how the game is played.
So teach yourself that you have no choice. You're a producer. It's what you do. If you had a choice you'd be doing something else. You don't. So call me "Coach" if you want, but I'm not pulling you from the game. You're staying in, flops or not.
And have confidence that if you take enough swings, sooner or later you're gonna hit one out of the park.
There are a number of great quotes in this Variety article about how Broadway Producers will go about building productions both physically and creatively during the economic mudslide we're in, but my favorite is from Legally Blonde and Catch Me If You Can Producer Hal Luftig.
"Inexpensive doesn't mean cheap."
Hal is right.
. . . there's a recoupment! Woo-hoo!
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.
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