Fringe in Full Swing

So my Capital Fringe Festival show, The Diary of a Dancer, is in rehearsal in NYC. Down here in DC I am starting the marketing. I started a Facebook group and Mary has her own Facebook page. You should add her by clicking here. There will be some fun updates I am sure.

Postcards just arrived! Thanks to my talented fellow Fringe producer, Anne Kohn. I wrote about her theatre company a while back, No Rules Theatre Company and now they are doing a Fringe show too.

The biggest challenge we face is our 1st show has a crappy timeslot (Saturday July, 11th at 11am). I am hoping we can sell out that first show maybe by giving something away??? Anyone have any ideas on how to make the first and earliest show sell out? Give me a shout or leave a comment.

Update

Well tomorrow turned into a week and a half later.

Things are busy here. We have Avenue Q coming in next month which is pretty exciting. I am working my Capital Fringe Festival show, The Diary of a Dancer, which is now fully off and running. Not to mention a third project that has yet to be announced that I am so excited about. It has run into many bumps but keeps on moving forward which is so nice. A friend of mine says do something every day that scares you. Well this new project is super scare and super excited.

I have decided twice a week is a good amount of blogging. Not setting a goal for the blog keeps making it okay to push back and writing five times a week was simply just too much. So I will shoot for two new posts every week. Wish me luck with everything and if you want to really support me buy a ticket!

The Return

I have returned from my long absence. So much to catch up and so many thought! First off the Tony Awards are coming up and I have only seen one show! American Idiot and I loved it. Apparently people think it won’t get the Tony for Best Musical and I think they may be right. It was such a great show though and I really hopes it wins. Go see it!

I am really going to get better about blogging. It won’t be every day and probably won’t be as long of posts but it is back.

Tomorrow there is so much on the Capital Fringe Festival and my show, The Diary of a Dancer.

Mixed Reviews for Phantom 2

Love Never Dies opened in London last night mixed reviews. The Telegraph gives it four stars and the Independent gives it four stars. Other reviews are not so nice. The New York Times didn’t like it at all.

Phantom of the Opera is the highest grossing musical of all time bringing in over 5 Billion dollars. That is more than Titanic (the movie) and Star Wars. Phantom has been seen by over 100 million people in 14 languages. The Phantom also didn’t see 100 percent rave reviews. So who knows what the fans will think. I personally like the one song I have heard. The album is out and I hope to give the whole show a listen soon.

I personally am excited for Love Never Dies to get to the States so I can see it. I have made fun of it since they started talking about it but the press today and the publicity they have done have over the last couple of months have really swayed my perception of the show. Share your thoughts about Love Never Dies in the comments section. I want to know what you think.

Fringe Project 10 - And So It Begins…

The Diary of a Dancer will be my Fringe Show! I am soooo excited to be working on this show. Author Wade Dooley contacted me months ago to put his show in for the running for my Project Fringe show. The show I will produce at the Capital Fringe Festival this summer. His show was a wonderful musical about a retirement community that had many great characters and some fun music but ultimately was just too big for me to budget at Fringe.

Then he came back with the idea of using the main character from that musical and creating a one-man show. I was instantly intrigued and loved all the work he has put into the show.

Then there was the whole application process for Fringe. You have to apply and wait to see if you even get accepted. We have been accepted and I have put the first payment in $250 (including the application fee) and I have to make the rest of the payment a week from Friday.

I am going to start a three part fundraising project for this show. My goal is to raise $1,000 to cover the fees involved in Fringe and to help pay the rest of the costs involved in producing a show. The total budget today is $4,430. Scary right? Stay tuned for how you can help!

The Oscars, Anything to Learn?

The Oscars are by far the Creme del la Crème of the awards shows. They, like the Tonys, have had declining viewership over the last several years. The Oscars took it head on and tried to figure what their problems were and how to fix them. First, they added more movies to the Best Picture category. They noticed that the Best Picture nominees were often leaving out some of the year’s biggest blockbuster movies. Should we add more Plays and Musicals to the Best Play and Musical categories respectively? I am not sure that would solve our problem. Usually our blockbusters do make it onto the nominee list.

Another thing the Oscars did was embrace social media. With their average viewership age at 49.5 they tried to use social media to accomplish a couple of things. The Oscars streamed the nominees live on the Facebook page bringing in 170,000 unique visitors. Then there was my favorite the Oscar iPhone application. You could pick your predictions then see how you faired. They also upgraded the site this year. The goals of all this was to of course get viewership up. But to also enhance the experience and hopefully make people continue the conversations after the awards show was over.

This was the best year for the Hollywood Box Office so let’s see how that relates to their new strategies and lets borrow what we can.

Shout Out!

I have to give a shout out today to a new company in Washington DC. As many smaller theatre companies have closed in the area and around the country my friend Anne Kohn and her friends have founded the No Rules Theatre Company. The company just started a campaign to help them “kickstart” their next couple of projects including the run of Some Girl(s) that is playing now through March 21.

I hope you will help support them as they make their mark on DC.

Just Network

A good friend wrote me yesterday to ask for advice on how to get a job in a new country. She has lived there for a bit but was not getting anywhere in her job search and wanted to know if she should just give up on her theatre career and take an office job or try and start over as an intern. My answer was “either.” The most important thing she needs to be doing right now is expanding her network and meeting new people. In order to do that she needs to be doing something. Interning or an office job could lead to her next job. I said go to work. Meet new people and then meet their friends. And find people with interest in the area you want to work in.

It is rare that a job will come find you out (although it has happened to me once). More likely than not you will gain employment by the people you know. So when in a new town or country in her case, get out and meet as many people as you can and turn one of those connections into a job.

New York to DC to New York to DC

It was announced this morning that Next to Normal will be back in DC during the next season at the Kennedy Center. I remember getting the demo CD at Arena Stage and falling in LOVE with this show. It was also my last show with Arena and I still went back to see it many time.

If you are in NYC or one of the many stops on the upcoming tour I hope you go see this production. From the producer of Wicked and the director of Rent this show is truly amazing.

If you didn’t get the chance to see it you can see it at The Kennedy Center.

I am back!

It has been so long since I have blogged I feel a little weird getting back into it. Since I have been gone, I have been working on two projects. One is a Fringe Show and the other a real live commercial project for next Christmas. Although the Christmas project hit a big bump today I hope it will pan out.

I don’t even know where to start.

Hmm. I think I will just share the “Obama musical” with you first and really pick up some hot topics tomorrow. (Please watch it all so you can hear how catchy “Yes We Can” is.)

THE BLOG IS BACK!

I will be posting again starting Monday, Marh 1! Check back then!

People to Know - Rocco Landesman

Last weekend at the Missouri Thespian Conference a high school teacher was telling me a story of how she was one of the first high schools to get the rights to Les Miz. On obtaining the right she decided to right Cameron Mackintosh and he wrote back. She went on to talk about no matter how big you get don’t forget the little guy. Which brings me to my next person in the “People to Know” series, Rocco Landesman. As I said previously I wrote Mr. Landesman when he arrived in Washington DC and welcomed him and asked if he could meet with me. To my surprise he responded and we met last week.

Rocco was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri and after completing his undergrad he went to Yale to earn a doctorate in Dramatic Literature. He taught at Yale after completing his doctorate before going on to start and run a private investment firm. In 1987 he was appointed President of Jujamcyn which operates several Broadway Theaters. In 2005 he bought the company all while producing Broadway Shows.

He has produced Big River, Angles in America and The Producers just to name a few. In May of 2009 Barack Obama nominated Mr. Landesman to become the next Chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts to which he was appointed in August. His career has been a comprised of many commercial, philanthropic and pure artistic endeavors. He is known to be outspoken and very aggressive in his business. I can say from the few times I have talked to him and heard him speak that he is down to earth and very smart. I think we can look forward to having a new champion of the arts in a very powerful position.

Stop the Rumors

Today we go back to my favorite new musical with most of the drama behind the scenes. Yes we are talking about Spider-Man. Rumors are spinning out of control and people are dying to guess what is going on. Yesterday the producers announced that the previews would be delayed. They also reported that they had capitalized the show.

Last weekend in my producing class we talked about Capitalization and Weekly Net and we specifically talked about the estimated cost of Spider-Man. These high school students asked why you would ever move forward with a project that has little to no change of recouping. I said, “Exactly. Everyone is asking that question.”

If there is anything we have learned from superstars with problems is that you want to get ahead of the rumors. Maybe the producing team likes the rumors to keep us all talking about their show. But each time the rumors turn in to a dooms-day scenario for the show they have to come out and talk to the press. So why not come up with a solid plan. Announce it. Then if something changes announce the new plan. The press is dying to know what is happening with this show. So let them. But step up and control the conversation as much as you can. Build the brand of a strong show that will wow. Instead of this rumor mill situation for the show that is getting to be known as the “show that never will make it.”

Back from St. Louis

I just got back from a wonderful weekend at the Missouri Thespian Conference in St. Louis. This is where high school students from all over Missouri come together to learn about theatre. There are also several activities and performances. This trip I taught several classes and each year I am impressed by knowledge these kids have of the business.

Outside of the classroom there were two big questions. How do I pick a college and how can my theatre company raise money. So I will try and answer these questions this week.

When picking a college I think the most important thing is to do your homework. Go and see the school. See a production there. Talk to the teachers and students. Most importantly see if recent graduates are working and if they are not, ask why. You go to college to get the experience and knowledge to get jobs but also to get the contacts to assist you in getting jobs. Networking, networking, networking!

Traveling today!

On my way to the Missouri Thespian Conference today. Hope to learn something and hopefully share a little too. More to come once I have landed in St. Louis.

It's ALIVE!

Your budget that is. As I think ahead to the summer show I think of something new every day and that thing could help or hurt the budget. I am constantly updating a rough budget and with every new idea it changes and with everything we spend it changes and becomes more exact. A budget will change so much it is not even funny.

Don’t get so set in your budget that it becomes hard to change.

New Year’s Resolution / Tomorrow

I hope you all had a great holiday and happy New Year’s. Mine was exciting to say the least. Many life lessons learned that night that will be shared in later posts.

I have been slacking with the blog this last month so my first resolution for the new year is to be better about writing and writing in advance.

Other resolutions are to read more, (the classic) go to the gym more, volunteer more and produce something. I will update you on the progress throughout the year.

Tomorrow is an exciting day for me. I will be meeting (briefly) with NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman. As I have said before I write letters to people when I know they are new to the DC area. That is how I got a meeting with Broadway Producer and new Managing Director of Arena Stage, Edgar Dobie. But I also write them to any employee that I know to be new hoping to always expand my network and build relationships. Not long after Chairman Landesman moved to DC I wrote him a letter welcoming him to the area and let him know how excited I was for him to be in DC. After thinking I wouldn’t hear from him, which is what I expected, I got a call from his office. Well, tomorrow I am having that meeting. I have no idea what we will discuss but I look forward to it. Some people look up to basketball stars, I look up to Broadway Producers.