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.

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.

Networking Paying Off

There is a director in DC who is a good friend of mine and I have watched over the last couple of years make strategic moves in networking. He always reaches out to Artistic Directors and makes a point email them, take them to dinner and meet them when they attend shows he’s involved in.

I think he is a very talented director but I have no doubt that he has gotten as far as he did by the networking he has done with all the Artistic Directors. He is my age and about to direct a main stage production for one of the hottest theatres in Washington DC.

Just another example of how good networking pays off.

Project Fringe 10 – Moving Forward

I have been amazed recently by this one man show that is playing in one of my theaters. I guess it is technically not a one man show since there are two people on stage but really one person is carrying the show. I have been stopping by to see full houses and am truly amazed by the potential of a one man show. The script and story have to be spot on and the production must be first class. But with a cast of one the gross potential is much high and makes the production way less risky.

You only have a cast of one to pay and possibly a hundred less costumes. I am not ready to announce it yet but in looking at doing a Fringe I discovered two things. First the quality of production was less than I thought and second the chance of recoupment was also less than I had planned. The Capital Fringe Festival in Washington DC charges a total of $825 to just get in the door when all is said and done. At Fringe the houses are relatively small so with a 100 percent attendance gross of a 50 seat house I would be looking of $2,250. That doesn’t leave a lot for actors, sets, costumes, directors, designers or marketing. Also remember that is 100 percent attendance. Try and think of Fringe like Broadway. There will be many shows playing at once. Sure a couple of them will be hits but that’s a couple out of many. And some of them could be flops.

Weighing all of those factors I have decided two things. I want a one man show for my first time and second I want to partner up with Producers who have done Fringe before.

Again because of no one signing anything yet and not even being excepted yet I will wait to announce what the show is and who the partners are but I have to say I am starting to get excited. More to come soon hopefully…

Filling A Gap

Yesterday there was a piece in the Washington Post about the Washington Ballet. It was on the homepage so I clicked to see what it was about. The Washington Ballet lost an expected 1 million dollars which is about 1/8th of their budget.

In a stroke of geniuses and maybe luck, they came up with a unique collaboration with Design Army and photographer Cade Martin. They ended up producing a commemorative book with shots of dancers throughout Washington DC. The paper and printing were donated and the book looks to generate around $100,000 in additional income for the company. I have to say, from what I see I am interested in buying this book. It looks beautiful and knowing the money is going to a good arts organization really makes the $55 seem not so high.

Congratulations to the Ballet and their partners in coming up with a great way to begin to fill the gap and hopefully get some more buzz about their company. You can read the article at the Washington Post and go check out the Ballet if you get a chance.

Brief Yourself

In today’s age of the internet, it surprises me how little we know about people and companies, and even the day’s events, before we go into a meeting or social setting. You no longer need an assistant to debrief you of everything, although I love the thought of that. You can do it yourself. I am probably giving something away here and making myself seem less smart by admitting this, but I think it is better than not doing it all.

Before I meet with someone I “google” him and see what I can find out about him first. I do that for everyone who I know will be present whom I don’t know. If nothing else, I will at least be able to put a face with the name. This is really helpful for people who are as bad at remembering names as I am. Then I will “google” the company, project or related projects and read up on them. This will save you time and make them feel like you know enough about them to care. How impressive does it make them feel when you know the last show they did or the last project they worked on? It makes everyone feel good, and only takes a little bit of effort.

If you know me, you know I often get lost in classical plays. So before I go, I read a synopsis, and now that we have Wikipedia, I can not only read the synopsis, but I can also get background about performances, learn the origin of the play and read what scholars thought about the show. In 5 minutes of reading, I have enough information to talk to anyone about the play that I might have gotten from just watching.

Take the time and brief yourself before you go see these shows or go into these meetings. It will make a marginal difference in how your evening or day plays out.

FELA

Remember The Color Purple on Broadway? It wasn’t the great reviews that kept that show alive but the lead producer behind it. Oprah. Need I say more? She has so much power and capital behind her that the reviews, which were good, didn’t really matter. The show was actually selling because her name was above the title. There were other producers, and I am sure she didn’t have a huge hands-on producing role, but her name was the only producer's name that was printed every time the title was printed. Stars can bring a lot to a show just by attaching their names.

Yesterday it happened again. The New York Times and Playbill both reported that Jay-Z, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have all joined the producing team of Fela! Now the show opens next week, so I would take a guess that their roles will be more in marketing and capital. When tourists who don’t normally go to theatre see Jay-Z and the Smiths' names on that poster, they may be inclined to attend.

I personally think this is a great way to get a new audience into the theatre. Maybe if they like the show they will become repeat costumers and start to build a new audience in a time when our core audience is maybe trying to save more money and see less theatre. My hat is off to the person that made that deal happen. Watch for all the publicity Broadway will get in other markets as we lead up to and after opening night of Fela!

Think About It

I often see things in the day to day routine of my job that make think, “Why do we do it that way?” Then I go on to think that it is not my responsibility, and I let it go instead of taking any kind of action. There was a lady at my old theatre who was infamous for calling facility operations about every light bulb that was out in the lobby or theatre. Everyone would make fun of her because she was so such a busybody. Looking back on it I wondered why no one ever asked why there were so many lights out in the lobby. They should also be asking whose job is it to check those, or maybe why we didn’t have a better system in place.

The fact of the matter is people often do enough to get by and don’t want to interfere with other peoples' jobs when sometimes maybe they should.

For instance, look at this sign. Someone had to hang these signs up. I have no doubt they were told to do it, and instead of questioning whoever hired them to put this up, they just did it. Surely they were smart enough to say, “This doesn’t make sense,” but instead they just hung them and walked away. It wasn’t their job to fix it, but just to hang them.

Think about where you work and what things are not working. We should be asking what is working and what is not and how can we fix the stuff that isn’t. Instead of making fun of the lady calling about the out lights everywhere, maybe look at why there are so many lights out and figure out how to fix that problem. Just saying "It isn’t my job to do that" leads to more and more problems. If you make things easier for customers you improve their experience. What are some problems you see every day that you just walk by because it is someone else’s responsibility?

10 Most Powerful People in DC Theatre

So you might have seen the “Broadway's 50 Most Powerful People” on Broadwayspace.com that was compiled by industry insiders. They wrote, “Who are Broadway’s most powerful people? We put the question to a handful of industry insiders who, on condition of anonymity, ranked Broadway’s movers and shakers for a final and decidedly unscientific list of 50. Is power the ability to get a show up with the scratch of a pen? Is it the person at the very top of the game, or the person you wouldn’t dare put on hold? We let everyone define 'power'" for themselves and let the chips fall as they may.”

So I set out to do the same thing, but with the people inside the Beltway. I asked 50 people to participate from over 10 theatres, giving no one theatre more than 5 potential votes. I gave the recipients the task of naming whom they thought were the most powerful people with no definition of what "power" meant. Half of the people replied, and no one theatre outweighed another, so I feel it is a good list. I should mention that other than local theatre employees, donors, actors, designers and directors who are not affiliated with a particular theatre were also asked to participate. There were exactly 40 different people named as the “most powerful,” but I felt that only the top should be on the list so that we have a list of 10. As it was stated in the Broadway.com version, the insiders have complete anonymity.

10. Helen Hayes Awards honors excellence with one of the most prestigious theatrical honors in the country and also has a mission of outreach and building audiences. It gives awards annually in the DC region with categories in direction, design, acting and more.

9. Victor Shargai serves on the Kennedy Center Community Board, the Studio Theater, The Washington Ballet, and the Laurel Fund for the Performing Arts, and he is the Chairman of the Board for the Helen Hayes Awards. Before he got involved in interior design (Victor Shargai and Associates Inc.) he designed sets and costumes on and off Broadway. Mr. Shargai earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Theater and English from Queens College.

8. Mark Shugoll is CEO of Shugoll Research. In addition, he is a devoted patron of the arts, serving as a Board Chair of Arena Stage, and the national arts scene as a Board member of the Business Committee for the Arts and TCG. He is the founder of various award-winning arts education programs in Fairfax County, including ArtSpeak! and TheaterTrips!

7. Linda Levy Grossman is the Executive Director of the Helen Hayes Awards Society, the premiere professional theatre recognition program. She has also worked with area theatres and resides in Baltimore.

6. Molly Smith is the Artistic Director of Arena Stage and also serves as a member of the Board of the Theatre Communications Group, as well as the Center for International Theatre Development. Arena Stage has helped develop three shows that moved to Broadway in the last year.

5. Michael M. Kaiser has been President of the Kennedy Center since January 2001. Mr. Kaiser created the Kennedy Center Arts Management Institute to provide advanced training for arts administrators at varying stages of development and has created a series of programs to help train others in the field. Mr. Kaiser previously served as the Executive Director of the Royal Opera House. Kaiser launched Arts In Crisis: A Kennedy Center Initiative in early February 2009, which provides free arts management consultation to arts organizations across the United States.

4. Michael Kahn is the Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company. From 1992-2006, he was the Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division of the Juilliard School, where he has been a leading member of the faculty since its founding in 1968. He has worked all over the country and run many of the nation's leading theatres, as well as directed on and off Broadway.

3. Eric Schaeffer is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA which won the 2009 Regional Theatre Tony Award. He has directed many shows at the Kennedy Center, and he served as the Artistic Director of their Sondheim Celebration. He is currently directing his third Broadway show. He has directed across the country and in the UK.

2. Peter Marks is the lead theatre critic at the Washington Post.

1. Jaylee Mead and the late Gilbert Mead are huge donors to many area arts organizations. They have been noted as giving the largest individual gift to a theatre in United States when they pledged $35 million to Arena Stage to help build their new building, properly titled The Mead Center for American Theatre. Their interest in theatre stemmed from Gil and Jaylee's involvement since 1970 in an employee theater group at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., where both were employed as research scientists. Jaylee produced many of the shows and performed onstage, and Gil was often the musical director. Beyond their money, they have been said to be the nicest and most caring individuals. Gilbert passed away in 2007.

Twitter Lives On

This week if you “tweet” you have probably seen the LORT Twitter list that was posted by Yale MFA Student Devon Smith. Theatres that did well on the list are tweeting about how they did and I am sure the lower ranking ones are waking up and taking a real hard look at how they are doing not only with Twitter but social media in general. In the past month, four very smart people from the leaderships of various companies have come to me and said show me how to use twitter. I am not the best tweeter but I understand the basics and frankly once you practice it just isn’t that hard.

Number four on the “LORT Twitter Index” was Arena Stage. I think they are probably the best in the DC area about social media. They have a blog that is constantly updated and contains exciting stuff. They have YouTube channel that has great videos and is very well branded. They have a great Twitter account according to the list and most importantly they interact with their audience through these forms of media.

In a week they will be having a scavenger hunt that will be organized through Twitter and Facebook. It will take people on a journey through DC and I would imagine to the Lincoln Theatre where their production of The Fantasticks will be playing. The prize is actually a great one too, four tickets to opening night of The Fantasticks and a restaurant gift certificate for four.

Social media is more than just having a Twitter account and Facebook page but knowing how to take those tools and use them to interact with your audience.

My 23 Hour Day

I have done many exciting shows in my life. The most exciting are actually not theatre but more in the concert or speaking category. I have worked on concerts like Maria Carey, Pearl Jam, and even David Copperfield (oh, the stories there). Last week I worked on my biggest event here at the Harman Center with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I worked for two jam-packed days to get ready for their speech on Global Health. If you have the time you should watch the speech.

The first day I ended up working 23 hours in a day. I had many questions about why, and I thought I would share the insight to why I made that decision. Looking back I don’t know that there is anything that I would have done differently.

The day was scheduled to start at 3:30am with the arrival of catering. At about 4:30am the Technical Director for the event company arrived. I felt that it was extremely important that I be there in the beginning of the day to meet the senior staff from the Gates Foundation and make sure things were off to a good start. Luckily for me, they were. The plan was that my assistant would come in to work part of the day with me and then go and run the other event in our second theatre. We would both be ending about the same time (midnight), and he would take the morning shift the second day so I could be well rested for the actual event, which we would both work. Then I could stay for the strike, as I was coming in at noon. Sounded like a great plan, right? Well it was, but no one counted on the video not being ready. With 6 high powered projectors, overlapping the alignment of the projectors was crucial. The projection team had to stay to get everything ready so that we did not cut into the tech / rehearsal time of day two. So I decided to stay with them, knowing I could sleep in the second day.

Would I have done anything different to not work a 23 hour day? Maybe not booked the second event at the other theatre so my assistant could have been in my place. The show must go on, as they say, and the projectors had to get aligned to not take up the second day tech time. There's not much that could have been done. When you are managing things, you sometimes have to work extra to get the project done. All good managers will work until the job is done. And to balance my work life schedule, I will be taking this Friday off to make up for all the extra hours.