Chapter+7

William Gillette was a young actor when he appeared in a play which contained a pathetic deathbed scene. The producer was not satisfied with Gillette’s performance: “This is ridiculous. Why, you actually laughed when you were supposed to be dying!” “At the salary you pay,” the actor retorted, “death is something to be greeted cheerfully.” //Theatrical Anecdotes// by Peter Hay. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987, p. 194.

George S. Kaufman once came to see [Jed] Harris [the successful American producer between the two world wars]. Harris was stark naked. They had a long conference on some revisions of //The Royal Family//, a comedy which Kaufman had written in collaboration with Edna Ferber. During the two hours, Harris didn’t bother to put on any clothing. Finally, Kaufman rose to go. As he closed the door behind him, he said, “Pardon me, Jed, but your fly is open.” //Theatrical Anecdotes// by Peter Hay. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987, p. 196. One of the producer David Merrick’s more celebrated flops was a play about Mata Hari. On opening night in 1968 at Washington’s National Theatre, everything went wrong. When the beautiful bad actress in the title role was finally to be silenced by the firing squad, the moving wagon that was to bring on the executioners failed to move and had to be manually heaved on stage. Needless to say, the rifles also failed to fire, and when the curtain mercifully began to descend upon the dead heroine, she raised her head prematurely to see whether it had really fallen. As the audience dissolved into boisterous derision, Merrick stood up in the auditorium and was heard to say: “Anyone who wants this show for a buck can have it.” //Theatrical Anecdotes// by Peter Hay. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987, p. 204. __CHAPTER VII__ __Producing__

All productions require some degree of organization, no matter what is performed, where it is presented, or by whom. The person who ultimately is responsible for a production is the producer. To most audience members it may seem as though the director is really in charge of a production and for most day to day activities regarding a production, he/she is. Yet the producer is normally responsible for the overall operations. The producer is generally responsible for providing the resources to make a production happen. This implies finding a performance space, financial resources, and allocating the time and effort necessary to bring a production to fruition. The work of a producer translates into virtually every aspect of the production process depending on the type of organization producing the work. Before proceeding to illustrate the range of decisions producers normally make it is necessary to discuss the organizations for which producers work.

__Production Organizations__

Most students first come into contact with theatre through the public schools. So we’ll start with the school and work our way to colleges and universities, then to community theatres and then to the not-for-profit theatres in New York and elsewhere in the country and finally end up with the commercial theatre business.

Elementary and Middle School Theatre:

Somewhere in the administrative structure of a school, be it in the grade school, middle school, or high school, somebody makes a decision to provide theatre opportunities for students. Usually this takes the form of classes and it often requires putting on public performances for parents, faculty, students, and friends. Commonly, an elementary school program in which theatre is included has as its aim to provide an engaging way for students to learn about the subjects they are studying or the way man and nature function in the universe. This takes the form of courses where students are involved in creative dramatics or children’s’ theatre. Teachers who are trained to use the techniques of both to educate and have as one of their central objectives to give students a chance to participate, to grow and change as individuals, and to have a wholesome place to socialize. In many ways, this mirrors music and sports programs. It is often the first place that children learn how to function together as a team.

Usually the teacher is responsible for the kinds of materials that are covered. Whenever a public production is part of the activity, the school administration must approve the endeavor and engages with the teacher in deciding what work to present, when to present it, where it is to be presented, and how it will be funded. Making money or even covering the cost of the event is rarely of concern, certainly it is not a top priority. Indeed, the purpose is to education–to educate all the students involved. Proud parents usually see the results of the student work and provide the moral support necessary to acknowledge what is often considerable effort on the part of the teacher and the student participants. Often the teacher is the motivating factor in the effort and the administration simply provides the necessary resources for making sure that it happens. The school acts as producer delegating authority to the director-teacher.

High School Theatre:

High School Theatre is often a major step up from the activities that go on in the elementary or middle secondary schools. The fortunate schools in the country have high school drama coaches who actively seek to develop programs of study and production that do virtually the same things that the High School athletics and music programs do–develop a positive reputation for the school and give students a way to express themselves in a systematic fashion. A few school theatre programs enjoy a prominence beyond that of normally more popular programs of activity. A few even rival the accomplishments of community colleges and even those of some universities. Graduates may go on to pursue professional careers in this field before or after college. Highlighting most high school drama programs are public performances. High Schools may even have elaborate production facilities to highlight the work of the drama program. However, even those with more primitive facilities may mount at least one show a year and often more. National and state organizations of secondary school drama programs have arisen to unite drama coaches and their students in festivals in which they come together to see each other’s work and to compare the results of their efforts. Often this also involves performance of scenes highlighting the acting talents of the students involves, as well as fully realized, often elaborate, productions.

In this case, the school serves as the producer of the drama program although a great deal more responsibility is placed in the hands of the coach and committees of students who run it. Often coaches are in direct contact with colleges and universities in the state and sometimes elsewhere in the country. They help to promote a healthy environment for theatre and give students an opportunity to develop useful and necessary skills which are tested in college undergraduate programs.

In recent years, with major cutbacks in school funding and reallocation of resources, theatre and drama programs have been reduced or curtailed altogether. State certification for theatre and drama teachers has ended in many states and thus made conducting programs of training at the high schools level very difficult if not impossible. This sad state of affairs translates adversely throughout the theatre community, including the community theatres and college and university theatre programs.

College and University Theatre:

At the next level up are programs of drama and theatre at colleges and universities throughout the country. Many of these programs are well-known and provide valuable groundwork for aspiring professionals in acting, design, management, and directing. The Yale School of Drama is certainly among the best known. This program was originally the brain-child of the first theatre educator of note in the USA–George Pierce Baker. [something about Baker here]

It was not long before programs of theatre education sprouted out all over the USA. It first appeared in departments of English or Speech. With reorganization of many colleges and universities in the 1960s, many theatre units broke away to form their own departments encouraged by the central administration. These included four year undergraduate BA degree programs which emphasized liberal art, as well as specialized BFA programs with emphasis in acting or design. Many programs now boast various three year MFA degree programs with specialization in the usual areas, such as acting, directing, lighting design, scene design, costume design, and theatre technology, as well as more uncommon programs emphasizing theatre organization and management, stage management, dramaturgy, and media technology, to name but a few.

Obviously, a considerable amount of money is invested in such operations. The university becomes the executive producer of these operations and the department chair or head acts as producer on behalf of the university officials who vest considerable power, authority, and financial resources in his/her hands. Since the 1960s elaborate facilities have and still are being constructed on college campuses to house the operations of the theatre programs that have sprung up on nearly every college campus in America. Many of these are part of multi-million dollar fine arts complexes housing proscenium, thrust, arena theatres, and concert and recital halls. Often the university art gallery is associated with the complex. Many fine arts complexes have a paid staff of managers and box office personnel. Some have paid technical staff who supervise and sometimes build scenery, costumes, properties, and handle the lighting needs of the various departments who require their services, such as departments of theatre, music, and dance. At least one notable university has a large opera department dedicated to producing full scale operas on a regular basis. It boasts of an entirely separate building dedicated to the works that are produced by student and guest performers.

Such extensive operations require teachers with specializations in various areas of expertise. The theatre programs often have teachers specialized in acting, stage voice, movement, martial arts, directing, costume design, costume technology, scene design, scene technology, scene painting, sound design, stage management, lighting design and technology, theatre history and dramatic literature with emphasis in American theatre, Asian theatre, Black theatre, Hispanic theatre, women’s theatre, Gay and Lesbian theatre, and so forth. Each program boasts and points to some unique area of emphasis or some special unique focus which makes it stand out from competitors elsewhere in the region or the nation.

College and university theatre programs generally are budgeted to produce plays and earn income derived from the production. They function somewhat like small businesses, especially when they are expected to make enough money to pay for all their production efforts. The objective of production is to provide performance experiences for the students who are studying in the programs.

The range of plays produced by the colleges and universities often is rationalized on the basis of the training needs of the students, as well as providing an expression of the interests of the faculty, and taking into consideration the needs of the general public and student body. It often consists of works which are classical and contemporary. Some programs produce works that are controversial and that would never be seen on high school or community theatre stages.

Obviously, a great deal of money is involved in college and university theatre operations starting with the construction and maintenance of the facilities that house them, and including a commitment to the personnel and equipment that provide the educational base necessary to make them a legitimate part of the academic mission and the outreach of the colleges and universities of which they are a part.

Community Theatre:

There are many community theatres throughout the United States, some of them boast that the quality of their productions is as good, if not better, than the commercial theatre. Indeed, community theatre bring theatre fare to many hundreds of thousands of people in communities large and small, in remote and isolated areas and in large urban centers, as well. The urge to do theatre among a group of like-minded individuals continues to keep community theatre alive and well in the USA.

The objective of most community theatre is laid out in a set of organizing principles or charter. Since they are non-profit organizations and function without paying taxes, they diligently rely on the enterprise of the membership and depend on the leadership of a few dedicated individuals to keep them solvent and flourishing. Some of them work in local arts centers, others rent or their own performance spaces. Their objective is simple–to do plays. Owing to a need to survive on box office revenue and contributions from enthusiastic supporters, they tend to focus on works that reach out to the broadest possible audience base of the community. Since they are rarely underwritten, they tend not to challenge audiences with controversial materials that may be taken as offensive by some.

Members contribute their effort to community theatre free of charge. Rarely, if every, is anyone in a community theatre paid to work. Often the actors audition and volunteer their time at great personal hardship to themselves and their families. Yet they continue to do so in great numbers. The age range in most community theatres is wide. It includes public school children and youth, as well as grand parents, housewives, business and professional men and women, and even an occasional politician.

Decisions about seasons and activities are normally reached by a Board of Trustees established to consider production possibilities submitted for consideration by local directors. The Board often oversees the sale of a season subscription to the public or past patrons at a fixed and generally reasonable cost. Sometimes the Board undertakes fundraising drives to support some project or other. Building strong contacts with diverse factions in a community is a sure way to keep a community theatre popular and successful. For those organizations who wish to expand their base, grants are sought from local, state, and national organizations. Unique organizations with a drive to expand and grow have caught the eye of granting organizations and State and National Arts Councils. Building programs and tours are sometimes undertaken on behalf of a particularly aggressive community theatre.

There is even a national organization of community theatre groups which hold national conferences and engage in lively dialogue about problems and potentials among member groups. Since community theatre is an outgrowth of the community it often helps to cement communities together behind a common cause.

Local community theatre organizations focused on children’s theatre are also to be considered among the more popular types of community theatre that have emerged in this country in recent years. These organizations may have connections with the Parks departments of their towns and cities and produce plays by or for children of all ages, reaching deep into the community and developing future generations of talent.

Nonprofit Professional Theatre:

Among the various types of professional theatre organizations around the country are the nonprofit or not-for-profit theatres. Most of them articulate a mission toward which they anticipate striving. They hire actors to work on various contracts negotiated with Actors Equity, depending on the size of their performance facilities and their potential gross weekly income.

The nonprofit theatres serve as one if not “the” only professional theatre in a city or town. Many of them are the pride of the citizens of a community and hold a degree of reputation similar to the local symphony orchestra, dance company, or opera company. They operate under the direction of an artistic director and managing director who periodically report to a board of directors or trustees, often wealthy and influential citizens of the community. Many of the companies were formed in the 1960s and 1970s to meet the growing demand of the general public for a high level of performance on a frequent basis. With them grew performance facilities which help to center the attention of the community in local artistic expression.

A few of the better known theatre companies outside New York are as follows: Actors’ Theatre of Louisville; the Alabama Shakespeare Festival; the Alley Theatre of Houston; the Alliance Theatre Company of Atlanta; American Repertory Theatre of Cambridge, Massachusetts; the Arena Stage of Washington, DC; Arizona Theatre Company of Phoenix; the Asolo Theatre Company of Sarasota, Florida; the Barter Theatre of Abingdon, Virginia; Center Stage of Baltimore, Maryland; the Cleveland Play House; the Crossroads Theatre Company of New Brunswick, New Jersey; the Dallas Theater Center; the Delaware Theatre Company of Wilmington; the Denver Center Theatre Company; the Detroit Repertory Theatre; the East West Players of Los Angeles; El Teatro Campesino of San Juan Bautista, California; the Goodman Theatre of Chicago; the Goodspeed Opera House of East Haddam, Connecticut; the Guthrie Theater of Minneapolis; the Hartford State Company of Hartford Connecticut; the Huntington Theatre Company of Boston; the Indiana Repertory Theatre of Indianapolis; the La Jolla Playhouse of La Jolla, California; the Long Wharf Theatre of New Haven, Connecticut; the Magic Theatre of San Francisco; the Mark Taper Forum of Los Angeles; the McCarter Theatre Center for the Performing Arts of Princeton, New Jersey; the Meadow Brook Theatre of Rochester, Michigan; the Milwaukee Repertory Theater; the Missouri Repertory Theatre of Kansas City, Missouri; the Old Globe Theatre of San Diego; the Oregon Shakespeare Festival of Ashland, Oregon; the Philadelphia Theatre Company; the Pioneer Theatre Company of Salt Lake City; the Pittsburgh Public Theater; the Portland Repertory Theatre and the Portland Stage Company of Portland, Oregon; the Round House Theatre of Silver Spring, Maryland; the Sacramento Theatre Company; the San Diego Repertory Theatre; the San Jose Repertory Theatre of San Jose, California; the Santa Monica Playhouse; the Seattle Repertory Theatre; Shakespeare & Company of Lenox Massachusetts; the South Coast Repertory of Costa Mesa, California; Stage West of Fort Worth; the Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago; the Syracuse Stage of Syracuse, New York; the Tennessee Repertory of Nashville, Tennessee; Theatre Virginia of Richmond, Virginia; the Trinity Repertory Company of Providence, Rhode Island; the Utah Shakespearean Festival of Cedar City, Utah; the Virginia State Company of Norfolk, Virginia; the Williamstown Theatre Festival of Williamstown, Massachusetts; the Yale repertory Theatre of New Haven, Connecticut; and, the Zachary Scott Theatre Center of Austin, Texas.

Among the companies located in New York City are as follows: the Classic Stage Company; En Garde Arts; INTAR Hispanic American Arts Center; Irish Arts Center; Jean Cocteau Repertory; Jewish Repertory Theatre; La MaMa Experimental Theater Club; Lincoln Center Theater; Mabou Mines; Manhattan Theatre Club; Music-Theatre Group; New Dramatists; New Federal Theatre; New York Theatre Workshop; O’Neill Theater Center; Ontological-Hysteric Theater; The Open Eye Theater; Pan Asian Repertory; Ping Chong and Company; Playwrights Horizon; Primary Stages Company; Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival; Repertorio Espanol; Roundabout Theatre Company; Second Stage Theatre; Signature Theatre Company; Theatre for a New Audience; Theater for the New City; Theatreworks/USA; Ubu Repertory Theater; Vineyard Theatre; Women’s Project & Productions; The Wooster Group; and, Young Playwrights Inc.

Although the aim of most of these organizations is not to make money but simply to pay the bills, they are still very much influenced by the reality of the bottom line. It is doubtful that any of them could pay their bills through box office revenues alone. They rely on supplementary support from grants from the National Endowment of the Arts and business and industry to make up the difference between earned income and expenses.

Many of these fine organizations run subsidiary programs which are designed and marketed to local school children and which reach out to various segments of the community as a means of building public confidence and trust.

In many ways, these organizations are medium to large businesses. Many of them operate on budgets ranging into the millions of dollars with many paid staff and obliged to following union rules governing their backstage operations, as well as the scale of actor, director, and music contracts.

Commercial Theatre:

Commercial Theatre in the United States is centered primarily in New York. The bottom line is the chief motivation for a commercial producer. A property (play) is optioned when a producer thinks it may attract sufficient backing an may be developed into a commercial success. Art is less important than economics in the mind of most commercial producers. There are the exceptions of course, such as Joseph Papp, Harold Prince, and Cheryl Crawford, as well as others.

Perhaps David Merrick was the quintessential American commercial producer. Born in 1911 he was one of the busiest, most successful, and controversial producers every to work on Broadway. Mr. Merrick was not a director. He was strictly a producer. He produced or co-produced over seventy plays during his career among them //The Matchmaker// in 1955, //Hello Dolly!// in 1964, and //42nd Street// in 1981. He was a ruthless competitor known for his publicity stunts. During the run of the 1957 production of the British playwright’s work //Look Back in Anger// he paid a woman to climb on stage and slap an actor. And when the critics panned one of his musicals he found a group of men with the same names as the leading Broadway theatre critics and printed the non-professionals more favorable remarks with their names subscribed.

__Organizing a Production__

There are many ways a production may be organized by producers, depending on the organizational structure in which they work. Obviously, in the public schools and high schools the teacher-drama coach formulates or helps to formulate the organizational structure to mount a production. He or she works closely with students to plan, design, build, advertise and market, and eventually to strike a production. Virtually all control is in the hands of one or a few individuals.

At the College and University level the organizational structure becomes more complicated. Someone may be designated the Director of Production and his or her responsibilities may be to work with the department chairperson as well as directors, designers, and technicians to see that a season of shows is mounted. There are specialists who may be counted on who are hired to handle the various duties associated with producing plays. Seasons of plays are designed to function throughout the academic year and sometimes even during the summer months. Students are involved in the season choice, design process, building, acting, managing, and even in the directing a productions but the specialists serve as teacher-mentors designated to establish standards and to mobilize the efforts of the work force.

Community theatres have the same needs as those of the schools but is often at the mercy of the volunteer work force. Someone needs to allocate and manage the finances of a production. People are needed to man the box office, to advertise and market, to design, construct, build every aspect of the production. A great deal of responsibility is placed in the hands of the community theatre director to see that his/her production is ready to open.

In the nonprofit and commercial theatres the organizational process moves from the amateur to the professional. It might be well to think that the artistic directors and managing directors of nonprofit theatres even though their production budgets are large think of their work as serving artistic rather than commercial ends. They are under the same strains and stresses that the colleges and universities are under except their work must not loose vast sums of money and adversely influence the future of the organization. The Board of Directors or Trustees places a great deal of confidence in the vision of the Artistic Director and the business sense of the Managing Director.

Commercial producers work closely with their lawyers and trusted business associates to assure that their best interests and those of their investors are served. There are contracts to be drawn up and abided by. A theatre must be booked and advance money must be paid to hold it for rehearsal, setup, and run of the show. Once a commercial producer has settled on a property he options a play and works closely with the playwright to contract a director and designers. Eventually actors enter the picture. In the meantime, publicity agents and advertising organization are contracted to promote the show. Advance sales tell everyone if the work promises some degree of success. Many plays run and close in previews before they open simply because the advance sales do not indicate a successful potential run. And once the theatre critics respond to a play which has opened they have a decided influence over the box office success of the show.

In short, the role of the producer changes depending on the organizational structure in which he or she works.

__Philosophy of Production__

Joseph Papp was one of the more important producers of the Off Broadway theatre market. Born in 1921 in a lower income family in New York he became a managing director of the Actors Laboratory Theatre in Hollywood in 1948-50. Between 1952 and 1960 Papp served as a stage manager for CBS television. In 1954 he founded the New York Shakespeare Festival. Thus began his crusade to provide free theatre to the public in open spaces throughout the metropolitan area. Finally, in 1962 the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park became the summer home of the Festival. The nineteen hundred and thirty-six seat outdoor theatre opened with //The Merchant of Venice// starring James Earl Jones, Julie Harris and Colleen Dewhurst. As with successive seasons of plays it was offered free to the public. Typically, audience members lined up from noon on the day of performance to get in for the evening show. Eventually, he opened the New York Public Theatre in Greenwitch Village on Lafayette Street which is still one of the most important theatres of its kind in New York. Mr. Papp is the winner of many honors and awards for his achievement in the theatre. He had the following to say about his choice of plays: We base our choice of plays on what we consider a distinguished idea expressed through first-rate writing. A play must also be meaningful, not in the political or social sense, but in a point of view that is very strong. We have no use for the usual Broadway comedy, and I wouldn’t do a play in blank verse because of my involvement with Shakespeare. We always are on the lookout for plays that will attract three hundred people to each performance. The audience I most prefer would consist of students, intellectuals, and people off the street. The Broadway audience might be very nice people as individuals, but I wouldn’t want to do plays for them as a group. I like to do shows that have something to say in a beautiful, interesting, or challenging way. I want the ideas of the play to engage me, so that I learn something from it. If the play doesn’t instruct me, I’m not interested in it. I don’t want to hear just arguments on stage, but good strong confrontations are fascinating. That’s why trial plays and dramatizations of ideas that we are concerned about now are so marvelous. When you come into the theater, you should be guaranteed that it will be more than life. It should extend what you get in the newspapers and on TV– otherwise why go?” From Howard Greenberger’s //The Off-Broadway Experience//. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971, pp. 90-91.

Adrian Hall expressed a similar philosophy of production as Artistic Director of the Trinity Repertory Theatre where he served from 1964 to 1989. Like Papp he worked with the nonprofit theatre. Unlike Papp, he did not transfer productions from the Trinity Repertory Theatre to Broadway as Papp did with //A Chorus Line//. The theatre of Adrian Hall is centered on the work of the actor. He respects his actors and they in return, offer him trust and loyalty. This mutual admiration is the principal reason so many of his actors have remained in his Trinity company for ten, fifteen, or twenty years. Hall has never lost his enthusiasm and commitment to the work, and this zeal is always evident in his rehearsals and his productions. The “Trinity style” is characteristically intense and full of life. The “Trinity style” gives an identifiable stamp to Hall’s productions. A principal characteristic is a bold theatricality that results from the directness of the actor’s relationship to the spectators, from the exuberant physicality and energy of the actors who can transform themselves at will, and from a heightened realism that is achieved by Hall’s direct and unadorned staging....The theatre of Adrian Hall displays the actor’s full range of talents and imagination. Hall’s actors sing, dance, play musical instruments, perform during feats such as climbing scaffolding to the rafters, diving into a pit, or dangling from a rope. They are also known for transforming themselves like chameleons.” Hall’s philosophy of theatre–an experience shared between the actor and spectator at a given moment in time–is not conducive to a Madison Avenue approach. This director insists that the idea of the theatre experience should be marketed, not a specific play or seat, and that the //process// of live performance should be stressed over the //product// or specific play. This spirit is created by Hall’s rehearsal process, as Barbara Orson [member of the Trinity Repertory Theatre Company] explained just before the director retired from Trinity: “Our theatre is very, very extraordinary...we are an actors’ company. We care a great deal about each other. When we go into rehearsal what differentiates us from other companies is we’re not there to impress a director so that he’ll hire us for another show....What we’re there for is to achieve what the script has asked us to effect and what that director wants and to find it all together. And the work just never stops.” Jeannie Marlin Woods. //Theatre to Change Men’s Souls: The Artistry of Adrian Hall//. (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1993). pp. 59, 138, and 159.

Harold Prince continues to be one of the most successful producers and directors on Broadway. Born in 1928 he was educated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1948 where he received his BA degree. He began his work in the theatre as a stage manager. He has received many honors and awards during his career. The following remarks in the prologue of his biography encapsulate his career and accomplishments: One of the most controversial and creative forces on the Broadway scene is Hal Prince, as producer-director known for being daring, innovative, successful. In the 1950s, 1960s, and into the 1970s, a Prince show meant money in the bank. Backers flocked to invest in his shows, and they were rewarded with a cascade of profits//. Fiddler on the Roof//, //West Side Story// and //Fiorello!// were hits that made a host of Prince angels sing the praises of his magic touch. In the late 1970s and into the mid-1980s, however, the string of Hal Prince hits were replaced by a series of flops. After the international success of //Evita//, Prince stumbled by directing //Merrily We Roll Along// , //A Doll’s Life// , //Play Memory// , //End of the World// , //Grind// , and //Roza//. Critics and theatre columnists began to write about Prince’s failures as if they were signs of terminal illness. Some wondered aloud if Prince had “lost his golden touch.” Investors no longer rushed to back his shows, and the accolades of the press began to go to a new group of successful directors and producers. The parade appeared to be passing by the Prince of Broadway. But Prince is not one to accept defeat and quietly retire to his mountaintop home in Majorca. Soon after Grind had closed, Prince was busily preparing //Phantom of the Opera//, a show that was to have a major impact on the London and New York theatre scenes. He and his //Evita// collaborator, Andrew Lloyd Webber, mounted a new musical production of //The Phantom of the Opera//, which became the hottest new ticket in the West End and on Broadway. It won the Laurence Olivier Award for best musical of London’s 1986-87 theatre season. It opened in New York in February 1988 to the largest advanced sales in the history of the theatre–anywhere. Prince was also directing at the same time a new production of his 1966 hit //Cabaret//, which had a seven-month run in New York. Risen phoenixlike from theatrical limbo, Prince was being widely acclaimed once again for his directing talents and for being able to whip not-very-strong musical and book elements into stunning theatrical spectacle. //Phantom// received grudging praise form New York theatre critics based mainly on Prince’s skill at bringing music, story, actors, scenery, movement, lighting and modern stage technology into cohesion. Hal Prince had made a comeback at least as sensational if not more so than the triumphs of his early years. There is little doubt that Prince is an unrepentant “workaholic” who is happiest when he is involved with half a dozen projects. He must have an outlet for the energy and drive that have made him so successful. The pursuit of money for money’s sake has never been his main motivation. he could have played it safe and pandered to the public’s taste by producing tuneful, tasteless extravaganzas as many other Broadway producers have. Instead, Prince chose the largely untrod road of innovation and dared to be different. He stretched the Broadway form to its limits and is credited with introducing the “concept musical.” His productions of //Company//, //Follies// and //Evita// brought unusual subjects, themes and stage design to Broadway and won the acclaim of critics and playgoers. His collaborators have been the most creative artists of the late twentieth-century theatre. Merome Robbins, Stephen Sondheim, Michael Bennett, Boris Aronson, Bock and Harnick, Kander and Ebb and other giants of Broadway were his confreres. Prince has rarely employed stars to carry his shows. As his mentor George Abbott had done for decades, Prince has cast exciting newcomers and passed-over stars instead of the “safe” box office superstars of the contemporary theatre world. He’s never done a show in which the “star” was more important than the book, music and lyrics. He’s never sought to star an Ethel Merman or a Mary Martin. Instead, he’s used–and brilliantly–talented newcomers such as Barbara Cook, Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin. Most of the talented principals in //Company// had never before appeared on Broadway. The real stars of Prince shows are the elements. It was the great music of Kander and Ebb in //Cabaret// or of Sondheim in //Follies//, //Company// and //Sweeney Todd// that broke new ground in musical theatre. The visionary talents of set designer Boris Aronson and the whirlwind staging and choreographic energies of Michael Bennett were given full rein in Prince- produced or -directed shows. But the music, the performers, the stage settings, the choreography of Hal Prince shows are not the only “star” elements, for Hal Prince, himself, is a star–perhaps the first “star” producer-director in Broadway musical history. Carol Ilson. //Harold Prince: From “Pajama Game” to “Phontom of the Opera”//. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1989, pp. 1-3.

And finally, Moss Hart in his play //Light Up the Sky// satirized the work of the producer. The quote is from a scene between Frances, the star’s mother, and Stella, the producer’s wife who are conversing about what would happens if the show is a failure and has to close: as quoted in Stephen Langley’s //Theatre Management in America: Principle and Practice// pp. 125-127 Stella: This is the first show you put money into, Frances? Frances: Yes. Stella. Well. I’ll tell you about the scenery first. You can’t sell it–get //that// out of your mind right now–and what’s more, you can’t even walk away and leave it here. Frances. All that scenery? Stella: All that scenery! You can’t even make believe you forgot about it. No, dear. First you have to pay somebody to have it carted away from the theatre–and then you have to pay somebody to burn it. Frances: Pay somebody to burn it? Stella: Pay somebody to burn it. You and Sidney want to run about the city dump lighting matches? You have to //pay// someone to burn it. Regular union rates, and it’s my impression this scenery is going to burn real slow. Frances: Listen, Stella–don’t rib me about this. My stomach just turned over. Stella: I’m just telling you what happens, Frances. You might as well know it. Frances: Yeah. I can tell Sidney. I’ll tell him nice and slow–for about two years. Go on Stella. What happens with the costumes? Stella: Well, in an ordinary show, Frances, a costume that cost two hundred dollars they buy back for about two dollars but this is an allegory, dear. The costumes in this show are mostly rags, the survivors of the world are walking around in. Right? Frances: Right! So we get about a dollar apiece for ‘em. Stella: Oh, no! I wouldn’t think so, Frances. What are they going to do with ‘em? Can’t even cover chairs with ‘em! Frances: Can’t leave ‘em here, either. Stella: That’s right. Frances: Car ‘em away. Burn ‘em. Union rates. Pray for a windy day on the dump so they’ll burn fast. Do people who put money into shows know about this, Stella? Stella: Well, usually a backer gets at least some kind of souvenir for his dough, Frances. Say, he puts up five hundred dollars–he gets a lamp to take home, or his wife gets a pocketbook. But you’re dealing with an allegory here, Frances. You see anything in this show you can take home? Frances: I got no use for a wind machine. That I know right away. Stella: You got any place in your house for the mountain with the faces of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln carved on it? Or the rain effects? Frances: Sidney’s bedroom. He should wake up every morning and look at it, and the rain should pour down on him. So, actually, Stella, it’s going to cost more money, even to close it. Stella: Oh, sure. It would be wonderful if you could just stick up a sign saying “gone to lunch” or “if not called for in thirty days, forget it”–but it just doesn’t work that way. Frances: How did you figure my interest was worth eleven dollars, Stella? That’s pretty high, isn’t it? Stella: Well, I wanted to slip it to you easy. This is your first show. Frances: Yeah. Boy, I can’t wait now to run into Irving Berlin. “There’s no business like show business.” He ought to be arrested.

__Views of a Practitioner__

Cheryl Crawford was one of the few female producers in the commercial theatre in the USA. She was born in 1902 and died in 1986. Educated at Smith College Ms. Crawford began her career in theatre acting Lady Macbeth in a high school production. In 1928 she became the casting director for the New York Theatre Guild. In 1930 she became one of the founding members of the Group Theatre where she served as director until 1937. With Lee Strasberg she directed the first production of the Group entitled, //The House of Connelly//. With Eva Le Gallienne and Margaret Webster she founded the American Repertory Theatre in 1946 and served as its managing director. In 1947 with Elia Kazan and Robert Lewis she helped to found the Actors Studio. In 1950 she became general manager for the American National Theatre and Academy’s play series where she was responsible for many productions. Her biggest commercial success was the Broadway hit musical //Brigadoon// in 1951. In the same year Ms Crawford received a Tony Award for her production of Tennessee William’s //The Rose Tatoo//. She produced William’s //Cameno Reale// in 1953 and //Sweet Bird of Youth// in 1959, starring Paul Newman. In 1963 she produced Brecht’s //Mother Courage//. Her remarks about directing are contained in her book entitled, //One Naked Individual: My Fifty Years in the Theatre//. (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1977, pp 1-5.

It is almost midnight. The theatre is cold and drafty. The harsh, unshaded two-thousand- watt bulb dangling over the center of the bare stage is killing my eyes. But to have decent rehearsal lighting a producer must hire a union crew even though there is nothing for them to do.

I, the producer in question, have been staring at that stage since twelve this morning. My day began at nine A.M., when I looked over bills with my general manager to be sure we were not exceeding the budget. Then I had a session with my press agent to decide on the ads, posters and marquee billing. At noon this final run-through began. Lights and sets come in tomorrow morning at eight.

The hour off for dinner was devoted to a production meeting. Gulping coffee and chewing dry sandwiches, we rehashed the afternoon’s rehearsal. Now the aisles are littered with sandwich papers. The briny smell of the half-eaten pickles and the stink of cigarette butts sloshing in paper coffee cups makes me nauseated. Grubby, it is all so grubby. Who says the theatre is glamorous? I want to go home, I want to go to sleep.

My colleagues in argument and exhaustion, the director, author and choreographer, are sprawled among the orchestra seats. We sit separately so that we will not influence one another’s reactions. The isolation emphasizes my responsibility. I chose this show: will an audience see what I see in it? Will audiences come at all?

Above, the composer-lyricist is lying on the floor of a box trying to take a nap. Suddenly, his haggard faces appears over the railing. “The goddamned piano is lousy,” he yells down at me. “How can you expect my music to sound like anything? You trying to save money?”

“Yes, I am,” I yell back. “But if you pound any piano that loud all day you get tin.”

“So, crucify me!” he screeches. His black head disappears behind the rails. Did I see a blond head go down beside it? One of the singers? Oh well, anything that relieve tension.

The director lopes to the back of the theatre, followed by the author. They proceed to argue //sotto voce//. I feel a dispute coming on. And guess who will be asked to take sides. But I’m caught between the two of them: the scene was too long, true–but it was also too slow. How to mediate? They’re both nervous and exhausted. And eight A.M. is getting closer by the minute.

On stage the choreographer is changing some steps with her dancers. Their faces are pale and drawn in the ghostly light; their tights have long runs and smudges from the dirty floor. It’s hard to believe that these boys and girls will look radiant and glamorous in a few days.

The director comes running down the aisle. “Take ten! Take ten!” he shouts. “Goddamn! Where’s the stage manager?”

Someone on stage calls back, “Sorry! He’s got the trots.”

“Okay, okay, everyone sit for a few minutes. Cheryl, we’ve got to make a cut in that scene. It’s not working.”

The author pounds down behind him. “No more cuts! No more cuts! I’ve made too many already.”

The moment of truth.

“Listen,” I say, “everyone is worn out. A few days ago the scene went very well. I think we should leave it alone and see how it works when the actors are fresh. Besides, it’s twelve o’clock. The actors can’t work any more–union rules.”

The director shakes his head. “I won’t stop now. We’re not through. For Chrissake, Belasco kept his actors locked in the theatre for days. They slept in the aisles. //He// didn’t stop until he was finished. You don’t get art by a time clock, Cheryl. You know that.”

“It was Belasco’s methods that made Actors Equity rule a time limit,” I snap. “You won’t get any more out of these people. They’re dead on their feet.”

“One more hour, just one more. Be a sport.”

A sport? Or a tyrant?

“All right, I’ll pay for it if they are willing. You ask them.”

They’re willing. They nearly always are. They are as desperate to be perfect as the director is. Watching them pull their tired bodies to their feet and limber up, I rise stiffly and walk around, trying to get warm. I’m coming down with a humdinger of a cold. I want to go home, I want to go to sleep. I remember the story a well-known foreign actress told me about her wedding night. Married at a certain age to a wild Russian actor, she lay in bed in a pink chiffon nightgown waiting for her new husband to leave the bathroom. Finally the door opened. Singing loudly, he jumped out naked and began dancing crazily about the room.

“Oh, God,” she said to herself, watching him gyrate. “Vot I am doing here?”

Hugging myself to keep warm, I turn to the stage. The stage manager shouts hoarsely, “Places, please. Start from the top of the next number.”

The dancers take their positions facing each other. Between them the star marches forward. As her small, lithe figure moves swiftly down front, her weary face bursts into a brilliant smile. Perhaps only a star can call on so much adrenaline. The piano begins a fast one-two beat. Gershwin said a musical marches on its one-twos. As the dancers move in quickly kaleidoscopic patterns, the star begins to belt out her song. It’s sexy, it’s stirring. How can it move me? I must have heard it a thousand times. But suddenly the chill is off. Suddenly I’m warm again. The show is going to work!

I know vot I am doing here.

So goes a day in the life of a producer. But what in the name of Shakespeare is a producer? People know that a playwright writes a play, an actor acts it, a director directs it. But a producer, they think, well, he (for they think producers must be male)...produces. Upon learning my profession people invariably give me a blank look. “Oh,” they say, And then, “What exactly do you //do// ?”

Here is a simple answer: I find a good play or musical, I find the money required to give it the best physical form on a stage, I find the people to give it life, I find a theatre and I try to fill it.

But that answer is really too simple. Sometimes I think a producer is a person who is absolutely unable to do anything else, who has a strong interest in all the arts but the talent for none of them and enough business sense to know that sometimes you must dare to go to the edge of disaster to achieve what you desire. A producer is definitely a gambler. For the education of a theatre producer, the sky is the limit, which is what makes the profession so endlessly exciting, even though you never learn all it would be helpful to know. Since the job is to bring a script and physical production together, literature, poetry, plot construction, music (both classical and popular), architecture, painting, color, form, the ability to read blueprints of sets, history, economics, psychology (normal and abnormal), psychiatry, and even anthropology–to help us understand the audience–are all involved. Everything human and inhuman is grist. And all-important is the ability to extract money from investors. This is the least attractive part of being a producer, at least for me. I am uncomfortable at “hard sells.”

Theatrical producers last longer if they lack a good memory. The disasters, blow-ups, emergencies and erroneous judgments should pass through them like a dose of salts if they are to continue. (On the other hand, one producer cut his wrists gently after a few failures, was hospitalized and succeeded in worrying a playwright enough that the playwright brought a new play to his bedside. And it was a hit.) To paraphrase Harry Truman, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the theatre. Some producers, after a failure or two, fade away from Broadway and Sardi’s to continue life more calmly in parts unknown. They may be the lucky ones.

Perhaps because most of my memories have dribbled back into my subconscious, I have been able to devote fifty years to the theatre. I have produced dozens of plays and musicals independently, and have had the good fortune to be connected with many of the major theatrical enterprises of my time: the Theatre Guild, the Group Theatre, the American National Theatre and Academy, the American Repertory Theatre and the Actors Studio.

Ideally, my business or profession or art–and it is all of these–is to make it possible for people to see themselves as they are, as they wish to be, as they might be. Some playwrights have disclosed truths about human nature so profound that social scientists since Freud have used their creations to identify such classic types as Oedipus, Faust and Hamlet. To me, the function of theatre is to clarify and influence life. The theatre is one of the oldest educational forms. Because it appeals to people largely through their emotions, it is one of the most effective. It beguiles audiences into fresh thoughts and perceptions while they laugh and cry.

It all begins with the play one chooses to do. In Herman Melville’s //Mardi//, there is a rather simple test for choosing a play (and also for judging the final production).

“Tingling is the test,” said Babbalanya. “Yoomy, did you tingle when that song was composing?”

“All over, Babbalanya.”