On Producing and Producers

People always ask me what it is I do as a producer. The answer is both obvious and complex: there are all sorts of producing jobs with somewhat different requirements. Budgets vary dramatically, and politics often change based on the money available. And no matter what, producing is a very involved job; after all, a producer ultimately calls the shots. They raise the money, they book the theater, they run the office… actors, directors, choreographers, designers, everybody from the highest to the lowest has their part to play, but as Mel Brooks put it, “The cast is great, the script is swell / But this we’re tellin’ you, sirs / It’s just no go, you’ve got no show / Without the producers!”

Honestly, I love producing. I love the camaraderie; I love leading a big team, negotiating, debating; I love the fights, the “Kumbaya” moments, the planning, the creative ah-ha’s; I love the meals; I love all the people around. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that the other half of my life is spent, for the most part, without a social life. Maybe all that alone time makes me need some social time for balance in my life. I can’t say for sure. All I know is that I love producing, and there is, without a doubt, an art to it.

In all fields of entertainment, but particularly in live theater, you run into many kinds of producers. Is one kind better than another? Well, I leave that in the eye of the beholder; “by their fruits, ye shall know them.” But it’s important to know the differences between them, so I’m going to outline each type with a brief description, bearing in mind that most of this is a gross over-simplification of these types’ traits.

• A performing producer comes from a performance or generally artistic background (but usually an actor, hence the “performing” half of the label). Sometimes they’ve migrated to producing because they’ve been unable to achieve their desired success in their field of choice, sometimes their run of success ended or peaked, and sometimes producing just interested them. Regardless of the reason, they’re generally proficient at a given producing talent, and their position on the team is largely owed to that. There is much industry respect for well-regarded performing producers, and in my opinion, it’s one of the better positions from which to start.
• A suit is, frankly, my least favorite kind of producer, for a variety of reasons. First of all, they usually don’t come from an entertainment background; as the appellation suggests, they tend to focus on the bottom line instead of the big picture. The kind of people who put the “business” into “show business,” if you will. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, and indeed a suit can be a valued member of a team, but the lack of an entertainment grounding almost certainly comes with a huge knowledge gap in certain areas. However, particularly if the suit has an aptitude for math, you want them doing the books, as it were.
• My personal favorite, partially because I am one, is the ascended fan. (Why yes, I do read TV Tropes, thank you for noticing.) An ascended fan’s strength comes from their deep-rooted understanding of the field and its history. They gain all of their knowledge from evaluating their favorite — and least favorite — shows. Because their obsessiveness has made them keenly aware of techniques used to positive effect over the years, they often know innately what works, without necessarily knowing why. An ascended fan brings to the table what an interior decorator brings to a living space: the vibe. Through their exhaustive knowledge, an ascended fan can often bring a fresh vision to the scene. (So, yes, some of you may have a future career thanks to fandom, if you choose to focus and stay the course.)
• A writing producer (a/k/a a self-producer, in the event this person isn’t necessarily the author) not only developed a work of their own but has the money to put it up themselves. There are two extremes in this role, no in-between: either they are surprisingly wonderful or a dreaded spoiled brat. On the one hand, if they just happen to be an ancillary producer and not the creator of the project in question, they can be particularly useful as a creative element if someone walks from a show, and — extremely occasionally — sometimes the person who knows what’s best for a project is the person who gave birth to it. On the other, there are perhaps a handful of people in the world who can successfully produce their work themselves, and when it goes badly, it goes very, very badly.

(Let me clarify: there is nothing wrong with producing your original work to gain experience, but if your goal is to be a successful artist, then you need to leave the producing to others. Producing is a full-time job, with requirements that you as the artist can’t perform objectively. Without any designated producer besides you, there is no instant external feedback, no one to take care of mundane-but-necessary organizational stuff, no one to keep the pulse of the production and make thoughtful, rational decisions about where to go next, and no one to offer encouragement or propel the vision forward when others’ enthusiasm is flagging. Generally speaking, it’s usually much harder to talk yourself down from the proverbial ledge than it is for someone else to do it.)

• Next up: do you work for a corporation that invested in the musical or play? Are you the only person reporting to them about it or involved in producing duties on their behalf? Congratulations, you’re the walkover! (Or, if you prefer, producer by default.) Usually, you’re not treated very well by your corporate parent if you’re in these shoes, so if you can pull it off, I recommend somehow proving yourself valuable to the rest of the team. Sometimes you can negotiate credit for yourself, thereby establishing a new career for yourself separate from the corporate schmucks.
• Any theater enthusiast who has read more than one Broadway Playbill is familiar with the kind of producer I call the landlord. (I’m sure the names Shubert or Nederlander, or other lovely family-owned organizations, are ringing bells at this point.) Often the literal owner of the venue (be it a studio, a theater, etc.), sometimes a company that is the corporate parent, or associate of the corporate parent, of the walkover above, the landlord offers the kind of support that, nine times out of ten, merits a slice of the pie automatically.
• Some slap the pejorative of flop collector on this next crowd (and it’s an easy descriptor, to be sure), but it’s not always a case of people with too little taste, too much money, and not enough discernment. Some in this crowd purposely seek out shows in need of excessive enhancement. That kind of flop collector, frequently with a background in marketing, is usually the sole person with talent and skill in the crowd and has just one thing on their mind — the sale. The artists they’re supporting generally aren’t that great, and the producers in this situation not only think their product sucks; in some cases, they know it sucks. But the fun for them is in manipulating the elements they have, hoping the gamble pays off and they can sell ice in a snowstorm. Some are successful, most aren’t, and neither will turn down the tax write-off (and sometimes as many royalties from foreign and amateur licensing as returns their initial investment; see “most Frank Wildhorn shows”).
• Then there’s the Luddite. Fuck me, the Luddite. Ask them to resolve an issue, any issue, but especially a creative difference — you’ll never get an answer. Why? Because they seek good vibes over all else, and the one intelligent thought they ever had is that not having a firm opinion on something, waffling out of difficult decisions, and staying everybody’s friend, is the shortcut to good vibes, however artificial they prove to be. They’re the kind of wishy-washy, useless prat who, when cornered, will tell you that “art is art” and “you can’t objectively say [this song, this line of dialogue, whatever] is bad.” That attitude is no help when we’re trying to solve what everybody else recognizes as a problem. Their bullshit doubt can poison the well, saving a potential show-killer (bad song, awful joke, crappy dialogue, temperamental performer, etc.) from elimination. Thankfully, in their purest form, Luddites are all but extinct; however, every genuine asshole I’ve ever worked with had Luddite tendencies that appeared at the worst possible moment.
• Due partially to economic factors, and partially to love of the things they enjoyed or that influenced them when they began producing, all of the above — and, likely, the below — often periodically suffer from the devastating disease known as revivalitis, the desire to take a fresh look at a classic, bypassing something new or untried in the process for old favorites in new clothes. It’s not unusual for this person to stockpile revival concepts, hoping to pair them with artists whose creative flow comes from their case of revivalitis. The role of revivalitis sufferers is crucial to the existence of revivals in the first place. Though revivals often (justly) get a bad rap when they’re truly awful, I find that they can be a highly creative medium where the process is often the definition of teamwork. (I admit to some bias, as I have a set of concepts for musical theater chestnuts that I will drag out on this blog at some point.)

(A brief word on revivals, and why some consider them to be more trouble than they’re worth: if you’re a professional producer, it becomes much harder to acquire the rights to revive a favorite of yours, even on a strictly limited basis, without some form of red flag going up to those in control. And your production can fall victim to a quagmire: sometimes the rights are tied up owing to the intricacies of the original production, sometimes professional jealousy rears its ugly head and one may be flagged as “too big” to get the rights [as was the case in 2010 on a great idea I had for Jesus Christ Superstar], etc. The point is, for a variety of reasons, there’s a good chance of blowback. Fighting one’s way through the red tape is possible — hiring an innocuous, unknown partner [a “cut-out” or “gray person,” if you will] to apply for the rights and joining them as a presenter, creating the best must-see production possible, and crossing one’s fingers that the “Glenn Close effect” [named for her replacing Patti LuPone in Sunset Boulevard after garnering such attention, press, and sales on the West Coast that Andrew Lloyd Webber was willing to break Patti’s contract to bring Glenn to Broadway instead] takes hold — but the process gets too involved, comes with a lot of unnecessary agita and risk, and for what result? If one is successful, a lot of money goes into other people’s pockets, as the royalties are already divvied up at least once because of the original production(s). As a producer, the sensible thing to do is to cultivate a catalog of original pieces that put more cash in your hand as opposed to someone else’s. Having said that, however, some can’t stop loving other shows, and wanting to put their personal stamp on them, any more than they can stop breathing.)

• Next up is the person that I call Charlie (referencing the title character from Charlie’s Angels), or Phil if you prefer a more current metaphor (referring to the agoraphobe who largely communicates by speakerphone from American Dad). If you’re like Charlie or Phil, you’re an absentee producer who rarely bothers to show up in person, and more often works from home or some other location, or in the worst-case scenario hires a walkover to do their grunt work uncredited. A Charlie or Phil is pretty rare, almost the rarest breed in the business; unless you’re an industry mogul, generally you can’t get away with this, but there are certain exceptions (I say, as I nervously glance in the mirror and realize I’m a young man still living with his family who can’t avoid spending more time in NY for too much longer). At any rate, the fun part of producing is what goes on with the show while you’re there, so being a Charlie or Phil is not something to which one should aspire.
• On the exact opposite side of the coin from a Charlie or Phil is a Steve, here referring to the late Steve Jobs and his hands-on management style as CEO of Apple. A “Steve” never wants to leave the room. Ever. For anything. Whatever their definition of a great moment may be, they never want to miss it. Generally, they are involved in nearly every aspect at all times; they may delegate certain tasks, but they carefully inspect the work upon completion, and even when they’re delegating, a “Steve” usually resorts to the “helicopter parenting” kind of delegation. Again, nothing wrong with that, per se, but one again runs the risk of losing sight of the big picture. Where a suit might lose sight of it because they’re not looking at it closely enough, a Steve might lose sight of it because they’re so detail-oriented they’re looking at it too closely.
• This one is always a pain in the ass in real life, and no less so in the boardroom. Remember when you were a kid, and you and your best friend decided to… I dunno… go on a trip? And you planned it out and discussed it for a long time; it became really important to both of you, and you got super excited about it. And then, inexplicably, your friend decided to include someone only they knew. Someone who instinctively rubbed you the wrong way because they thought their outsider input was just as valuable as yours and kept offering their unwanted two cents. And suddenly your friend listened to them more than you, and this fucker gummed up the process and you never went on the trip because your friend got irritated when you weren’t as open to the third party’s ideas. Well, that little shit grew up, learned different ways to insinuate themselves, and now they’re the interloper on your team. The interloper is usually the friend — or at least has the trust — of someone on the creative team. If the show happens to be that team member’s brainchild, you have a 50/50 shot of being fucked. Every show-related decision you make is going to be second-guessed if you don’t deal with the interloper post-haste. Pro tip: give that person some busy work. You may hate to admit it, but this type usually has some actual chops, and they’re not trying to piss you off; if working hard will please you, there’s a good chance they’ll do it. Once the interloper effectively buys into your leadership, they relinquish their influence.
• For this next one, take the interloper. Increase their ego, and decrease their skills and understanding of the producing process. Add to the soup that they are (often) a member of the creative team; let’s say their agent got them a generous creative control clause in their contract that turned into a nebulous producing role. What luck! (For them anyway.) You’ve got the armchair quarterback. Far more overbearing than the interloper, the armchair quarterback believes that, just because they know something about another part of the process, they’ll be able to run the production. Like the interloper, you have a 50/50 shot of being fucked; if you let them effectively take over, it can work in your favor if they genuinely know what they’re doing, but if they suffer from cranial-rectal inversion (i.e., their head is firmly wedged up their ass), the results can be disastrous. And giving them busy work like you would the interloper is a risky call unless you want to clean up after them and deal with the resulting bruised ego. The worst part of this equation is their (possible) position on the creative team. If you piss off an interloper, there’s a better-than-decent chance they’ll just leave and you can count your blessings; piss off an armchair quarterback, and you’ll likely still have to deal with them every day. My simple advice: when necessary, assert yourself in a way that leaves no doubt about who is in charge.
• Finally, rarer than a navel on Adam, the elusive hybrid, the balancing force in production, who usually has the best qualities of all of the above. If you can find them, fit them for LoJack, implant a tracking chip, whatever it takes. You want this person on your team for life, at all costs.

Hope you have a slightly better idea of what I deal with, what I do, etc. Just don’t ask me how the hell I handle it!

(Note: The above was originally posted at gdelgiproducer on April 18, 2013. It has been modified for its present audience, incorporating some material from a post at gdelgidirector on May 25, 2016.)