Lots of people ask me: “How do you get your shows?” A good question and the answer can frankly vary depending on the show.
Usually, booking a Broadway show is a relatively straight forward (I didn’t say simple) process. Over the years we have developed great relationships with booking agent companies that represent not only the Broadway shows, but the other kinds of performances we present on our various series. We keep current with what’s on Broadway, what’s going on the Road (on tour), what our peers around the country are presenting.
We follow up on the titles that we think work best for Dayton and our audience, and then start a conversation around the specifics of actually contracting a show. A major consideration on booking a show is to understand the “deal,” or all the financial aspects of bringing the show to town and presenting it in one of our theatres. Everything is negotiated back and forth – handled by Tina McPhearson, our VP of Programming. The technical rider for the show can have a huge impact on the cost of presenting the show, so that information is obtained and a budget is developed based on the rider’s requirements. This is where the “brown M&M’s” in the star’s dressing room comes in (although, a lot of those “taking out the blue M&M’s” rumors are a myth and we usually don’t provide anything out of the ordinary). Sometimes an advance trip to scout out the technical aspects of the show is needed. Once we’re agreed that we want the show, and we can afford it, a deal memo is signed where both parties agree to the basic finances of the deal. After that, we go to the contract stage – and that might take as long as until the show is in town.
Because we do a variety of different types of series and presentations (Broadway, Discovery, Variety, Family) there is some variety in the agreements, but not a lot. Essentially the relationship is that someone has the rights to represent a show (the agent) and that agent’s job is to get as many bookings for as much money per booking as is possible. We look at all the available presentations in the marketplace and decide what we can afford, what we think will provide exciting/challenging/entertaining offerings that our patrons will want to buy tickets to, what dates we have available to us on the crowded venue calendars, what dates the show is being routed in our “neighborhood,” and then, we either say “yea” or “nay.”
Most of our Broadway presentations started out on – wait for it – Broadway. Some were very successful (like WICKED or The Color Purple or Disney’s The Lion King ), but a show doesn’t necessarily have to run for years in New York and then run successfully on the road for year to eventually end up in Dayton, Ohio. Next season’s 9 to 5: The Musical is a good example.
9 to 5 closed before making back its initial investment – a measure of success on Broadway – but a tour is still scheduled for next season. In this case, a new producer put together a tour that would be organized to be successful from both an artistic and financial perspective and offered it to theatres across the country. Theatres agreed 9 to 5 would be a good touring vehicle – sometimes shows that aren’t a big hit in NYC can play very successfully outside of Broadway. We signed on because we were initial investors in the show on Broadway and so already had a pre-existing relationship with the production. And, because we made a small investment in the show, we got a preferential date for the first national tour. That’s how Dayton gets to do the show before many larger cities, something we are always trying to do.
Something we always have to keep in mind is that Broadway tours are put on this earth to make money: they are looking to make back their producers’ investments as quickly as possible. The quickest way to do that is to play the biggest cities you can for as long as you can and then move on to smaller markets. So a hot new touring show will first play Chicago and Los Angeles for multi-week engagements – sometimes multi-month. Then they’ll progress to the next rung of cities – in our region, cities like Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Indianapolis and Louisville. They will make as much money is these markets as they can – and sometimes cities have “first right of refusal” to have the show back a second time before the tour can move on to the next rung of slightly smaller cities like Dayton.
Selecting shows for a season is not a science. There is a good deal of kismet, chance, happy circumstance or whatever involved. There are only so many shows and only so many weeks. And sometimes you don’t get the show you want, or the show you get doesn’t turn out to be as popular as you predict. It’s at that time a tried and true saying is helpful – THAT’S SHOWBIZ!
- Ken
