Sick of acting but still love working in theatre? Then follow the lead of New York's young female producers. Nearly all of the women Back Stage spoke to for this annual International Women's Day/Women's History Month feature began as performers but found a more rewarding life by bringing to stage or screen new work that they believe in. Eight producers under 35 tell us why and how they launched their producing careers and offer advice to others so inclined.
While a Columbia undergraduate, Valentina Fratti tired of "waiting for opportunities" to act, so she produced there‹finding spaces, people, and plays. She did this without asking "those questions which prevent people from doing things: "Who's going to come?' "What will this get me?' "How can I get agents here?' You do it because you feel a passion for it and have to do it." After graduation, she took the two-year professional workshop at Circle In The Square and studied privately with Nikos Psacharopolous. Intent on continuing to act and direct, Fratti and two friends started Miranda Theatre Company. For four years they rented spaces, presented seasons of three or four plays, and learned the ropes. Fratti used the same methods she had learned at Columbia: "choosing good material, selecting talented actors, designers, directors, and getting the word out." Then in 1994, they found raw space and in four months converted it to a 70-seat theatre.
Fratti and her partners (who have left Miranda, though one still serves on the board) didn't approach individuals for large sums of money until they acquired the space. "We started a bank account with $150, began writing letters to maybe 200 people we knew personally, explained what we were trying to do, and support came in." Having her own space has given Fratti the freedom "to make it available to as many people as possible."
While studying acting at New York University, Julianne Hoffenberg stage-managed eight shows in six weeks during a summer in Vermont for the Atlantic Theater Company. She did the hiring and coordinating, so essentially she produced the shows. In 1988 the not-for-profit Naked Angels asked her to stage-manage its first public performance. When Jace Alexander prepared to direct a full-length production for that company, he asked her to produce it. "I was 21. I didn't even know what producing meant, but I did it, and he guided me, and I loved it. Although I had gone to school to study acting and I'd wanted to act my whole life, I really hated the business of it, but producing was incredibly creative. It wasn't what I'd envisaged‹the old guy in "All About Eve," the fat sweaty fellow with the cigar, the ulcer, and the Bromo Seltzer. He yelled at everybody, but working with Naked Angels was a collaboration." Hoffenberg found they even collaborated on building a theatre themselves‹cleaning out an old wood-framing shop, putting in dry wall and floors, hanging the grid.
Hoffenberg "took to producing. I liked it a lot. I guess I still thought of myself as an actor and stage manager. I made money by stage-managing television shows. And I acted. But more and more I found shows I wanted to produce, not be in. I liked finding a project, seeing it through, being responsible for it. After Jace's show, Pippin Parker, artistic director at that time, asked me to produce two evenings of one-acts in rep‹60 actors, 20 directors, 20 writers. I jumped at it! I couldn't wait! That's when I knew I would choose producing."
Although Joy Huang almost appeared in the 1978 revival of "The King and I," she never trained in theatre but instead came to producing via her experience assisting the editor of Family Circle and later producing web pages. She met Alexander and Hoffenberg when she offered to help with event-planning for the Nantucket Film Festival. After they saw her work there as their associate producer, they asked her to produce David Marshall Grant's "Snakebit." "They had secured the theatre and funding; they needed somebody to execute it‹casting, hiring the crew, working with the designers, dealing with the woman who runs the theatre, finding rehearsal space, copying the script, considering everybody's comfort, even bringing them lollipops. We called agents, producers, investors to come take a look. I ran box office out of my house. I had to clear the answering service every half hour. Also I made sure there was toilet paper, raked up cigarette butts outside in the leaves, picked up playbills and soda bottles and cans, and took out the trash. Everything the new producers who'll transfer the show needed to know of, was in my head."
In Control
Another actress-turned-producer, Johanna Pfaelzer received the 1991 Susan Kingsley Memorial Award from Actors Theatre of Louisville's Apprentice Program and shortly thereafter joined Off-Off-Broadway's Zena Group, where the actors "necessarily did everything. We were producing and fund-raising and acting. I realized producing afforded me things I loved about acting‹involvement in the creative process and collaborating‹without the parts of acting I really hated. As an actor, maybe 10% of your life you're actually acting. Your ability to be what you are is determined by other people. I'm too much of a control freak for that. Initially at Zena, I was an actor doing producer's work. Ultimately I was called "producing director.' I chose to stop acting in order to produce because I found that more fulfilling. We developed new plays and new writers at Zena Group and I've been able to continue to do that at New York Stage and Film, where we focus on an eight-week summer season at Vassar. We do three mainstage pieces, three workshops, and six readings."
Dee Shipley studied acting for years, earning a master's in theatre at the University of Toronto, and then attended the Circle In The Square program. Once she focused on making the rounds, however, she discovered, "I didn't like being at the mercy of the tides. When I tried the business end, I liked bringing everyone together and going from the script to the finished product. So I attended Fred Vogel's Commercial Theatre Institute, an intensive program for people who want to produce, where the great producers talk to you. And Robert Ogden, president of Frog Entertainment, has given me on-my-feet training of "this is how you put a contract together' and "this is how you get investors.' I got my feet wet with "Not About Nightingales." We're not a part of it any more, but we were involved with the inception of getting it to New York and to Circle In The Square. That was invaluable experience."
Wylie Strout loved "theatre and film and creative people" but didn't want to continue acting. She had excelled at "the business side of acting, such as being on top of everything, sending out the mailings, finding out when the auditions were, all that." She found she had the organizational skills for public relations when she assisted in the Merle Debuskey office, where she acquired contacts and learned how the business works. Then she decided to go to law school, "which would give me the opportunity to produce because I could foresee problems, plus it teaches you to think and gives you a certain legitimacy. Otherwise you're just another actor who wants to produce‹and that's nearly everybody because it's a natural evolution for actors to create work for themselves by producing their own shows." Strout will receive her J.D. from Fordham School of Law in May and has worked for a trademark firm, where she learned to do research on entertainment legal problems. "That opened my eyes to situations and copyright issues you have to foresee and be accountable for. You might learn about this on the job, but it helps to have a law degree."
Strout had done apprentice producing in the black box at Flat Rock Playhouse in North Carolina. When one of her friends mentioned that Stage One's artistic director, Jason Chaet, might like some help producing, "Voila! A door opened. I don't believe in waiting. I seized the opportunity."
Producing by Design
By the time Arielle Tepper graduated from Dalton, the aspiring actress also had built sets, designed lighting, and directed. Because her mother's illness caused her to miss the acting auditions for Syracuse University, Arielle instead studied lighting design and directing. "I was really able to learn everything because I was privy to all the technical stuff and learned how to get a show on. During spring break of my freshman year, I met Eric Krebs, who was producing Off-Broadway. I went to work for him the day after school ended. He was at the John Houseman on 42nd Street and sent me to deliver a package to 1501 Broadway, where I recognized all the producers' names listed and realized I was in the middle of it all. I knew, "This is it! This is the way to combine the business side and the creative side.' I decided I wanted to produce Broadway shows and have an office at 1501." Today that is just what Tepper does and exactly where her office is located.
Tepper spent the next summer in New York, this time answering phones for producer Manny Kladitis, then went to London, where she worked at the Royal Opera House and tried to get a job working for Cameron Mackintosh. Back in the U.S., on Christmas break of her senior year, she begged for a job with the general manager of Mackintosh's shows, then told his assistant about having called Mackintosh's London office twice a week for 7 1/2 months, asking for an internship. After five months working in Jeffrey Seller's office booking tours, the persistent Tepper went to work for Mackintosh's general manager‹first as an intern, then doing assistant-company-manager tasks on "Miss Saigon," then as associate company manager for "Les Mis rables." "Every person I worked for," says Tepper, "I learned so much from."
Then she took the plunge. Using an empty desk in her father's office, she found a new musical, optioned it‹but in lieu of payment, recorded the music‹and, in March '97, produced it in Chicago. In August '97 veteran director Gregory Mosher suggested she see "Freak" at Off-Off-Broadway's P.S. 122 and then asked if she'd like to do it Off-Broadway. After its run at the Atlantic Theater, she joined forces with Bill Haber to co-produce a move to Broadway. In the ensuing months she has taken on a mind-boggling number of projects, her latest a film by a first-time writer-director.
Jenny Wiener began acting professionally and doing commercials during her senior year of high school. While majoring in philosophy at New York University, she did lots of roles in small theatres and on a soap, but when she graduated and "no longer had the diversion of college, I realized the life of an actor was not for me. The whole time I had been acting I was always producing showcases for myself and my friends. That's how we got agents. Without realizing what a producer did I was just naturally doing those things." When Wiener grew tired of acting she met Rocco Landesman's assistant, who hired her to "float for several months" in various producing capacities for the Jujamcyn organization. Then producer Jim Freydberg hired her and put her to work for general manager Robert Kamlot. She learned about contracts and the theatre business on the first Broadway run of "Fool Moon"; in early work on Broadway's "The Red Shoes," in '93; and on Off-Broadway's "Wrong Turn at Lungfish," doing some assistant-company-managing on the last. "During several years with Bob, I learned tons about who the players were and what it took to do a production." By the time she and business partner Andrew Kato were ready to start optioning and developing small pieces, she felt prepared. One of these pieces turned into something bigger.
"We saw street performers in the subway and wondered who they were. We got to know every single one and video-taped them. Then we took 17 of them to the Public Theater for a workshop. In the subway they can't afford to play together because they wouldn't make enough money if they split the pot. At the Public we could back up a folk singer with a sax player and the bucket drummers who later did "Noise/Funk' [which later moved from the Public to Broadway]. Our dance troupe GhettOriginal went on to do an Off-Broadway show called "Jam on the Groove.' The Public moved us to the Newman, it's largest theatre, and people were calling it the "Chorus Line' of the streets. These people had never appeared on stage before, didn't know downstage from upstage, but received standing ovations."
After a second workshop, Kenneth Feld, owner of Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey, bought the show, hired Mosaic to develop it, and made Wiener and Kato associate producers. With a cast of 32, it became "Madhattan," a $6 million show for Las Vegas' hotel New York, New York. There, spectators walked through turnstiles to enter the theatre, which was built especially for this attraction. Wiener appeared on "Good Morning, America" and the show ran for a year. Wiener and Kato, later joined by Jon Steingart, subsidized their company with this unusual entrepreneurship. As they've expanded, Wiener still focuses on "supporting the artists and getting their work out there." Even while Mosaic finalizes negotiations for a mid-size musical, it sponsors The Writers' Group, where each week hot actors do cold readings of new work. The company is also building a 99-seat theatre to use developmentally. And there will be a floor in the building with desk space for writers. "We're about developing new voices," Wiener emphasizes. "If those of us in our 20s and 30s don't do it, who's going to?"
As part of this thrust, Wiener and her partners have started the New Producers Alliance under the auspices of the New York-based League of American Theatres and Producers. (For information: contact Andrew Kato, c/o Mosaic, 1560 B'way, Ste. 400, New York City, NY 10036; 212-840-8400 x28.) "There was nothing in place where we were communicating with our peers, talking about what it means to be a young producer in New York, about the rules, laws, union issues. We needed an organization where we could analyze those and other paradigms. Okay, are we charging $80 a ticket because that's what everyone charges, or because we need to charge that? Prices are prohibitive for most people. With a $20 ticket, you might get an impulse buy from the MTV generation."
Wearing Different Hats
These young producers take on responsibilities which differ according to their type of producing and how they divide tasks with others. For commercial producers Jane Harmon and Nina Keneally, Fratti reads scripts and goes to see as much as possible. As artistic director of her own theatre, she also has kept up relationships with writers and agents, but in addition has "coordinated fund-raising, written grants, conceived marketing plans, chosen slots for productions, requested corporate assistance, developed the board, and gotten into every aspect of physical production." All this keeps Miranda Theatre Company presenting new plays‹not just in its main season but also in its moonshine series with its open-door policy for the developmental work which constitutes the main artistic concern of all these producers.
Hoffenberg's tasks at the New York-based Naked Angels included scheduling, budgeting, serving as a liaison and sounding board for the creative team, keeping people happy, utilizing the large acting company as much as possible, and above all fund-raising by throwing performance benefits enhanced with parties. Since Naked Angels lost its theatre in 1994, paying "exorbitant" rents has required hustling to raise big bucks. Hoffenberg faults Actors' Equity Association for saying the company "can only do 16 performances, charge $12, have 99 seats, and spend only $15,000, which is a joke. The rent alone will cost more than that." (Naked Angels operates under Equity's standard Showcase Code, designed for New York City, under which actors receive only carfare for their work.)
Huang describes her typical day producing "Snakebit" as "on the phone from 8:30 to 5:45, then at the theatre till 10:30. Then from 11 to 4:30 am, doing budget and reservations and box office for the next day. Then I'd sleep four hours." Pfaelzer speaks of "multi-tasking" since she must split her focus, "simultaneously paying attention to the script, the funding, the artists, and the business." Shipley's first producing responsibility was to persuade Robert Ogden, her partner in Frog Entertainent Ltd. to convert his property at 428 Lafayette St. (once home to The Colonnades Theatre Lab) into the for-profit Dominion Theatre. She tells a similar tale of work days "at least 14 hours long," but in her case "always different: One day I work in sweats and a T-shirt, and the next I put on a suit and go Uptown. You have to love the work because it becomes your life."
Strout came into her project for Stage One after her co-producer had already chosen the plays and raised money, so she has concentrated on the public relations and marketing side of her show, as well as involving herself in casting, production meetings, and legal issues. Wiener runs the divisions of her company which entail working directly with writers. In contrast to this specialization, Tepper takes on everything, from dealing with shows that are up to looking for properties and learning about new areas to pursue in the book and record businesses.
Less Bias?
Unlike the women interviewed for earlier articles in this series, these young women expressed little concern with disadvantages they experienced because of their gender. Some believe their youth has hurt them in theatrical producing‹but not in film. But most describe their working style as "typically" female‹nurturing and collaborative, not a top-down penchant for issuing orders. Fratti likes to offer plays which "deal with issues of gender and race and humanity." Huang, who loves empowering women, hired a nearly all-female crew.
Perhaps Hoffenberg might not have suspended theatrical producing in favor of raising millions to support research to cure ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) had she and her three partners in this venture‹all women‹not been socialized to put caring for others first. (Okay, guys, if you find this sweeping generalization irritating, volunteer full time to work with Hoffenberg!) Pfaelzer describes herself as a collaborator and mediator who "smoothes things over." She "tries to remain conscious of a responsibility towards women writers and directors." Shipley says she's producing her project "Waiting for the Parade," because "women got together and said, "We're going to do this.' " After Amy Gaipa found the script for herself and three friends to appear in, the four agreed to co-produce as Petty, Betty and Letty Productions. Not a showcase, the production is running on an Equity mini-contract.
Fratti, at 34 this young group's veteran producer, has found that in the commercial arena men receive different treatment. "It still is an old boys' network because men still run the unions, the theatres, and the newspapers‹except for Back Stage." Yet she and others stress how much improvement has occurred. Tepper finds this an industry dominated by older men but believes she's disadvantaged more by her youthful appearance than by her gender. Hoffenberg concedes women "probably have to work a little harder to get ahead," but has not encountered obstacles based on her gender. Wiener feels that it's easier for women to produce commercially than in a not-for-profit: As a commercial producer she's her own boss and doesn't need to persuade a board to hire her. Shipley thinks people still trust men more with their money, but "because other women have forged a path for me, I find it easier than they did."
Pfaelzer acknowledges, "There are still people who look at you funny when you walk into a meeting and they realize you're a 30-year-old woman," but adds, "it's not part of my everyday work experience. On those occasions I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach it would have gone differently if I were a man, but not in any profound ways." Pfaelzer likewise believes, "If it weren't for the older women producers, I'd have to trail-blaze and produce at the same time. I'm very grateful to them. There are more of us now, so we have a support network."
Given few remaining obstacles to producing based on gender and the happy prospect of avoiding working for anybody else, could you make the switch from acting to producing? Well, you might more easily do so if you had chosen prosperous parents who would help you out while you spent your days and nights optioning a property and learning how to produce it‹or, smarter still, while you volunteered to work long hours without salary for a knowledgeable company manager, general manager, or producer. Tepper suggests doing that to learn "every single thing about putting up a show" before trying it.
In contrast, Fratti believes in going out there and doing it, making your mistakes, and learning. "If you have business savvy, then you can succeed at it. Be fearless" she counsels. Pfaelzer uses the same words‹"be fearless"‹and continues, "Find great material, don't be afraid to ask for help, acquire the skills, and don't let anybody tell you that you can't do it." Hoffenberg advises, "Meet writers and directors, offer to do readings of their plays, see a lot of theatre. Read every review. Establish relationships."
Huang urges, "Get everything in writing and hire a lawyer, to protect yourself. I will get "originally produced by' credit on "Snakebit' 's transfer, but I won't get any cash. We were all sort of doing it not knowing it would move, and I wasn't smart enough to get anything in writing." Strout offers the solution, "Earn a law degree. It gives legitimacy to actors, particularly women who make the switch." She has taken appropriate courses‹writing a paper for her investment banking class, for instance, on financing theatrical and film investments. Shipley tells aspiring producers, "Get experience with contracts, investments, and negotiating rights. Take business courses. Then jump in and start doing it. Get a business card, put your name and "Producer' on it, and do a show." Wiener says simply, "Take a chance."