As Women’s History Month comes to a close, The Broadway Show is spotlighting six incredible producers currently ushering in some of the hottest tickets this season: Buena Vista Social Club; Dead Outlaw; Good Night, And Good Luck; Gypsy; John Proctor is the Villain; Purpose; Redwood and Stranger Things: The First Shadow, just to name a few. These powerhouse women—LaChanze, Sonia Friedman, Mara Isaacs, Eva Price, Lia Vollack and Sue Wagner—share their varied paths to producing, their ever-changing day-to-day and what they’ve learned from the driver’s seat of the Broadway industry.
Before the Tony eligibility cut-off date arrives on April 27, a dozen new shows need to open. The cliché “places to go, people to see” is an understatement for the Broadway community during this time of year—especially for producers, who work tirelessly to transform a show from twinkly-eyed idea to (hopefully!) full-fledged, box-office smash. “People don’t realize how much work and time it takes to get to this moment,” LaChanze told The Broadway Show on the flashbulb-filled red carpet of Buena Vista Social Club. “It’s just confirmation that what I decided to do during the pandemic, to really put my hat in the ring as a producer, is paying off. It’s not so much for me. It’s for all the young people who want to be producers. It’s nice to be representation that it’s possible.”
“I did it because people believed in my vision, in the artists’ vision, in the work that we were doing. That’s what producing is.“
–Mara Isaacs
The path to producing Broadway shows is seldom linear: LaChanze is a Tony-winning-performer-turned-producer, marking her lucky seventh producing project with Buena Vista Social Club. MJ and Dead Outlaw producer Lia Vollack started out in sound design, eventually heading to the West Coast where she became the President of Worldwide Music for Sony before returning to her theatrical roots. Eva Price, who has female-empowerment pieces Redwood and & Juliet bowing just blocks away from one another, networked her way into the biz after working in television news. “I didn’t know that I could be a Broadway producer,” Price shared. “I didn’t know anyone who worked on Broadway. I didn’t even see my first Broadway show until I was 15. I grew up in a suburb of Boston, so I’d see all the touring shows that came through Boston: Miss Saigon and Phantom and Joseph. To me, that was Broadway.”
(Photo by Emilio Madrid for Broadway.com)
The job title comes with an air of power and distinction, but with a producer’s work happening entirely behind the scenes, it’s not uncommon for their creative role to be mistaken for a pair of deep pockets. “There’s this misconception that you have to come from wealth in order to be able to play the game,” Gypsy and Hadestown producer Mara Isaacs shared. “I didn’t come from wealth. I worked in a not-for-profit for over 20 years of my career, and I figured out how to marshal resources to support work and artists that I really believed in. I did it because people believed in my vision, in the artists’ vision, in the work that we were doing. That’s what producing is.”
“It’s less glamorous than you think,” added Sue Wagner, who currently has John Proctor is the Villain, starring Sadie Sink, and the George Clooney-led Good Night, And Good Luck on her Broadway roster. While the heft of a celebrity name on a marquee is enticing for both producers and audience members, collaboration—one that includes the entire company as well as the audience—is a pillar upon which successful productions are built. “The only thing that tells you about your show is what happens in the audience that night. They will not lie to you. I think good theater shakes people. Even happy, good theater shakes people, and that’s a rare thing. I’m a little bit addicted to that: to finding that feeling of ‘shook.’ It’s about serving the artists,” she said. “It’s remarkable to watch [George Clooney] stand in a room and be the leader of this company. Sometimes you do a show with a star, and they go to their dressing room. They have to take care of themselves, and you understand that. But not George. He’s in the middle of it all.”
So too are great producers. Prolific producer Sonia Friedman—who also has hits Sunset Boulevard, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and The Book of Mormon on the boards—spoke with The Broadway Show amongst the cluttered tech tables at the Marquis Theatre. “We’re halfway through tech for Stranger Things. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever produced as it’s the most technically complex. It’s a new work that is still evolving. We’re rewriting every single day,” she explained. “There’s never a day-to-day. At the moment, I’m across 12, 15 running productions. I’ve got several shows running in the West End at the moment. I’ve got two about to go into rehearsals, including Stereophonic, which we’re transferring.”
“I think good theater shakes people.“
–Sue Wagner
The work is hardly done once an opening-night curtain comes down. Producers also spearhead the maintenance of a production and any subsequent iterations of it, including national tours or international engagements. For example, Vollack currently has five productions of MJ bowing simultaneously: one on Broadway, one on tour, one in the West End, one in Germany and one in Australia. “Somebody was making sort of a clock of how many hours in a day MJ was running,” she said. “My day starts really early so that I can talk to London and Germany, and goes through the normal New York Broadway tour timelines and then ends relatively late to talk to Australia when they go up.”
Despite the odd hours and endless to-do lists, bringing a piece of theater to an enthusiastic audience is gratifying: “There is nothing I love more than standing in the back of a theater and watching an audience watch a show,” said Isaacs. “There’s no wall. It’s moving from the stage into the bodies of the audience, and you can feel it. You can feel the audience, feel the show—the gasps at certain plot moments and the leaping to their feet before the show is over because they are so moved by a performance. That’s the most satisfying gift available.”
Watch the full video segment below, and tune into The Broadway Show every week in over 140 markets across the country.
