BACKSTAGE PASS: Producing Marcel on the Train w/ Mitch Marois and Maxwell Beer

Summary

Broadway Breakdown: BACKSTAGE PASS

Episode: Producing Marcel on the Train with Mitch Marois and Maxwell Beer

Host: Matt Koplik
Guests: Mitch Marois & Maxwell Beer (Mix and Match Productions)
Release Date: March 9, 2026
Topic: An insider’s look at producing "Marcel on the Train" for off-Broadway, featuring deep-dive discussion into the business, creative, and emotional realities of new theatre development.

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Episode Overview

This opening installment of the “Backstage Pass” mini-series offers an in-depth, candid conversation with producers Mitch Marois and Maxwell Beer about bringing the world premiere of Marcel on the Train to Classic Stage Company (CSC). Matt, Mitch, and Max chart the multi-year journey from script acquisition to sold-out previews, sharing the unglamorous truths and little triumphs of getting new work onto New York stages. Along the way, they demystify the collaborative process, nonprofit partnerships, budgeting, setbacks, and the magic moments that fuel their passion for producing unusual, daring theatre.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Producers’ Origin Stories & Mutual Chemistry

[02:33 – 08:26]

• Both Max and Mitch began as actors, discovering a knack for the "behind-the-scenes" elements of theatre.
• Max: Childhood love of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” led to obsession with Broadway grosses and box office stats; he realized his real calling was producing.
• Mitch: Trained as a musical theatre actor but became increasingly interested in directing, choreographing, and then producing during festivals like Carnegie Mellon’s Playground.
• Their partnership started at Hendel Productions, solidifying into Mix and Match Productions with a shared vision for meaningful, emotionally resonant theatre:
  • Mitch: “I wanted something that made me feel like the movie Life is Beautiful—finding joy in terrifying circumstances.” [06:13]
  • Max: “You just feel a little bit more alive than you did when you started that piece of art…” [06:43]

2. Why Marcel on the Train?

[07:20 – 09:14]

• Max was working with director/co-writer Marshall Pailet, who sent him the early script co-written with Ethan Slater.
• Max: “I read it, and I go, holy crap, this is great. Mitch, I think you gotta read this.” [08:26]
• After reading, both knew they wanted to produce it—even as first-timers with no Off-Broadway or Broadway producing credits yet.
• By summer 2022, they formally commit to the project.

3. The Multi-Year Development Timeline

[09:28 – 31:23]

• June 2022: Receive the script
• August 2022: First reading delayed by Ethan Slater’s casting in the Wicked movie
• 2023: Pivot to Zoom table-reading due to Ethan’s schedule
• Max wins the Hal Prince Producing Fellowship, providing crucial mentorship and funding for a 29-hour reading [11:44]
  • Mentors included David Stone, Kristen Caskey, Sue Frost, Tom Schumacher, Jeffrey Seller—“about as good as it gets.” [12:19]
• Fall 2023: In-person 29-hour reading during Rosh Hashanah
• 2024: Workshop at Williamstown Theatre Festival, even as they simultaneously open another show (Seleno v. Barnes)
• Ongoing: Outreach to nonprofits, finally connecting with Jill Rafson at Classic Stage

4. Landing the Nonprofit Partnership (Classic Stage Company)

[15:41 – 17:19]

• Why CSC? “Classic Stage was kind of always at the top of the list… the space itself is just so lived in and beautiful and wonderful for the story that we’re telling.” (Mitch, [15:43])
• The theatre’s actual railcar seating provided a literal fit for the play’s dominant train setting ([16:34]).
• Navigating the nonprofit scene is like “dating”—each has a shifting mission and limited programming slots.
• Classic Stage ultimately watches the filmed Williamstown workshop—a crucial step:
  • “Everybody, film your stuff.” (Matt, [21:00])
  • “People just want to go on the emotional ride of it.” (Max, [21:06])

5. Explaining Enhanced Productions

[24:00 – 26:36]

• Not a co-production, but an “enhanced production”:
  • Classic Stage produces, keeps ticket sales; Mix and Match raises additional “enhancement” funds to achieve the production’s full vision.
  • The producers make no money off the box office but retain sets/costumes and development rights for potential future commercial runs.
• Honesty with investors is key: “You’ve got to really believe in the project... more likely than not, nothing will ever happen with this and it will die.” (Mitch, [26:05])
• The enhanced model gives the play its best shot at evolving into a commercial Off-Broadway or Broadway run.

6. The Realities of Fundraising and Creative Risk

[28:21 – 30:39]

• “Most projects do not move at this speed… probably take another 3–4 years.” (Max, [30:39])
• Co-producers are generally cash/fundraisers, not decision-makers; “a tiny miracle” when someone writes a check because they believe in the material, not just the pedigree.
• Timeline recap: Writers began in 2021; world premiere in 2026 = five years from inception to production.

7. Risks, Strategy, and the Broadway North Star

[32:10 – 34:41]

• Many post-pandemic shifts: It’s easier/cheaper to partner with nonprofits, but then there’s little chance of recouping up-front.
• Every project needs a future plan. For Marcel:
  • “We believe that this is a Broadway play—full stop… once that’s your North Star, you start making decisions toward that.” (Max/Mitch, [33:05])
  • Having a nonprofit run as proof-of-concept with critical validation and reduced startup costs.

8. Budgeting & Resource Allocation

[36:29 – 39:43]

• Tight budgets: People (cast, designers) are the main costs, followed by marketing.
• Even “bare bones” productions like Marcel are heavily affected by things like lumber tariffs and outside economic factors.
• The honest, painstaking process involves Google Sheets, Zoom meetings, and constant revision:
  • “If we can't raise the money, then the show changes… The box we were playing in just got smaller.” (Mitch, [39:43])

9. The Emotional Rollercoaster of Launch Week

[40:00 – 41:27]

• Matt asks how they feel on the eve of rehearsals:
  • Max: “So scared… I love this show so much…fear of not giving the show everything that it’s worthy of.”
  • Mitch: “Tomorrow morning I will have a good cry at some point because it's just gonna, like, hit me…”
  • Standout moment: Mitch describes the emotional impact of the announcement (“I lost it for a few seconds. I just had a whole moment. And Jen just, like, sat there with me. God bless her. …This thing is real. Let's go.” [40:27])

10. Looking Forward—What’s Next?

[41:35 – 43:07]

• Producers prep for rehearsal, tech, previews, and opening. Their focus: Get the show up, then calibrate based on reception.
• Mitch: “If the reviews are crap, then we’ve got a lot of figuring out to do… What can we, as the team leaders, do to honor everybody’s effort and move it to insert next step here?”

11. The Producer’s Philosophy: The ‘Terrible Email’ Test

[44:26 – 46:35]

• Max’s gem for early-career creatives:
  • “If the show that you’re producing is an amazing email, don’t produce it. If the show you're producing is a terrible email, if it's a terrible pitch, it's probably worth seeing on a stage.” [44:26]
  • “Those are the things that are typically worth seeing the most.”
• Matt and Mitch joke about the impossibility of summarizing their own weirdo projects.
  • "What is it? Well, it's Torch Song Trilogy meets the Scream franchise, but it's a romance..." (Matt, [46:14])
  • “Honestly, me neither. Do you want to just come see it?”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Max (on producing): “Now, 20 years later, I’ve just… developed the baseball cards of all the shows, all the stats, all the theaters, what works in what theaters. And that's what I fell in love with. And I thought, oh, I can do this with my life for a job. Like, how lucky would that be?” [03:50]
• Mitch (on life as a producer): “At Carnegie, they do this thing called Playground where they shut down the school of drama for a full week… When I look back, that’s the first taste of producing I ever got…” [04:28]
• Max (on reading Marcel): “I saw a piece of theater Marshall had made when I was a sophomore in high school … That was one of those instances where I left the theater going, oh, you can make fun theater. Like, that’s the kind of stuff I want to make." [07:27]
• Advice for submitting to nonprofits: “Film [your workshop]. People just want to go on the emotional ride…spend the money on marketing.” [21:06]
• On the industry: “Their lit departments are so overworked…to just get anybody to say, hey, let’s at least take a meeting to talk about it is in itself a victory.” (Mitch [17:20])
• On emerging artist’s dreams: "Most shows die. Maybe we’ll be one of the lucky ones the energy is right and the timing is right" (Mitch, [26:05])
• On taking risks: "If the show that you're producing is a terrible email, if it's a terrible pitch, it's probably worth seeing on a stage." (Max, [44:26])
• On making it real: “I think tomorrow morning I will have a good cry at some point because it's just gonna, like, hit me… This thing is real. Let's go.” (Mitch, [40:27])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:33–08:26 — Max & Mitch’s backgrounds, origins as producers
• 09:14–09:41 — Deciding on Marcel on the Train
• 09:41–12:19 — Navigating star delays and using the Hal Prince Fellowship
• 12:35–15:43 — Early readings, development workshops, and working with Classic Stage
• 16:34–18:38 — Matching shows to nonprofit missions, "dating" the right partner
• 21:00–22:54 — Why filming workshops is essential
• 24:00–26:36 — What an “enhanced production” really means
• 28:21–30:39 — Money, co-producers, and the miracle of belief
• 32:10–34:41 — Post-pandemic trends and Broadway as “North Star”
• 36:29–39:43 — Budgeting, cost pressures, and strategic decision-making
• 40:00–41:27 — The emotional toll and joy of producing
• 44:26–46:35 — The “terrible email” rule for new projects

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Conclusion

The episode closes with Mitch and Max candidly reflecting on the eve of rehearsals, the terror and excitement of the unknown, and the lessons learned from betting on unconventional stories. They urge ambitious producers to seek out the “hard-to-describe” projects that challenge audiences and stakeholders alike. As Marcel on the Train embarks on its world premiere, this podcast offers an honest, generous look into what brings new theatre to life—and the wild, unpredictable ride it takes to get there.

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Next in Backstage Pass:
Stay tuned for a chat with Jill Rafson, Artistic Director of Classic Stage Company (ep. 2 of the series).

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Hello all you theater lovers both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown and the very first episode of Backstage Pass, our new miniseries, giving you an insider's look at the goings on of our fabulous, sometimes infuriating, but always complex industry. We'll be talking to the actors, directors, writers, producers, designers, choreographers, and everyone else who helps create the magique. We are kicking things off with a look at theater of the present Classic Stage Company's latest production, Marcel on the Train. Written by Ethan Slater and Marshall Palette, the play tells the true story of Marcel Marceau before he became the world's most famous mime when he was a young man in Nazi occupied France helping guide Jewish children to Satan safety during World War II. The production began previews on February 5th and opened on February 22nd. Though it runs through March 22nd, it's already completely sold out.

[C]

I know I already tried.

[B]

But even if we can't see it right now, we can go backstage and learn what it took to make it happen. In this first episode, I am joined by producers Mitch, Maroj and Maxwellbeer who have been shepherding this project since 2022. They are the founders of Mix and Match Productions, which made its New York debut last year Off Broadway with the hit Seleno v. Barnes, about the dramatic and very real relationship between the infamous lawyers Rossalino and Steve Barnes. The show opened at the Asylum Theater in July of 2024 and extended multiple times before it eventually closed in March of 2025. Oh God. I guess at this point it's almost two years ago. My math is terrible. Mitch and Max also won their first Tony Award last year as co producers for maybe Happy Ending. And in addition to running Mix and Match, they serve as managing and associate producers respectively, for the Broadway producing team Hendle Productions.

[C]

So let's head backstage and get to

[B]

my conversation with Mitch and Max.

[A]

Billy, I beg to differ with you.

[B]

How do you mean?

[A]

You're the top. Yeah, you're an arrow collar. You're the top.

[D]

You're a Coolidge din.

[C]

Max and Mitch, welcome to Broadway Breakdown.

[A]

Hello, hello, hello. Good to see you.

[C]

Good to see you too. First, I want the listeners to get an idea of who you two are. How did you get into producing?

[B]

How did that enter your chat?

[D]

Absolutely. Well, Mitch and I are both started out as performers as well. So we came at theater from a public facing side, I would say, and through being in so many shows, we got a little peek behind the curtain. I was a child actor and I was doing A tour of Lost in Yonkers with one of our Marcel cast members, Alex Wise. And during that tour, when I was in eighth grade, I would be looking at the seating charts and at the ticketing for each performance to see how many people were in the audience, which would then determine how much effort I would put into the performance, which, if you're an actor, means you probably shouldn't be an actor if you're doing that. So that wasn't my path. But about five years earlier, I had fallen deeply in love with the musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. And my father had started to bring home Variety magazine because that had the grosses in it at the time. And so in about third grade, I started following along the Broadway grosses and really just Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. And I couldn't understand, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I could understand, oh, they had 70% of their seats filled this week. They had 80% of their seats filled last week. Why did that happen? And so now, 20 years later, I've just, like, have developed the baseball cards of all the shows, all the stats, all the theaters, what works in what theaters. And that's what I fell in love with. And I thought, oh, I can do this with my life for a job. Like, how lucky would that be? And that's how I got into producing full time.

[A]

Fantastic.

[B]

Mitch.

[A]

I always thought I was gonna be an actor. Studied it in college. I went to Carnegie for musical theater. But even when I was there, I started thinking, okay, do I wanna be a director instead? Do I wanna choreograph instead? Is acting really the end all be all for me? And the answer was no. And at Carnegie, they do this thing called Playground where they shut down the school of drama for a full week. And it's a festival of new works, plays, musicals, puppetry, anything you can imagine. And, like, when I look back, that's the first taste of producing I ever got, because you would do. You would be participating in, like, 10 shows and wear every hat or no hat or one hat or three hats, and get to experience all of it. And then when I graduated from college, I acted for a minute. I did some things, and that was fun. But the kind of projects that I kept running towards were, you know, getting the opportunity to help found a company up in Vermont where getting to put together shows, put together concerts and things, and then the kind of, like, trajectory from there, and then working in nonprofit theater at various levels, whether it was a summer stock or whether here off Broadway in New York to then Falling into commercial producing, because, honestly, at the time, I'd been working in nonprofit and at least here in commercial, into the job that I was offered working with Ruth and Stephen Hendel, you know, paid the best and came with insurance. So I said, cool, I guess I'm working on commercial producing now. And that was about eight years ago. And then Max actually joined our office back in 2019, before. In the before times, as an intern,

[D]

I was paid in Metro cards and lunches. I got the job via playbill.

[A]

Jobs that gets into, like, how Marcel fell into our laps, because Max and I were really vibing in the office. We had great energy, and we were saying, cool, we should find stuff to do together. And kind of the North Star that I had was I wanted to find projects. Like, I wanted something that made me feel like the movie Life is Beautiful. If you've seen that, that is, you know, finding joy in terrifying circumstances. How can you find that kind of projects that make you feel like that? And Max, because y' all go ahead.

[D]

I don't know those kinds of. Those kinds of shows or films where at the end of it, you're crying and you're smiling and you're so happ. You're so sad, and you just feel a little bit more alive than you did when you started that piece of art like that.

[A]

Ideally, a little bit more hope, too. Yeah, ideally, there's hope, you know, that you're getting hope out of it. And Max was still working in another office on a new musical at the time that helped reopen theater after the Pandemic called a commercial jingle for Regina Comet.

[D]

So I was working on that show as the writing assistant, the producing associate, the copyist, and Covid safety, which meant I was a stagehand and was there eight shows a week as well. And, you know, that was at night. And so I was able to do this internship during the day. I started chatting with the director of the project, who was our favorite Marshall Palette. And Marshall and I just really got along. I saw a piece of theater that Marshall had made when I was a sophomore in high school at so soho Playhouse called Triassic Park. And that was one of those instances where I left the theater going, oh, you can. You can make fun theater. Like, that's the kind of stuff I want to make. So Marshall was always someone that I wanted to work with, and I was a little bit starstruck and intimidated at first. And then he starts sending me his plays. We start discussing them, and he sends me Marcel. I read it, and I go, holy crap. This is great. Mitch, I think you gotta read this.

[A]

And then I read it and we were like, yep, this is the one. This is what we want to do. And then we actually, we sat, because it's written by Marshall and Ethan together from a kind of a germ of an idea that Ethan had. And so we sat them both down and we said, hey, like, we haven't produced a show off Broadway. We haven't produced a Broadway show. We haven't done a commercial show on our own yet. But we believe in you guys. We believe in this project and we think we understand what this thing is, both, you know, on the text side and the kind of production you want to build for it. Would you guys trust us to take it on? And they said, heck yeah. And I guess the rest is kind of history now. That was in 2022. Was that, was that 22, 23? No, that was in 22, right?

[D]

Yeah, that was in the summer of 22. Yes, that was June. I got sent the script on June 6, 2022, and we're going to have our first performance February 5, 2026. So.

[C]

So from June of 2022 to February of 2026, that is almost four years from getting the scripts to this first performance. What has this journey been? So you, you come on as producers. What goes next?

[D]

So this crazy thing of. We were full steam ahead planning a 29 hour reading, which is, you know, a. A standard reading that you kind of do to get some interest from investors or do some creative work. And this crazy thing happened where in August, our star and co writer Ethan goes, hey, guys, we're gonna need to put a pause on this for about a year because I just booked a wicked movie and we were like, what? So flipping cool.

[A]

Yeah, so flipp.

[D]

We were so ecstatic, you know, you couldn't believe it. And so we were like, amazing. You know, maybe we could some work remotely. Maybe we do a remote reading. So we just, you know, we're like, you go, Ethan, we support you and we will do whatever work we can do in the meantime. And so while Ethan was away, we managed to do a 29. We managed to do just a reading over Zoom, like a one day.

[A]

That was the spring of 23, April.

[D]

And then from that, I felt motivated to apply for the Hal Prince Producing Fellowship, which is this fellowship for young creative producers in our industry that gives you access to mentorship, access to the classes in Columbia's MFA producing and theater management program, as well as quite a. Quite a bit of startup funds for a production and you have to apply with a show. I've known who the Prinz fellow was since I was in middle school and have always wanted to apply, but knew I wanted to apply with the right project. And here it was like, I love this show. I believe in this show. And I think this is something that a creative producer, you know, can really use to sink their teeth into. What is this business? How do I take a non conventional, maybe a slightly non conventional piece of theater, a story about a mime in World War II, you know, and bring that to a commercial audience? And so that started that path for the next year. And then we started doing a 29 hour reading. And I'll let you take that 29 hour in the fall, Mitchell.

[A]

Sure. Yeah. So, I mean, really, that 29 hour was made possible because of the Prince Fellowship funding and honestly, the mentorship that Max got out of it, getting advice from, you know, David Stone, from. Who Are the Kristen Caskey.

[D]

It was David Stone. Yeah. David Stone, Kristen Kaski, Sue Frost, Tom Schumacher, Jeffrey Seller.

[A]

Yeah, that's about as good as it gets. Yeah. Yeah. So we got some great advice there. We did that first 29 hour in September. That was the first week of September 23rd, I want to say.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that was really successful. It was our first time seeing it up there.

[D]

Coincided with Russia, Shauna. We did it on the air of Roche, as it were.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was great. Yeah. And from a. From a development perspective, we all walked away from that being like, okay, we know there is some there there. You know, we've now finally seen it in with. With actors in a room, maybe just at music stands. But, you know, there's There, There. There's work to be done on the piece itself. So, you know, while we were working with the writers on. And director Marshall on. Okay, the work that, you know, as a team that the two of them plus the two of us thought, you know, should happen on it based off of both the feedback and the experience with the actors, you know, finally reading it out loud and hearing it out loud. We were pounding the pavement. We were talking to nonprofits, we were reaching out, we were scheduling meetings. We were sending the script. We were. We talked to some people in London about, hey, is this a possibility and worth exploring there? You know, we did all of that and then we got to a point where we were ready for another workshop. And this was in 2024 now. And this opportunity at Williamstown presented itself to go essentially use it as a 29 hour to another 29 hour workshop to get it back up on its feet, essentially a whole year. Calendar year after the first one. So with a new draft with a lot of the original cast that we had trying out. Some other people in it, though, because we tried some different things with the characters and such like that. It also coincided with the opening week of the first show that Max and I ever produced, Selena v. Barnes. So it was fricking chaos. But we made it work. And that reading, too, helped kind of seal the deal. We had already been chatting with Jill Raffson at Classic Stage about the project, because Jill has been a supporter of Ethan's for a long time, and Classic Stage has, from his relationship being there and Assassins, and he has his own musical that they've done a little bit of development there as well.

[D]

Yeah. And Jill was at the reading that we did in 2023, so she's been very supportive of it as well, as Jill comes from Roundabout and was one of the heads of Roundabout Underground and really spearheaded that. So a lot of our favorite playwrights now of the David west reads Josh Harmons like she was the one help, you know, therapizing them, helping them, you know, helping structure, as it were. And I thought, whoa, if we could have the person who helped those playwrights find their voice and their singular stories in that way, how lucky would. If we had that brain working on our show? And, you know, you can't. The theater industry is just a little. The nonprofit sector, I should say, is a little too fickle that you can't just say, we want this one nonprofit, and if we don't go with that one nonprofit, you know, that's it. That's the ball game. You have to. It's kind of like dating. You have to talk to a lot of people. You have to see who's interested as well. You know, are we able to provide for them what they would do, what they would need to have a successful production? And, like, the answer is we were

[A]

lucky that Classic Stage was kind of always at the top of the list. We always. Classic Stage, even from our first conversations, Classic Stage was at the top of the list in terms of the audience that it has, in terms of the space itself. The space itself is just so lived in and beautiful and wonderful for the story that we're telling here. And Jill as the, you know, at the time when we did our first reading in 23, I think that was her first full season as artistic director, and she was really looking for ways to expand the mission. You know, it is. They're reinterpreting and reimagining the classics and the idea of reinterpreting and. Or reimagining a classic figure so that they could do things like a world premiere of a new play. Marcel, classic figure. This is a new play about this person that you think, you know and if. How it can fit into the, you know, the classic stage ethos.

[D]

Most of the play takes place on a train, and this is one of the only theaters in New York that's set up like a rail car, you know, like it is literally in the seating style of a train. So we thought, what? What better location? Truly?

[C]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think that what people don't realize is that every nonprofit in New York, as Mitch was sort of inferring here, has a different mission statement when it comes to producing. And of course, those mission statements change over time with new management. And so, you know, you can go to all of them and sort of see who's a fit. But it's also a rejection from one is not a statement on the quality of the piece that you have. Like, there could be a theater company that's like, we really great. We don't do. We like fully don't do new works.

[A]

Hard.

[C]

Stop.

[A]

And I think of it like one of the gigs I used to have was as a college audition coach. And I think of it as, you know, like if you're a nonprofit, you're building a season and you are checking certain boxes with each show, kind of like a BFA class is checking certain boxes with, you know, they don't all need the same five foot two, blue eyed, blonde haired meto. You know, like, you're gonna pick one, you're gonna have, okay, this is the show that checks this box, and this is the show that checks that box. And I don't have room for you in my season this year and next year. I think we already have the one that's kind of like that. But check back in three seasons, maybe then we'll have the room for you there. Yeah, that's also the game of the programming game. And these nonprofits are so. Their lit departments are so overworked. They have so many flipping submissions that come to them, whether it's, you know, the cold call submissions that get sent in or the, you know, part of their writers groups submissions and the projects that they're internally starting to develop and excited to see go through, or the commercial people who come in and say, hey, we think we can, you know, bring in some enhancement investment to do a Production year. They just have so much to review. There's so much in the pipeline. So to just get anybody to say, hey, let's at least take a meeting to talk about it isn't in itself a victory.

[C]

Oh, yeah. You do not have to tell me, Mitch, about these lit deployments and these nonprofits, about how overworked they are. I have a script that said, like, five different nonprofits, they all have not read it in the last two years. And I will honestly take that over them having read it and leaving me on read.

[D]

People wonder, like, what is the secret? A lot to like, either raising money or getting into a nonprofit. And like, like, it is just following up. Like, so it is just sending more emails and following up and being relentless and being a little bit annoying and being okay with being annoying, but still being polite. And like, that is the secret sauce. But it. It is really just sending emails.

[A]

Yeah, that's what we do.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And.

[C]

And it's so frustrating because whoever likes to write an email. Okay, so to recap for the listeners, June of 2022 is when you get the script by August of 2022 is when you were going to do the first 29 hour reading with Ethan. And then that gets delayed because of Wicked. So you do basically like a Skype one, a remote one. And so was the next one during the break when Wicked was stopping filming from the SAG strike? Or was that at one Wicked? Okay, so during the SAG strike, you

[B]

guys were able to.

[A]

Yeah, we did the full. Yeah, the full reading was September of 23. That wasn't. I don't remember if that was because of strike stuff, but I don't think this. I don't know that the strike allowed us to do it. But regardless, it was summer of 23. It was September of 23 was when we did the first full reading.

[C]

Yeah, I think. I think the SAG strike went from

[B]

July till mid September.

[C]

Maybe this is why I'm gay. I remember that the SAG strike started the week before Barbie came out in theaters because the actors for Oppenheimer and Barbie were like, on the red carpet. They announced the sack strike and then. And they left the red carpet.

[A]

Yup.

[C]

This is me showing my gayness. But. But that doesn't mean that the sack strike ended in December, Mitch.

[A]

That's just.

[C]

I know when Wicked started refilming again.

[A]

So it's entirely possible Ethan can corroborate all of this when you chat with him. Yeah. Yes.

[C]

But this is to say that Wicked finishes filming, you do the 29 hour workshop in Williamstown. Okay. Did Classic Stage see that workshop or was that purely just from meetings and readings?

[A]

They saw the video of the workshop. They didn't come up to see it. No. They saw the video of it, though.

[C]

Okay, that's another key point. Everybody film your stuff.

[A]

Film it.

[D]

Film it.

[B]

Film it.

[A]

Yes. Yeah.

[D]

And it doesn't need. And it doesn't need to be, you know, like a $5,000 setup. It can be, you know, $300, you know, 250. And it can be a single angle, you know, one angle, no cutaways. People just want to go on the emotional ride of it. And sometimes when you add too much, it just takes away. Becomes distracting. We see, you know, people spend a lot of money on this thing that, like, spend money in other place. Spend the more. Spend the money on marketing.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Well, you know, also, sometimes if the material itself isn't good, it doesn't matter how many camera angles you have, you still have a dud on your hands.

[A]

Sure. You know, that is definitely part of it. Sure.

[C]

Everywhere you go, there you are.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

So Classic Stage sees the video.

[D]

They.

[C]

When did you guys get the green

[B]

light that you were going to be

[C]

part of, of this season?

[D]

Last December. So December 24, I believe. We had an inkling that, like, this seems to be going in a positive direction. And then we had a coffee with Jill Raffson, the artistic director. And it was after that coffee that Mitch and I looked at each other and we were like, I think we just got the winter slot at Classic Stage. Like, there was no, like, it's yours, guys. Congratulations. It was truly like, I. I think. I think this is happening. And then it was because nonprofits have their seasons to run, you know, and small staffs that we didn't hear from them again for a little bit because they were running their season. They're not concerned about the following, you know, the. The next season. And so for. For about four or five months there, I was like, I think we're doing it. But also.

[A]

And I was like, don't worry about it. We're doing it. Yeah. I was like, max, it's happening. We started budgeting it. We started talking about it like, it's happening. Don't worry about it.

[D]

Yeah. But, you know, and that was up until, you know, last May, April, even, so.

[A]

Well, and that was when we started like, really formalizing the chats with Classic Stage about, okay, cool. Cause they were starting to now turn to looking at this 25, 26 season. So now it's Talking about, okay, what are our dates? Okay, what, you know, when does it make sense to start performances? How long can the run be? What is Ethan's schedule gonna be? When could we start rehearsals versus then start previews? You know, starting those loose conversations and starting to budget it out all so that, you know, we could then get to the full enhancement agreement between us as the commercial team and them as the producing nonprofit theater and all throughout. In the middle of that. The official announcement came in June about the production. So all of those conversations were still ongoing while production gets announced in the middle there.

[C]

Okay, so this is a co production. Can you speak a little bit more for the listeners about what that means? No, it's not a product.

[A]

So I'm actually going to correct you there. It's an enhanced production. Enhanced production.

[C]

Okay, so words matter, labels matter, pronouns matter. Tell me. Tell me exactly what this means.

[A]

So in this instance, we, as the commercial team, mix and Match productions. We optioned. We acquired the option for Marcel on the train from the writers, Marshall and Ethan. We have the option to produce a developmental production. This is qualifying as a developmental production because the commercial show, the commercial team here, we're not getting like ticket sales off of this. So we have the ability to do workshops. You have the ability to work with a nonprofit, et cetera. Now, we found a nonprofit that wants to work with us. So we are essentially licensing our license. We're sub licensing to Classic Stage the ability to produce the show. And it is Classic Stage's production of the show. Now, Classic Stage, they say, in order to do it, you know, this is what we can put into it as an organization. But, you know, as we've talked about the budget, this is what the budget looks like. And for those of you listening on podcasts, my hand has gone significantly higher from that which Classic Stage is able to put in. So, you know, how are we going to bridge that gap? Hey, commercial producers, you're going to agree to enhance the production by that number so that it can be the full production that you want. And in this instance, Classic Stage, they keep all the box office, they keep the ticket sales. It is their production of it. We get a world premiere of the show. We get to keep the sets and costumes and such after the fact. And in terms of the cost of it, yes, we're raised. We raised a lot of money for this to put it in to make the show happen, but it's significantly cheaper than if we said, okay, we're just doing a commercial off Broadway run with no nonprofit help doing it on our own out there. That would have been about three times the expense of what the doing it through the auspices of a nonprofit is recognizing. Yeah.

[C]

And is that what you tell investors when you're looking for the enhancement money of sort of what, what the purpose of this investment is? This is not necessarily about you're going to get your money back on this production, but this is what it's.

[A]

Yeah, you got it. Yeah, you got it very upfront. That's part of what makes it difficult to raise money at this stage too. You've got to really believe in the project and in the product itself. You've got to really be like a ride or die on a thing to say, cool, I'm going to write a check to you guys. And more likely than not, nothing will ever happen with this and it will die. Most shows die. You know, maybe we'll be one of the lucky ones that the energy is right and the timing is right and the project itself is right for the zeitgeist and where it is and it will continue on. But you know, I can't promise anything.

[D]

But as producers, we knew that a show, as I said, about a mime in the Holocaust riding a train was going to be a tough sell. What was the way that, you know, in the first eight weeks of introducing the show to the world, we could get audiences in work with a theater that has a subscriber base or, you know, that has a built in audience that, you know, they're accustomed to buying the tickets already. We're not going to have to do that much education which allows us to get folks in, hear some word of mouth, hear like, oh, is it resonating, is it not? And then we're able to go away afterwards and say, do we need to do more work or can this move forward? Because the point of doing an enhanced production is that you eventually move it forward to a commercial venture so that those investors do get their money back. And you know, this thing can be seen by more people and for a longer period of time, but it requires a little bit of that startup, a little bit of people going, you know, kind of like the play Job, which was off Broadway first at Soho Playhouse and then the Connolly, like it needed Soho Playhouse for people to go, what is this thing? I've never heard of this, this new director, new writer, what's going on here? And then it could find its way Broadway. And that's kind of what we needed. But with, you know, a show that's six people, has a star with understudies that is a little bit of a higher cost than a two person play, you know, in chairs. So we needed to partner with the nonprofit so that we could minimize our costs, so that when we eventually do flip it to a commercial production at some point down the line, which is the intention, our development costs are that much smaller, making the rate commercial raise that much easier.

[A]

At the beginning of this, when you erroneously and fallaciously said that we were co, this was a co production that gave me co producers, I think that's actually interesting because like people go to a Broadway show, you know, and they look above the title and on a Broadway show Today, you'll see 50, 11 names up there. And you know, if you look at the first like three names, those are, you know, on average, let's say those are the producers of the show. Those are the ones who are making all the decisions, who sign the contracts, sign the checks, approved the budgets, approve the marketing, do everything. Everybody else is a co producer. They have been given, you know, certain privileges because they were induced to raise a lot of money, whether it's, you know, $150,000, $500,000, a million dollars, sometimes even, and you get some back end, you know, kickbacks if the show, you know, God will on the creek, don't rise, makes profit someday. And that is like the co producing game. So Max and I were co producers on maybe happy ending. We raised money for that one. We didn't have any say in it. We just really flipping believed in it. And we're lucky that on Marcel we've got a really lovely cohort of co producers who were willing not just to like, you know, invest in the project, but invest large sums of money and belief in the project itself. Some based just off of, you know, reading the press release of it and hearing about the themes of the show and then reaching out and saying, oh my God, what is this thing? I have to learn more. And then, you know, reading the script and watching a video of the Williamstown production and saying, great, I'm in. I believe in you guys and I believe in the project. Like that's, it's a, it's just a tiny miracle every time that happens. You know, if you look at kind of the trajectory of like work being done on the project, you know, oh, since 2022 when we got it, it's like, okay, cool, great, you know, new script came in. Cool, let's read that. Cool, okay, 29 hour.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

There's a good amount of work there. Okay, cool. Make that happen. Make that happen, then you get to like may and it's just zoom. It's just like a hockey stick going all the way up.

[D]

And what I will say, like the writers can attest to this as well. Like in the grand scheme of thing of theater and timelines, this is incredibly fast.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Most projects do not move at this speed. They probably take another three to four years or another two years.

[A]

Matt, how long have you been writing your play?

[C]

Why am I on trial right now?

[A]

Well, just as context, I think it's, you know, for the listeners at home, I think it's good context because they know that your people know that you have a play.

[C]

Well, so I started writing my play in December of 2022. The first draft was presented at a table read in January of 23, and then we did the staged reading last November. So, yeah, I would say at this point we're now at the three year mark of when I put a script in front of people and said, read bitch. But yes, that is where we're at right now, the three year mark.

[A]

Yeah. So. And we are, you know, Marshall and Ethan started writing this show in 2021 one and then, you know, we read it in 2022. So from 2021, them, you know, having the idea and starting to put pen to paper to, you know, first world premiere in 2026, five years. And you can see, you know, there were multiple readings that we did through there. There's continued rewrites in there. There was a whole movie, multiple movies that were premiered that Ethan was in throughout this and TV shows and like everybody's working. Ethan, you know, Marshall has been doing. He. Marshall won awards down in dc. Yeah, his career has just fucking exploded

[C]

over the last few years.

[D]

Exploded Marshall's career. Like the scheduling puzzle of Marshall's career. Like, I'm so happy for him and yet I like, oh my guy.

[C]

Have you noticed any shifts in the producing world post Covid in the last like five years? Have you seen productions going in certain directions? Have you seen certain obstacles appearing more and more as you've been producing?

[D]

I've got one if I can. Yeah, it's just, I think it's really easy to say I want to have my show at a nonprofit theater and do an enhance, you know, and do a run there because, you know, it's cheaper. Oh, it has the built in audience. The tricky thing, as we said before, is then you have no chance of making your money back. And we've seen a lot of shows, you know, go this nonprofit route and then afterwards they Go. What now? I don't know what comes next. I never planned for, you know, the next production.

[C]

If someone wanted to do an enhanced production, as you were, as you guys sort of are approaching this one, how are you approaching it in terms of, like, the future of this play?

[D]

We believe that this is a Broadway play, like, full stop. In our hearts. We believe that this is a play that deserves to be seen on Broadway.

[A]

And so once that's your North Star, you start making decisions towards that North Star. And not every show belongs on Broadway. That should not be the definition of success for everything. When we're talking to people for the first time about their projects and they're interested in hiring us as either general manager or executive producer or writers that are interested in maybe seeing if we want to option their show and produce their show, those are some of the first questions we ask. Okay, do you see this as a big Broadway musical a la the Book of Mormon, or do you see this as a. A commercial hit that, you know is a sleeper hit that has a small production that builds a rabid fan base? Do you see this Little Shop of

[D]

Horrors, you know, like, Off Broadway?

[A]

You know, these are. And we get kind of give those things. Do you see this as a show that starts at a nonprofit in town here in town at, like, playwrights and then goes into licensing and is. Has a fruitful care here.

[D]

There are blueberries. Are you taking, you know, going nonprofit to start and then doing some commercial venture, but through a tour and around the country, you know, there's so many different paths. If you're not thinking of next steps and you're like, I want to do. This is an Off Broadway show. My suggestion is to, like, go do the commercial Off Broadway production. If you think Off Broadway is the end goal, which is an amazing place for a production to live, but you don't need to cannibalize your Off Broadway audience with a cheaper Off Broadway production,

[A]

you know, so for, like, Marcel, it made sense to say, cool. We know that this. We and our souls feel like this is a show that belongs on Broadway. How do we get there? Well, okay, having a pedigreed run at a important nonprofit here in town is gonna help get a stamp of approval to. It is gonna be cheaper and is gonna elevate the project and get us that audience and get all of these things that we know will also wanna be the target audience for Broadway as well.

[C]

I don't know if this is gonna sound tricky or not. I mean this as a compliment, but it's Almost like an enhanced proof of. Because until now, 100%, 1,000%. Great.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

Because you haven't really been able to do the show at a level to show what you think it can be. And so this is the most enhanced proof of concept to date.

[D]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

We start rehearsals tomorrow and on February 5th will be the first time that Mitch and I are seeing a full production of the show with all the lights, all the set, all the actors, all the.

[A]

I hope.

[D]

Yeah, we hope. God willing, February 5th will be the first time, along with the rest of New York or whoever's in the. That audience that we are seeing that production, that show.

[C]

I mean. So, Max, in a lot of ways that's a great way for us to sign off.

[B]

But I have like two more bullet

[C]

points I want us to get through before we do that. So let's. I will make sure you repeat that in about five to 10 minutes.

[D]

You'll have to remind me of exactly what I said, but please don't tell

[C]

me how to do my job. Okay. So, Max, for both of you, you mentioned finances. I want to sort of ask you guys, sort of for listeners who are interested in this kind of stuff. And I also feel like for a lot of theater fans who have no idea how this works, financing for a. But more importantly, the budgeting of a show. So what goes into making that happen? What are. What goes in making costs rise and what. Where does the money go for a budget on a show like Marcel?

[A]

So for this one it's less because there's two parts to that. Like you asked, what goes into making costs rise on this production? There was not so much that went into making the cost rise. This is. People will come see. This is a. I don't want to say minimalist. It is a bare bones. Doesn't feel right either because this is, you know, know, it's a gestural production. I think the design concept that Marshall has with this is very intentional and it is supposed to feel intimate and just by nature of, you know, the cost of lumber. Everybody on this team is, you know, working pretty much at scale. It's not like Max and I are getting paid to do anything for this show either, you know, so we are all rolling up our sleeves and we're really lucky for that. And so the budget that we have here is as low as humanly possible for, you know, six person play off Broadway at a nonprofit.

[D]

Like tariffs are real, you know, that all of the. All of those political issues do end up affecting us in a way that I Had I had not quite experienced in a professional financial setting before, you know, it drove up our set costs by about half it really. It's significant.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Like, these are not things that we can just be like, oh, that crazy guy doing what he's doing. Like, it's a real. Like there's a real effect on people that are trying to just put a piece of art on a stage.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

But then when looking at sort of a. Just like a breakdown budget of what to spend money on, what would you say are the things that are crucial and yet possibly the most costly?

[A]

Well, people. People are always the most. Well, but marketing. Yes, but people. It's about the cast, it's about the designers. Like, that is like the first priority, I think, you know, even before we get to marketing, it's like, okay, what are we paying the cast? What are we paying the designers? Will this is. This. Can we do that? What are the union rates?

[D]

All of that.

[A]

And usually that is. That is a massive chunk of it. And then, yes, it's marketing. It is. Is how do you can have the best show in the world, but if no one knows that it's happening, what the hell's the point?

[C]

And so with Classic Stage, I guess, without, you know, giving away too much of the secret sauce, but like, you had a meeting with them about the parameters of how they go about putting up a production, how they go about marketing a show, and had that conversation.

[D]

It's as simple as, like, opening a zoom screen, sharing a Google sheet and going down line by line and saying, is this right? Is this too much? Is this too little? What do we need? And then we see the delta at the very end of it and we go, that's the enhancement.

[A]

We had many, many budget revision meetings of just going truly line by line and saying, okay, cool. And then, yeah, at the end of the day, that's what it is. This is what they can put in. Then we have to raise the rest. And what's interesting is that, like, if we can't raise the money, then the show is not. Then the show changes. Like, there's a certain point where Classic Stage will do what they can do, and then it's entirely on our shoulders to raise the remainder of that. That which in this instance, I think it's like four times what Classic Stage is able to put in, if not a little bit more. And, like, that's fine. That's the deal that we made. It just is like, if we can't raise it, if we can't find it, then okay, guys, we got to figure out, okay, what's being cut.

[C]

How.

[A]

What do we figure out now? The bold lines within which we were working. The same box we were playing in just got smaller. Okay, we got to figure it out.

[C]

So first of all, this episode won't be coming out the day before rehearsals begin, but we are recording this the day before rehearsals begin. So first of all, how are we feeling?

[D]

So scared. I'm so scared. I'm so excited. But I. I genuinely feel so scared because I love this show so much. Like, it's just fear of not giving the show everything that. That it's worthy of.

[C]

You literally sound like every person the day before they get married.

[A]

Well, we are. I mean, that's what it is. Like, it's official now. Like, we're there. I think tomorrow morning I will have a good cry at some point because it's just gonna, like, hit me in the same way that when the show got announced back in June and the announcement went live, I was in the office early. Shockable shocks. I think it was like, you know, 8:30 in the fucking morning, something like that. And we have some people that come and hang out at our office when they're doing you remote jobs. One of them, Jennifer, she was sitting on the couch. And when the news. When it, like, hit everywhere, I just. I lost it for a few seconds. I just had a whole moment. And Jen just, like. She just, like, sat there with me, God bless her. And I was like, okay, cool, we got it out of the system. Okay, this thing is real. Let's go. And got back to work. And I think that's what it's going to feel like tomorrow. It's going to be like, do we. Max is better at this than me of, like, pausing me and putting a stand on my shoulder sometimes being like, hi, let's take two seconds and just look around and say, this is really fucking cool. Cool. And then we put our heads back down, and we'll do that a few times tomorrow.

[D]

I'm sure the perks of meditation could not encourage meditation. More meditation is amazing.

[C]

So then after tomorrow, you have until first performance in February. And then after first performance is obviously opening night. What are your mental trajectories as producers for those two stages?

[D]

I actually. I think that's the thing that I'm most anxious or scared about is that I don't know what our days or nights will look like. You know, we haven't started the rehearsal process yet, so I don't know. Oh, is this gonna be a team that, you know, needs to hang around after 6 o', clock, you know, and really talk through the day. Is this a team that's just going home? Is this a team?

[A]

It's also not our production. It's classic stages production. So, you know, we are lucky that we don't, you know, we're not running payroll, we're not doing company management. We're not doing any of that. So how can we be helpful, but not in the way I think that, like, in the short term from now until when we start that preview. So that's rehearsals plus tech. Our energy is just towards get the damn thing up. Like, what needs to happen and what can we do to help? Is there something that needs to happen? Is there. Somebody needs to press go on a sound bar for the next day and a half?

[D]

Cool.

[A]

We'll figure it out. You know, how can we help make that work? And then once it starts previews, it's okay. How can we make sure that the audience experience is. Is what the whole team has intended, what we, as the producers and what the creative team has intended? And are we, you know, delivering on the promises and on the, you know, contract that you set forth with an audience when they walk into that space

[C]

and then opening night happens and we're able to take a step back and take in the bigger picture and start to calibrate a strategy after that?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, you know, it's the world premiere. No one has seen it before. If the reviews are crap, then we've got a lot of figuring out to do. We got a lot of thinking to do. If the industry isn't digging it, then, okay, what do we do next? If the industry is loving it, okay, what do we do next? Both possibilities are very real. And then somewhere in the middle of, you know, maybe we show up and don't make any splash at all. All of the above is a possibility. And then it's like, okay, we have investors. Okay, we have the creatives. What can we, as the kind of team leaders then do to honor everybody's effort and move it to insert next step here? Like, what do you do?

[C]

Yeah, well, we're gonna find out in about four episodes because that's where our listeners are gonna find, are gonna come back to you guys at the end of this series. We're gonna figure it out. It's really crazy to be recording this so early, knowing that. That by the time it comes out, like, we will be close to recording the end of the series as well. Time is funny that way, but I Want to. Any. Any other things you want the listeners to know about either one of you or about this process before we wrap things up?

[D]

The only thing I'll say, like, I say this all the time, and, like, this is just my philosophy as a producer, and I just want to put it out there into the world. If the show that you're producing is an amazing email, don't produce it. If the show that you're producing is a terrible email, if it's a terrible pitch, it's probably worth seeing on a stage. The things that are the best emails, you'll pay $0.10 to see them, but they typically don't make for the most satisfying evening of theater. Then if you go for the shows that are the toughest pitches, you know, the maybe happy endings of the world, the thing that you go, I don't know how to describe it. You just have to go see it. Those are the things that are typically worth seeing the most.

[A]

So I think that, like, what we talk about is, like, we'll get an email in from producers or creatives on a project, and it has, you know, it's this intellectual property being adapted by this person from a movie, and then who wrote this movie and this person who's from this pop band and then starring these people who are film actors and wow, that's really. That's really cool. And that sounds great in an email. A lot of the times, though, that doesn't necessarily make for the most compelling art. And then. And then after that, the most, like a commercially satisfying project, a project that actually does anything versus these projects that you get the email, and you're like, what the fuck is this? Like, the email, the pitch for maybe happy ending. Two robots who are being decommissioned and breaking down somehow fall in love in the future. The fuck. Like that, you know, and it's jazz,

[C]

and somewhere in there are fireflies. Don't worry about it.

[A]

Exactly. And don't worry about. About it. Yeah. And then there's this, like, figment of one of them's imagination that's a jazz singer that runs around. What the fuck? Like, you know, that is a terrible email. And then, you know, we say you have to experience it, and then it changes your life.

[C]

You're making me feel a lot better about myself because I've been having so much trouble. Max and Mitch, pitching my own play to people. They say, what is it? I'm like, well, it's Torch Song trilogy meets the Scream franchise, but it's a romance. And they go, I don't know what that means I'm like, honestly, me neither. Do you want to just come see it and.

[A]

And yeah, that's the only way. Yeah. Yeah.

[D]

That's what it's about. It's about experiencing it, you know, and that's what we'll start getting ready for tomorrow.

[C]

Tomorrow. So I've taken up enough of both of your gentlemen's time, so I want to thank you both for starting off this wonderful series on your I expect to be wonderful show. I will see it soon enough. I look forward to it. And yeah. So, guys, make sure to check out Marcel on the train. I Classic Stage Company. We're going to have more inside looks in future episodes. I don't want to give too much away right now. Just know that you should be coming back to this podcast to be getting some more insight soon enough. Thank you, guys. And you know what? Normally I ask the guests to close us out with a nice little rahway diva, but this is a special, classy episode, so I'm going to have. And we're talking about France, so I'm going to have us close out with Edith Piaf. I'm just making the call right here, right now.

[A]

Love it, love it, love it.

[C]

Take it away.

[D]

Bye.

[B]

All right, that's going to do it for this episode of Backstage Pass. We will see those two again when we wrap things up at the end of this series. I want to thank Max and Mitch for their insight. I want to thank all of you for your time today. And I want to thank Paula for getting me this backstage pass today. She's a good friend. Tune in next episode because I got a backstage pass from my friend Fred. You don't know him. He's very shy. But friend Fred's pass got us a talk with the producing artistic director of classic stage company, Ms. Jill Raffson. So stay tuned for all of that goodness soon.

[C]

Thanks, guys.

[A]

Mesa.