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The Business of Broadway
00:28:04
There’s a phrase that’s common among those in the theater industry: You can’t make a living, but you can make a killing.
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- [00:01]
A
80% of shows don't recoup. Nobody knows anything. I always say William Goldman, who wrote the Princess Bride and All the President's Men, among many other things he said about the film business, nobody knows anything. And so I always use that because we have no idea what's gonna work. We're going on our gut and our passion and our belief. So who is to say?
- [00:29]
B
I'm Mary Long, and that's Jill Fuhr. She's a Broadway producer, one of the people who helped bring Hamilton, which has grossed over a billion dollars since its 2015 debut, to Broadway and beyond. I caught up with Jill to talk about the business of Broadway. We also discussed how to find investors to finance shows when most projects don't even make back their initial investment. What made Hamilton work and theater's scalability problem? Jill, the world of theater is kind of its own little island. So maybe you can start by G, I guess an idea for those that are unfamiliar with the business of theater. What is it that a Broadway producer actually does?
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A
A Broadway producer wears many hats. And there are a lot of different ways to be a Broadway producer. If you look at the Playbill title page, you'll see a lot of names, usually above the title. And that's because there are lead producers, which is what I generally am. And we're the people who shepherd the whole show from beginning to end. And we're responsible for literally everything. Developing it, raising money, overseeing the casting, the marketing, the advertising, making decisions about when we should close, if we can raise a priority loan to keep running. So many, many questions that we answer. But there are also co producers who are the people who help us get the shows up by either giving or getting a certain amount of money. And there are different tranches, and you get more bang for your buck depending on how much you give or get, right? And we have kickers once we hit profit, et cetera. But I often say that producing is the art of saying yes, judiciously and no, politely. I read that somewhere, and I think it's a perfect way to encapsulate what we do. Because what I'm trying to do is to support an artist's vision, but it also has to make financial sense. So there, you know, there's a lot to balance in that equation.
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B
So maybe let's talk about how something goes from a vision that an artist has, an idea that an artist has, to a actual project that is real, physical, and hopefully makes financial sense. How does a show go from idea to production?
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A
Well, every show has its own DNA so every show takes a different path, and part of the producer's responsibility is to figure out what path makes the most sense for that particular show and that particular creative team. And you do that. Obviously, with the creative team. You're not just making that decision unilaterally. But, you know, I'll use Suffs, which is my recent show about the suffragists who got the 19th Amendment passed just as an example. My producing partner, Rachel Sussman, she had the idea to do it. She brought the only firsthand account of the moment to Shana Taub. It was a book called Jail for Freedom by Doris Stevens, who was a character in the show. And she gave it to Shayna. She said, I think this needs to be musicalized. People don't know this story, and I think you're the person to do it. Shayna read it. This was back, by the way, in 2014. She read it. She loved it. She said, I'm your gal. I want to do this. Two years later, in 2016, they came to me because neither of them, they're much younger than I am, and neither of them at that point had had any commercial experience. So Rachel specifically wanted to work with a woman who had done it before. And so we started in earnest in 2016 with. We had like a 45 minute session, which was just us, where we had some actors come in, Nicky James being one of them, who ended up in the show. She's been one of Shayna's muses since the beginning. So we started with that. Then we partnered with the Public Theater, which was amazing for us. And many shows partner with not for profits before they actually make a move commercially. And it's a way to test out the project. You get to use their contracts so it's cheaper. Typically, you enhance a production that the regional or not for Profit produces. So, for example, with Sups, we raised 50% of the production costs for the Public Theater run. When we did that, we were attached as the commercial producers. So we went to the Public. We didn't get the greatest reviews. We got mixed reviews. There were wonderful things about the show, problematic things about the show. We took the next year and a half to work on it, and we knew, we thought we knew what we had to do, and basically everyone had written us off. But we really believed in the story and the timing. Never. It kept getting timelier. And then we brought it to Broadway last year, 2024. So, you know, 10 years from when they started. It's endless. It is an endless journey. And there are twists and turns and you just never know what's going to happen.
- [05:45]
B
Oh, completely. And just hearing you talk about that, one of the things that sticks out to me so much is the timeline. I think if you're on the outside, if you're in the public, you might hear about a once a decade breakout show and it feels like it was an overnight success. But as you just illustrated, okay, even shows that play to smaller audiences and can still be successful take a really long time to bring to fruition. When you mentioned like the commercial viability of a project, how do you build out in those early days, you know, you mentioned that there are so many changes that are happening on the fly. How does a production team figure out this is what it will actually cost to bring the show to life? How do you figure that out when so many things seem to be changing throughout that whole production process?
- [06:30]
A
Yeah, it's not easy. I mean, it's a pretty, the whole thing is a pretty daunting task. We hire general managers whose job it is to oversee the budgets for and they know everything's gotten so much more expensive. Union costs are extremely high, supply chain issues, inflation, all that has contributed. So we have a general idea of what developing a show will cost. Like for example, to do. When we did our first reading of the show after the Public Theater, it cost us a million dollars. So it's a lot of money. But we knew it would be well spent and we knew it was better than our going to another not for profit before coming Broadway. A lot of shows do that too. Dear Evan Hansen, which was a commercial hit and won the Tony on Broadway. It had two not for profit runs before it came to Broadway. So basically it's not a good business. I always talk about how stupid it is. I love it and I'm so proud of what I've done. But 80% of shows don't recoup. Nobody knows anything. I always say William Goldman, who wrote the Princess Bride and All the President's Men, among many other things he said about the film business, nobody knows anything. And so I always use that because we have no idea what's going to work. We're going on our gut and our passion and our belief. So who's to say A lot of investors and co producers though obviously you want to make money, but they know going in that it's very, very difficult. So many people, for instance, on suffs, we haven't made our investors money back. I think we will definitely return money over the course because we have tour, we have licensing, there's a lot that's going to happen. But I think that they're so proud of being involved with the show. So that is often what it's about, especially given what's going on in the world being about women and the fact that we only got the vote a little over 100 years ago. The fact that I went to an all girls school didn't know that story. So investors get involved for different reasons. But with Hamilton for example, which I produced, people were throwing money at us. Suffs was much harder to raise money for and you know, I would go to new people and one person said, so basically you're asking me to set my money on fire. So you know, and what's hard is that, you know, obviously I've. I have been very successful with certain shows with Hamilton obviously, which is the gift that keeps on giving and in the Heights, but it's so rare. But I mean I'm selling my passion, I'm selling my belief. I have a fairly good track record so people are more willing to like, trust me. Even though I don't know what's going to work. I thought Suffs would work better. I mean, I do think within 10 years people are going to recognize it as a seminal American musical. And I'm not just saying that because I'm involved. I really believe that. So some of these things also take time. There's a saying, you can't make a living but you can make a killing. And all my friends make fun of me because I'm always saying that. But that is a phrase that everyone in our business says investors love certainty.
- [09:48]
B
So everything you just said, I'm sitting there and thinking that's not going to fly. Right. With a lot of investors that are more financially minded and yet you're able to find people that are willing to put their money behind different projects. Paint a picture of who a lot of these investors are. Are they, you know, you mentioned passion. Are they more art minded folks that just kind of love to be involved in this business? Do you find yourself as a producer when you're working on a new project? Do you find yourself returning to a lot of the same investors to kind of get them hyped? Do you deal look in different, different corners for new people that might be interested in maybe not Project Y but Project X?
- [10:27]
A
Absolutely. I started with friends and family and then grew out from there. I remember on in the Heights, which was the first show I was raising money for, first show I was a lead producer on, I went to my childhood orthodontist and dentist. Because I just thought, well, you know what, I'm offering people an opportunity so I might as well try. They both passed. They both wished they hadn't passed.
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B
Yeah, of course.
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A
Because also that would have given him the chance to be involved with Hamilton because obviously anyone who had invested with me before I gave the right to invest in Hamilton. So I think it depends. It's sort of a sexy thing to be involved in. It's fun. You get to go to the opening night and you have access to house seats so you can get people tickets if you're investing. And I think, you know, I think by and large though, these are people who are art minded, angel minded investors who want to support art going forward. And I will ask anyone because I find first of all I am, like I said, I'm offering an opportunity. And second of all, people are usually very grateful to be asked and sometimes people don't respond, fine. But most of the time people are very grateful. So I sort of cast my net widely and there are some producers, by the way, who like you said, Project X or project Y who say, okay, well I have this and this is a, this is a no brainer. For instance, I said nobody knows anything. But we do know that if George Clooney stars in a play, it's going to be a hit, right? It might not make a ton of money because it's a limited run by its very nature, it can't. But no one is going to lose their shirts on a new George Clooney play. Or Robert Downey Jr. Just did McNeil or Audra McDonald in Gypsy. But a lot of times someone will say, okay, well if you invest in this, then I also want you to invest in this other project. If you get the opportunity to do this one, then you also, this one's a little riskier, but I want you involved in that too. Some producers do that.
- [12:40]
C
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- [13:47]
B
As investors, we think about value levers, right? And like the the buttons a company can push, the levers that they can pull to to draw more value out of the business. As I'm thinking about Broadway, there are a few value levers that come to mind that a production can push to help increase a show's chance of financial success. So one casting, right, You've got a big star headlining the show. It might draw more people in. You worked with Jessica Chastain, I believe, to bring a revival of a play to Broadway. Yes, sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. A revival of Funny Girl came to Broadway in 2022 and Beanie Feldstein, a Hollywood star, originated the revivals role of the lead Fanny Brice. But she left early because the show wasn't doing nearly as well as producers had hoped. Bring in Lea Michele and the show totally turns around. So casting there, you know, a different casting choice makes all the difference, but a star alone isn't necessarily enough to bring people in. So how do you think about casting? What kind of say do you have in that department as a producer?
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A
Well, I have a lot of say. Ultimately it's up to the creative team. But by and large, I mean, I did do the Heiress with Jessica Chastain, as you said, and I've done a few plays. But by and large what I like to do is create musicals, original musicals, or I'm working on a show based on the book and movie wonder. So there's existing ip, but I'm still trying to make it feel original. So when you have an original musical, that musical should be the star. Because what happens is if you put a star, like an actual Hollywood star in a new musical, what happens when they leave? There's no guarantee anyway. But if they leave after six months, a year. A year is unlikely. But let's say they give you a year, then is your show still going to work? Are you going to need to get someone who is at that same level or have you established the show as an entity in its own right? So I don't personally ever want to put a star in an original musical, but that is certainly a very big part of the calculation for people. And one of the reasons I've gotten a little Disillusioned with the business for a number of reasons, and one is it's what people want to see. They want to see stars in plays or the umpteenth revival of a show starring a star. So Eddie Redmayne and Cabaret, Audra McDonald and Gypsy. And these are wonderful productions and amazing to see these people live. Audra McDonald's won more Tonys than anyone in the world ever. She's won six, I believe, and she's fantastic. But how many times do I need to see Gypsy? Even if it's maybe the greatest musical ever written? Right. Although I would argue Hamilton is. But it just depends on what kind of producer you want to be and what kind of shows you want to be involved in.
- [16:40]
B
Okay. So another lever might be this existing IP story. If you know that something has worked in another format. Okay. We can reasonably believe that we're going to get people in seats when we turn it into a musical. You mentioned that you prefer to work on original musical projects, but that now you're trying to bring this young adult book movie wonder to the stage. What caused you to kind of think about that differently or what got you interested in wonder that made you change your mind about. I typically work on original stuff, but I really want to work on this.
- [17:12]
A
I was so moved by both the book and the movie. I thought it sang, which is something that we musical theater producers say when we're evaluating a project, whether we believe that it sings. And I thought it did. I think it has a very important message. It's about choosing kind, it's about changing the way we see. It's about kids especially, but people realizing that it's okay to be different and everyone has their stuff. And you know, I have always said that obviously Wicked is a fantastic musical and it's. It's the prequel to a beloved story. Right. But I also believe that one of the reasons it's so successful is because it allows girls to know it's okay to be different. I think Wonder does that also. And so my feeling is, as a lot of times what happens is producers can be risk averse, so they're taking existing IP and it's a commodity that people know. So you think you have a built in audience, right? And often you do. But a lot of times what happens is they literally put the movie on stage with music. So it's basically, it's literally like the movie and then they just add some music. And my feeling is if I'm going to do Wonder, it's got to have a reason for Existing on stage. So we're trying. We're trying to come up with theatrical ways. I mean, it's called wonder, first of all. But we want to make it different. We want. What is the reason why someone who loves the book and loves the movie is going to pay $125 to come see it on stage. So that's very important to me. This was an exception for me because of how, first of all, it's a beloved story and it sold almost 16 million copies worldwide, and the movie made $300 million. So I'm just hoping I don't mess it up.
- [19:04]
B
In this iteration, Hamilton and Wicked both stand out as two, just breakout successes within the past two decades. We'll focus on Hamilton because you worked on that show. Correct me if my numbers are wrong here, but I believe the original production, the upfront production cost of Hamilton was about 12 and a half million dollars.
- [19:23]
A
Yes. A little over that.
- [19:25]
B
And it made that back within a single year. It's since made over a billion dollars. And it. It is the gift that keeps on giving. It's still on Broadway. It's still on tour. I just saw it in Denver a couple months ago. What was it about Hamilton? No one knows anything, but now hindsight is 20 20, right? What was it about Hamilton that has made it so commercially successful?
- [19:47]
A
I think Lin Manuel is a genius. I think the show is absolutely brilliant. I had worked with him on in the Heights, so, you know, I already. I was working with him and I thought he was a genius then. I mean, obviously no one could have predicted what would come out of his mind, least of all him. But I think it's refreshing, it's brilliant, it breaks new ground, but it also honors what musical theater has always been. And, you know, I think the fact that it came out in the Obama era had had something to do with it. Obviously, if it opened today, it would still be successful. I just don't know if it would have the same kind of impact because the world is very different. But I would tell people about the hip hop story of Alexander Hamilton, and they thought I was crazy, you know, and so, of course, I mean, it sounds insane, but we just believed. And it's how I felt about in the Heights too, because we did it off Broadway first in a commercial production off Broadway. And people said, you know, you didn't sell out and you didn't get great reviews, and why are you putting a Latino hip hop show on stage? And we said, it's not a Latino hip hop show. It's Fiddler on the roof. And it just happens to use this. This music. So it's just, you know, again, we could have been wrong on both. Yeah. Luckily and happily, we were right. And, you know, people asked me if I knew how successful Hamilton was going to become, and of course not. There was no way to predict the tsunami that happened. We knew it was going to be good. We did a. We did a workshop of it in May, the year before it started. Previews at the Public. And we had young kids there. We had Mike Nichols there. We had tons of just all different kinds of people, and everyone was going completely crazy.
- [21:36]
B
Before Hamilton, there was in the Heights. And maybe that show is less familiar to people that aren't deep in the theater world, but also a fabulous production. This was Lin Manuel Miranda's first musical, and again, you were a part of it from the very beginning. How does that end up on your desk? Like, how do you come to find that script? How does that script come to find you?
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A
Well, I made a movie that no one saw, but one of the actors in the movie called me in December of 2002, and he said, you need to go see this show that's being workshopped in the basement of the drama bookshop. It's like a Latino rent. And at the time, Rent came out in 96. So at the time, everything was a something rent. And I thought, okay, well, this is what I do. I go and see stuff. So I went, and I'm in this tiny little black box theater. And Lin came out on stage and started. He played Usnavi, and at the time, he had written the whole thing. He had written the book, the music, the lyrics. It was a very. The world was the same. Obviously, a lot of the characters were the same, but it had a different emphasis. But I still. He came out on stage, and I just thought, oh, my, who is this kid? He was 23, I think, at the time. And I just thought, wow. And I was sitting forward in my seat in a way that I don't. And I was getting. I even get chills when I talk about it. Like, right now, I'm getting chills. And I just thought, I need to be in this person's life. And so, you know, so it was. It was very lucky. I often say luck is the residue of design, which was an essay question for one of my. One of my college applications. I had to talk about that. So I've been using it ever since. But I think, you know, so you have to make your own luck to a degree. But. But I was in the right time, right place, at the right time. And I also believed I put my money where my mouth was. And one thing I haven't said is, you know, we consider theater a research and development business, because as a producer, you don't make any money at all until a show is produced, if commercially. So, you know, for six, seven years, almost eight years, I didn't make anything on Suffs and just was raising money or spending my own money. And then so, you know, you're. You're placing a big bet on someone or something. So that's. That's how that happened. Suffs happened because one of my former assistants who I had then made an associate, I was having her go out and meet with people, and she met with Shayna and she said, I think. I think there's something here. I think you should meet with her.
- [24:19]
B
The parallel, you know, I can't help but think of, okay, it's like a venture capitalist meeting a founder. And it's sometimes the idea, but it's also the magnetism and the vision of this founder, this artist. One business question for you before we wrap up. The business world is obsessed with scale. And theater is really interesting to me because inherently, it doesn't really scale. You know, we've seen examples of, okay, Wicked. Commercial success turned into a movie. That's a way to scale it. Hamilton went to Disney. But when it's still theater, you can only sell so many tickets to so many seats in a singular theater so many nights of the week. What does that mean from a business perspective? How does that.
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A
Terrible business. No, I mean, it just makes it that much more difficult. Of course you're hoping for something like a Wicked or a Hamilton, which is almost impossible. But you do have other ancillaries, including Merch, including the album, including touring. You know, Hamilton has productions right now all over the place, and obviously so does Wicked. And Sophs is going to go out on tour. There's money to be made from licensing, and frankly, that's the most important thing sometimes for the. For the creators, and certainly in Shana's case, for, you know, she grew up in rural Vermont and listened to cast albums. That's how she learned about theater. And she just wanted kids all over the country, all over the world to learn about this movement and be excited by it and to maybe do it in their schools one day so that. That can keep a show going. Those ancillaries are helpful. But, yes, you're right. I mean, the likelihood is that you're going to have a show A short lived show on Broadway. Maybe it goes on tour, maybe you have an album, but that's it. So it's. It's difficult.
- [26:14]
B
I'm sure you see lots of productions as a part of your work and also just as a part of your passion for theater. Is there anything that you're not involved in right now that you think is absolutely stellar, whether it's on Broadway, off Broadway, that you just thought was spectacular and special?
- [26:30]
A
Oh, this is such a good question. Well, this is gonna be an annoying answer because the show closed. But I saw the play the Hills of California by Jez Butterworth, who wrote the Ferryman, and I thought it was absolutely beautiful and brilliant. So I assume that will have a life. But I'm trying to think if there's anything else. I'm very picky, so I can't think of anything now. I'm looking forward to a few shows coming down the pike, like Buena Vista Social Club. I feel bad not being able to answer this question very well, but I just. I have just. It's the reason I don't do very many shows, because I am so picky.
- [27:10]
B
I would think that pickiness is a good quality for a producer to have.
- [27:14]
A
I think people, you know, when I ask them to invest, they know that I really. I put a lot of thought into it.
- [27:21]
B
Jill Furman, thanks so much for the time and for giving us some insight into show business. We appreciate you coming on to Motley Fool Money.
- [27:27]
A
You're so welcome. It was really fun. Thank you for having us. Me.
- [27:34]
B
As always. People on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley fool may have formal recommendations for or against. So don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley fool editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. The Motley fool only picks products that it would personally recommend to friends like you. I'm Mary Long. Thanks for listening. We'll be off on Monday for President's Day, but we'll be back on the Airways on Tuesday if you too have a long weekend. We hope you enjoy it. See you Tuesday. Fools.