This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:05] Jan Svendsen: Welcome to the Broadway Gives Back Podcast.

[0:07] Jan Svendsen: I'm your host, Jan Svendsen.

[0:10] Jan Svendsen: This podcast spotlights Broadway actors, shows, and organizations in their pursuit of social impact and philanthropy.

[0:17] Jan Svendsen: Join us as some of the brightest lights on Broadway share their stories about their favorite charities and how they got involved and the people on the causes who benefited from these philanthropic efforts.

[0:33] Jan Svendsen: Broadway fans around the world rely on BroadwayWorld.com to stay up to date on the latest news and to connect to the theater community.

[0:41] Jan Svendsen: Founded in 2003, Broadway World is the largest theater website in the world, covering everything behind the curtain and in front of the footlights.

[0:50] Jan Svendsen: And it's no surprise that BroadwayWorld.com is also very mindful of its corporate social responsibility mission and supporting charitable initiatives.

[0:58] Jan Svendsen: I'm thrilled to have Broadway World's founder and editor in chief, Robert Diamond here with me today.

[1:04] Jan Svendsen: Robert, welcome to the Broadway Gives Back Podcast.

[1:07] Robert Diamond: Thank you so much. Happy to be here.

[1:09] Jan Svendsen: Well, let's start with the biggest news first. You've recently become a father. You and Jen had a baby girl. Give us some details. Congratulations.

[1:18] Robert Diamond: Thank you. She turns 11 months old next week, so it's how we've been actually tracking time throughout this whole pandemic.

[1:25] Robert Diamond: A pandemic baby.

[1:26] Robert Diamond: A pandemic baby born via surrogate in Las Vegas in May. So you can imagine all the travel fun that was involved, but all worth it.

[1:35] Jan Svendsen: Wow. So she started walking yet?

[1:39] Robert Diamond: Uh she started uh pulling herself up on furniture and threatening to walk, but we're not quite there yet.

[1:45] Jan Svendsen: Okay. Um, well, congratulations. There's always good that comes out of bad times, you know.

[1:51] Robert Diamond: So on our toes. She's got a wonderful happy demeanor, which nobody has ever described me that way, but it's nice that the next generation is a happier human being.

[2:02] Robert Diamond: And I think we're going to appreciate this extra time that we've gotten to spend with her when this is all behind us.

[2:07] Jan Svendsen: Oh, that's so nice. I wonder if she'll follow your footsteps in the entertainment world.

[2:11] Robert Diamond: Oh dear God.

[2:13] Jan Svendsen: Well, speaking of which, you started your career, if I'm not mistaken, working for Michael Crawford in Phantom of the Opera. Is that true? And how did that happen?

[2:21] Robert Diamond: Yes, um, I became a fan of his while I was a senior in high school, which was 1997. And I begged my parents to take me to see him.

[2:34] Robert Diamond: He was doing a show in Las Vegas called EFX. And when we got there, there was a notice that you know Michael is out of the show this evening due to illness.

[2:43] Robert Diamond: And it was like, oh my god, we flew all the way out here for this. And the people at the box office said, Oh, don't worry, he'll be back in the show tomorrow.

[2:51] Robert Diamond: So we continually moved our tickets one day forward. And on our last day in Las Vegas, wound up seeing his five understudies in the part and never got to see him.

[3:01] Robert Diamond: And when I got back home, you know, the internet was in its early days. There was one message board that said, Oh, he'd actually broken his hip doing the show.

[3:10] Robert Diamond: He was having his hip replaced, the box office was lying, he was not coming back to the show. Um, so the idea started germinating in my head at that time.

[3:19] Robert Diamond: This would all be a lot easier if Michael Crawford had a website. So I went to Syracuse University for college, and in my freshman year, I had my own little website, which was Diamond Online, and one of the sections of it was a Michael Crawford fan site.

[3:34] Robert Diamond: And out of the blue, one day, this woman wrote to me and said, Um, you know, you have the the second biggest Michael Crawford fan website. I've been a fan of his for decades now and have collected all of this stuff on him.

[3:46] Robert Diamond: Uh would you like it for the website? And I said, you know, yes, absolutely, send it to me. And she sent a few dozen boxes to my Syracuse dorm room with uh like if he had done a concert tour, it was every interview and every review, it was uh shows he had done in London and and Broadway and and all over.

[4:04] Robert Diamond: And I spent about three months uh with my roommate not talking to me, uh, scanning all of this in. And when the website went live, about a week later, I got legal letters from Michaels and his management team and his charitable fan association.

[4:20] Robert Diamond: Uh-oh, cease and desist.

[4:22] Robert Diamond: Yes. Letting me know that I violated, you know, several thousand copyright laws. Uh, and as part of that, I learned that he had this charitable association um that was selling a lot of these pictures to raise money for sick children's charities.

[4:37] Robert Diamond: So it was sort of a dual letter of uh copyright violations, um, and you know, doing bad things to children. And I said, Look, I'm you know, 17 years old, I'm in college.

[4:49] Robert Diamond: Um, instead of suing me or threatening me, why don't you instead hire me and let me set you up with an official website? And luckily they said yes.

[4:59] Jan Svendsen: So an entrepreneur at 17.

[5:02] Robert Diamond: Well, entrepreneur at 17. Um, and it's gone downhill since then.

[5:05] Robert Diamond: So I I blame Michael for for a lot of things, including directly leading me to Broadway World.

[5:12] Jan Svendsen: That's so funny, but I didn't even realize that there was this charitable component to like when you first started working for Michael.

[5:19] Robert Diamond: So that ties in this podcast really nicely.

[5:22] Robert Diamond: It does. It uh it predated me. It was, I think, when he was in Phantom that it on one night he counted how many thousands of dollars worth of flowers he had in his dressing room and thought, you know, what a waste, these will all be dead in a few days.

[5:35] Robert Diamond: So he established this fan association, which has, I think to date, raised over a million dollars for sick children's charities, and he's been very involved with it, appearing at events, doing private signings.

[5:47] Robert Diamond: Um, and it's always been tied towards raising monies for charities. So it was baked into my world early on and was a no-brainer to then include when I started Broadway a few years later.

[6:00] Jan Svendsen: That's so awesome. So Broadway World, you started it 18 years ago in May, right? And your anniversary is coming up.

[6:05] Robert Diamond: Yes, we'll we'll do something big for the 20th.

[6:10] Jan Svendsen: Um, that's exciting. So, how so how did you uh I mean obviously you were very inventive um and you were young, but how did you how did you like come up with the concept for Broadway World?

[6:22] Robert Diamond: Did you think, oh, there's a need for this, or I'm gonna compete with somebody else, or how did you figure out your niche?

[6:28] Robert Diamond: Uh I was working in technical publishing at the time, which is another weird story. But I started as a senior in high school working, uh, I had early dismissals, so I would go home at one o'clock and take a nap, and my mother lovingly would shove the classified ads under my door.

[6:44] Robert Diamond: And one of the ads was fast-growing publishing company Seeks Junior Webmaster. So it turned out I grew up in Rockland County, they were located in Pearl River, um, right above a Domino's Pizza, which is a great location.

[6:57] Robert Diamond: And uh they at the time had uh one magazine for developers. Um it's about a programming language called Power Builder, which I don't even think exists anymore.

[7:07] Robert Diamond: And they hired me for seven dollars an hour as their junior webmaster, and I was reporting to a consultant who I think was making you know $45, $50 an hour.

[7:17] Robert Diamond: And they quickly realized that I could do everything she could for less money. So, like good capitalists, they fired her, they promoted me, they gave me a very big radius to $7.25 an hour.

[7:29] Robert Diamond: And um, I worked for them all through my senior year of high school, full-time that summer, and also worked for them at college.

[7:38] Robert Diamond: So while I was at college, by the time I graduated, the company had gone from this was the height of the dot-com boom, uh, one publication to seven publications and events and conferences and a staff of suddenly 45 or 50 people.

[7:54] Robert Diamond: Um, and I, wildly unqualified to do so, was managing a web team of five or six people.

[8:00] Jan Svendsen: Well, it sounds like you were like the Doogie Howser of the tech world.

[8:03] Robert Diamond: I was I was very good and still am sometimes at programming and development, but management is something I I fell into.

[8:10] Robert Diamond: Um, and I'm still learning on it on a daily basis. Um, so the company gave me a lot of opportunities, but was not the happiest of work environments.

[8:19] Robert Diamond: So there was constant constant screaming in the office, uh, people throwing chairs and tables and things, every weird like office politics thing that could be happening.

[8:29] Robert Diamond: Um and I was doing this while making Michael Crawford's website, and uh he returned to Broadway in 2002 in Dance of the Vampires, uh, which I enjoyed but was not terribly well received.

[8:46] Robert Diamond: And uh I wound up making a website for that production. So I built message boards and a login system and automated newsletters and all these very technical things, and the show closed about two and a half weeks later.

[9:00] Robert Diamond: And it was while building that that I started looking at the other theater sites that were out there at the time. And it wasn't, I didn't even start Broadway World with the sense it would be a business or would compete um with these other players out there.

[9:14] Robert Diamond: It was somebody needs to do something that's a little more technical, forward thinking that's taking advantage of all these interactive features and up to the moment programming. Um I should do that.

[9:27] Robert Diamond: And it was done out of a love of theater and a love of technology. Uh, and it wasn't until a few years later that we realized, oh, this is this is a business yeah, um, let me leave the publishing company and do this full time.

[9:41] Jan Svendsen: And that's pretty bold for because you were very young at the time. Um, what was your what was your vision for Broadway World and what is your vision going forward?

[9:52] Robert Diamond: Oh, good question. Uh the vision at the time was just to make Broadway's best fan site. Um I felt early on there was a technical need, which um I knew was something that I could address because that was my background.

[10:07] Robert Diamond: And I also thought that the other sites that existed at the time were very industry focused. So it was putting out official information from shows, and there wasn't a place for people that loved theater or didn't want to, you know, dictate their tastes to whatever the hot musical was at the moment, but a site that could embrace everybody and everything.

[10:29] Robert Diamond: And it grew out of that that from day one it was let's not just cover Broadway, um, though that's obviously half of our name, but let's cover the whole world of theater, which at the time just meant let me not impose my own taste on it.

[10:44] Robert Diamond: Let us not just cover, you know, make it Michael Crawford world or make it um Broadway centric. But if somebody's doing an off Broadway show or doing a cabaret like Ars Nova at the time, we should cover it just as well.

[10:57] Robert Diamond: And it was through that that we found all of these areas that nobody else was covering as strongly. And then that led us into regional expansion and to where we are today.

[11:08] Robert Diamond: I don't think my goal has changed since then. We're still we still compete against ourselves, we're still trying to build um the best website for theater fans the world over.

[11:18] Jan Svendsen: I'm gonna get back to some of the specifics about the website, but I just wondered as a media outlet, do you feel a sense of responsibility for supporting social activism in our community?

[11:29] Robert Diamond: Yes, uh, that's something I think we have we've supported it passively since day one. But as part of listening and learning over the past few years, part of my own personal evolution, part of now having a daughter and thinking in terms of making the world a better place for her.

[11:47] Robert Diamond: We've become less less passive and more active. And especially in this last year, there's been so much going on.

[11:55] Robert Diamond: Um, and also not a lot going on when it comes to Broadway. But I just wondered how I know that you were launching numerous new businesses during this past year.

[12:06] Robert Diamond: Um, and the shutdown has probably given you a lot of pause, but it's also probably given you some opportunities. Um I know that there's some things you've been doing and supporting other charities and and spotlighting artists and organizations.

[12:19] Robert Diamond: But can you just talk about the last year and how you've weathered the storm, so to speak?

[12:23] Robert Diamond: Sure. We we went into panic mode early on. Um that was oh my god, what can we do? And then maybe it's the stages of grief. It was okay, we're not going to solve this larger problem of you know, curing the virus or coming up their own vaccines, though I think I maybe Googled that for a day or so.

[12:40] Robert Diamond: Um, but it was what can we do? And for us, it was okay, we suddenly have this large block of time. We have a number of ideas, most of which have come from the team.

[12:50] Robert Diamond: Some of some of them were my ideas, but um, I'll share credit there. Uh so okay, we have all this time, we have these resources, we have my strong desire to maintain staff and keep the business going.

[13:03] Robert Diamond: Um, I was the first one to go off salary uh before we made any other changes, and we dove straight back into development.

[13:12] Robert Diamond: So we relaunched the public-facing website early on. We rebuilt our entire back end with a number of cool new features, and then we launched all of these separate little new businesses, which are happily touch wood or or touch my head or I'm touching my I'm touching my head too. Thank you.

[13:30] Robert Diamond: So uh probably the first thing we launched was Broadway World Events, which um is helping concert partners from Seth Rudetsky to Birdland and 54 Below and other stream events, and we've sold almost 100,000 concert streams at this point, and Seth Rudetsky is as we know is like the energizer bunny is is still going and just announced two more months worth of concerts.

[13:55] Robert Diamond: Coming out of launching Broadway World Events, um we realized how artist-centric it was, and how suddenly artists were working from home, they were seeing the value of their own time.

[14:06] Robert Diamond: Some of them were just to put money back in the hands of artists that desperately needed a paycheck. Um, but what was common across everybody was the desire to do more.

[14:17] Robert Diamond: So from that, we launched the Broadway World Store, which sells merchandise. A lot of it is charity focused. We have a whole uh line for the Actors Fund.

[14:27] Robert Diamond: Um, we have other lines that benefit other charities, and we've allowed artists to design their own merchandise. So everybody from Patty Mirror to Alice Ripley to Courtney Reed have all designed their own merchandise.

[14:40] Robert Diamond: And we're continually doing fan art contests as well that are, you know, Broadway centric, Broadway, you know, we love Broadway, bring back Broadway, which always have a charity focus to them.

[14:51] Robert Diamond: And then we launched the Broadway World Stage Door. So I think one of the things that we're gonna see evolving in the Broadway world, no pun intended, as we come out of the pandemic is going to be the stage door experience. It would be my guess that that's not going to be back on day one. Um, and that artists in general during this time have learned the value of their own time, have learned that they need other ways to monetize that time during busy times, during lean times, and during terrible times like this pandemic. So Stage Door is um a little similar to services like Cameo that allow people to book shout outs, but we go further than that, and that you can also book one-to-one classes, you can book master classes, you can book other virtual experiences, and every artist that has registered with us is able to pick a charity of their choice and to designate a portion of uh the ticket price or their fee to that charity.

Um, which kind of leads to Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS because so many people do support that charity. And you um you worked, I think you were lead producer, weren't you, on um From Stage to Screen and Back Again um which benefited Broadway Cares?

[16:03] Jan Svendsen: Yes from here, oh geez, from year maybe three to 10 of Broadway World, we did about 25 concerts at Joe's Pub to benefit Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS. And then sort of moved out of the concert space uh just because of everything else we were doing at the time but maybe we'll get back there for the 20th anniversary. Speaking of philanthropy, um we've worked together for the last four plus years um because Broadway World is the official media partner for Charity Buzz and Prizio, which is part of the charity network where I work on my day job. And you have graciously given us media exposure for all the online auctions and sweepstakes that we do to benefit some very important causes. And I just wondered you know obviously we've been talking now about charity and philanthropy but your upbringing were you raised to sort of be philanthropic do you and Jen support causes personally is this something like you make a conscious decision about or is it things just kind of come to you and you go yeah that sounds really good I want to support that but how do you have how have you integrated or how is philanthropy integrated into your life?

[17:15] Robert Diamond: All of the above so I think from an early age in school um I was part of a a gifted and talented education program that of course you were um that amongst other opportunities always had a giving back component of it. So from early on, I think I was raised by my parents and and raised by my community that there was multiple ways to give back, be that with time or with money. And that's continued to this day. So one of the things that Broadway World has allowed us in having this traffic base of many million visitors a month is how can we shine a spotlight on causes and people and organizations that are working to give back? And though, you know, my wife and I are always either donating money to different things, both locally and nationally and politically, I think getting the word out to theater fans and theater industry insiders and to the community at large is something that has a much stronger contribution than anything I would have the means to do ourselves.

So it's been something that that sort of day one we tell we work with our staff on that actually post all the wonderful news and features all day that you know the things we prioritize are of course, you know, big breaking Broadway news, but that important causes and important organizations are just as important. And I feel on on many days or occasions we can have more of an impact there than we can just being one of many sites covering, you know, a Hamilton or or whatever the big show at the moment is.

[18:49] Jan Svendsen: You know, it's interesting because as a digital media platform, I think about you know how you make an impact in the world of philanthropy. And you just mentioned with your fans, so it's it's sort of motivating them or inspiring them or at least giving them the information about things that are happening in the charitable world. But what about with shows specifically or with thought leaders in the community or with other um theater-related charity organizations? How do you how do you feel that like having this digital platform allows you to amplify, you know, their messaging? Or, you know, even this year with all the social activism um that's going on.

[19:28] Robert Diamond: We've always said that we're a part of the community, and as the years have gone on, what's that what's that has meant, what that has meant, English is good, has evolved. Um so I think to be part of the community now means something different than when I would say that, but not really know what it meant back in 2005 or 2006.

[19:48] Jan Svendsen: What do you think it means now?

[19:49] Robert Diamond: No, it means being a more active partner. So always we would say yes to charities that said, can you help us promote this? But now we're going out more proactively saying, we see you're doing this, how can we help? Or we see you're doing this. Here's how we can help. Here's things that we can do, which we know work that either minimize your labor involved or take advantage of our resources, or if you have a limited capacity to produce things, can use our on air talent from Richie Ridge to Ben Cameron and can use our technical tools and the various things that we've launched. So we've become, as with many things this year, more proactive instead of reactive.

[20:29] Jan Svendsen: Do you have an instance of something like you're really proud of that you you all worked on and either were proactive about or or lent your your abilities and your platform to uh it's it's on a daily basis, so it's it's hard to think of one thing. I mean, just uh a week and a half ago, probably the most recent thing is one of our launches, it was is called Stage Mag, which is a digital show program that's mobile phone optimized. And amongst the first people we reached out to for that um were high profile charity events. So we built one for the LISA's 75th birthday concert, which I saw raised more than $20,000 for the actors Fund last week, and we built the stage mag for them and with them. We helped them create it as a tool that actually promoted the broadcast before it happened.

So it had a countdown clock to it, it was promoted on the website. It was here are the artists, here's some extra bonus footage, which are all things that I think do have a place in an interactive show program. And that was a way that instead of just, you know, send us your press release, we'll run it. It was let us build this thing for you, let us help you with the broadcast, let's help you promote it and do good for the world.

[21:46] Jan Svendsen: You know, I'm thinking a lot about in my day job, it's about online auctions and online sweepstakes and strategic consulting, but this idea of the intersection of technology and philanthropy. And you and Broadway World really are that, you know, are part of that intersection. How do you how do you feel like you can discuss that? You know, like how does that how does that really manifest itself, I guess, is my question.

[22:12] Robert Diamond: Technology is all based on how you use it. So we try to use it as smartly as we can because there's so many things that you can do now. There's so many things you can anybody can build themselves with a blog or with a WordPress site that really we look at everything we build, which is still a lot of my day is spent either building things for us or driving the building of that. Is how can we make tools that are useful for us? And then how do we give them to other people to use in as big a way as possible? So for example, we had experience on our own with launching all these different sections of the website. And a section to us can be Broadway World London or Broadway World Sydney, and we launched an industry section, and then after meeting with you, it inspired us to create the charity corner.

So suddenly we could take all of the philanthropic causes and tie them together in a section of the website, we gave it prominence. And we saw through the use of data that people reading about one auction would then click on another auction. And it was good for us as a website, which likes to get people clicking to us and clicking through multiple things. But we saw how the technology that we use that says, you know, hey, you're reading an article about Hamilton, here's another article about Hamilton, or here's something a Hamilton alumni is up to could be used though if you're interested in a cause, or you have you know spare money for a high-value auction item, or you have a little bit of money that you want to contribute for a raffle of some sort. We can use that to make sure that if if what you land on is already closed or isn't the thing for you to get you into that funnel elsewhere?

[23:51] Jan Svendsen: I I think there's so many opportunities that we I'm sure you will develop because it's certainly not gonna be me, but this idea again of leveraging technology to do good. Um, I think, and it's not just about like as you said, amplifying the messaging, but it's a storytelling and it's the actual engagement and activation. And and I also think that in this year where there's so many, you know, social issues, your platform is so it's so important in helping to tell those stories and to change the world, which leads me to another question that I've been asking all of my guests lately. If you could wave a magic wand, what changes do you hope would happen in the theater industry when theater opens?

[24:34] Robert Diamond: I'm hoping that theater will continue its path of accessibility in every meaning of that word, so making it easier for people to see theater, be that in New York or locally at affordable ticket prices, that's uh accessible because you're seeing yourself and your stories and stories that inspire you on that stage, and that's taking further advantage of all these streaming things that we've learned during this this strange time to let people that can't see stuff in the theater because of time or money or location get some sense of the experience through streaming that then will lead them into uh future live productions as time, money, and geography allow. I saw the news today that Diana has announced their official date in October, and they're doing it um simultaneously with the launch of their streaming capture of the show.

[25:31] Jan Svendsen: Yes.

[25:32] Robert Diamond: So is that like do you think that's an interesting formula for um for a relaunch or for a launch, I guess?

[25:39] Jan Svendsen: Uh it's exciting because it's never been done before in that way. So there's been shows, you know, from Chicago to Phantom that have had movies made that most evidence has shown has not hurt the productions and has helped it. Um there's instances like Hamilton, which we don't really know what the effect will be yet on the live property uh from the streaming on Disney Plus. And I think this is a very interesting. I haven't seen the streaming show yet. I haven't seen the live show yet because it shut down before I got there, so I don't have any actual opinion on the uh art that's involved or or um hopefully it's great. But uh I think tapping into the Netflix audience that has fallen in love with the crown and uh hopefully people used Netflix's intelligent algorithms to be recommended a musical that maybe they wouldn't normally watch will motivate people to see that show, see other shows. And you know, any anytime somebody consumes uh theater related content, it's good for the Broadway world, pun intended.

[26:42] Jan Svendsen: I think that's true. And I think that you know, uh anything that you you read these days, anything that's coming out of the pandemic, you know, in terms of even working remotely, you know, these things are going to be carried forward probably for a while, and there'll be some kind of hybrid of you know, working remotely and going back to the office, you know, in person. Just like I think with with some of the material and the things that have been created during this pandemic for Broadway, they'll become this hybrid where you know, yes, we need to be back in that theater and have that in contact person and that connection with the theater going experience. But I think there will be a lot of things that continue um digitally that will enhance and um you know engage people in a different way.

[27:24] Robert Diamond: Yeah, and I think we've seen so many millions of people stream theater in so many innovative ways during this time that you can't just take that away from people. There will be an expectation there, and whether that turns into um, you know, I I I know Broadway HD's dream, which they've they've said publicly is to stream an opening night live from Broadway. So whether that helps things like that happen, whether it helps uh a high school stream their shows so grandparents can see it from whether they are, um, whether once people are back together and this evolves from four separate squares on a screen to one square um that we can all watch and consume and innovative things that are created for that medium or that extend a show online in some fashion. I I think I think the door is open for for all of those things.

[28:12] Jan Svendsen: Well, I'm excited to see what good things come out of all this. And I want to thank you so much for being a guest on Broadway Gives Back. It's been so great to catch up with you. I haven't seen you in a long time.

[28:24] Robert Diamond: I know. Look forward to having one of our long lunches together.

[28:27] Jan Svendsen: Okay. Let's see.

[28:29] Robert Diamond: Yes.

[28:29] Jan Svendsen: Let's get vaccinated and I'll see you soon.

[28:32] Robert Diamond: Great. Thanks for listening to this episode of Broadway Gives Back. Broadway Gives Back is part of the Broadway Podcast Network, produced by Dori Berinstein and Alan Seales with Brittany Bigelow, and music by Eric Becker at Broderick Street Music. Special thanks to my producing partner, writer, and friend, Jim Lochner, and to Katie and Yo at BPN, Julian Hills from the Bulldog Agency, the Charity Network, and to my fiance, Glenn Weiss, who is always my consultant. If you like what you hear, don't forget to subscribe and rate this podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. You can also follow Broadway Gives Back on Facebook and Instagram at Broadway Givesback Podcast and on Twitter at Broadway Gives. To learn more, visit BPN.fm slash Broadway Givesback.