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[0:03] Mason Bray: Welcome back to Real Talk with me, Mason Bray. Thank you so much for being here this week. I am so excited to bring you along for this interview, which is with someone very close to me now, just after this conversation, but also from my hometown, which is so wonderful to get to connect with him about that. And I hope that you enjoy this episode. If you want to hear more from me and my show, you can join me on socials at underscore real talk underscore pod on Instagram and Twitter, and then on TikTok, it's Real Talk Podcast. Now into the episode.

[0:38] Mason Bray: So we have DJ Martin, who is a founding partner at Bond Theatrical, who is one of the amazing marketing companies behind Broadway shows on tour and on Broadway. And I am so excited to have him here, not only because of his wonderful career, but he is also from my exact hometown, which I have people from down the road in Evansville, but it's not often that we get people from Boonville that I get to talk to. So I'm so excited to have him here. Hi DJ.

[1:04] DJ Martin: Hey, hey, Mason. So good to be here. Um it's just this is super exciting. I was thrilled when you reached out. And like you said, there are not very many of us from the Boonville, actual Boonville area that are still in the theater. There's a couple of us, but not very many of us. So um it's super exciting to get to talk to you today.

[1:28] Mason Bray: Yeah, thank you for being here again. And we were talking about this before, but um you had asked what part of town I was in, and most people are just like, what area of Indiana are you in? And I'm like, Oh, I'm down at the very bottom. Right. But like I was able to tell you where I lived, and that's literally like probably down to the block.

[1:45] DJ Martin: Yeah. No, it's great. It's great. Uh I usually have to say if they don't know Evansville, I'm like, well, do you know this like place like Holiday World? I live like 20 minutes from there. Like, oh yeah, I've heard of that. They're from the Midwest at least. You gotta pinpoint like something, like two hours away from Louisville.

[2:01] Mason Bray: Right. Exactly. Because it's the middle of nowhere. You would wonder why would people grow up here? I often wonder that still today. But uh there's people who move here, and I'm like, how does it make some choose here? Why? Why? They must be like, you know, cutters or something. With all due respect, Boonville. I'm sure if there are people from Boonville listening to this. And there's been some great improvements. There's been great improvements. Although um, you know, Mr. Christmas, he's really made that the downtown area look great.

[2:34] DJ Martin: Downtown hot, that's like but the the square of the town square looking. Yeah, but I will say I was um Boonville. I was ready to get out from about the time I was six years old. So like that was always in the plan for me.

[2:49] Mason Bray: Yeah. And I love what I've been able to learn at Boonville, um and what I'm able to learn through our high school theater. Um, but I think that being here doesn't allow much opportunity for us to grow into a theater industry much more than um agriculture and even like general business, you have to go to Evansville. So I think for us it is better to move away. And I think that's okay. It's not like bashing the town.

[3:22] DJ Martin: No. Listen, the reality is there's lots of great things about growing up in Boonville. Um, but it also was very clear to me very early on that like what I wanted in my life and where I wanted to be, you know, wasn't that wasn't the place, right? But that being said, um, you know, going to Boonville High School gave me the opportunity to meet this amazing, incredible woman who has been so influential in my life, um, who was for many, many, many, many years the theater director at Boonville High School, Judy McNeely.

[4:00] DJ Martin: And um, you know, I met her when I was in sixth grade, and she was a huge piece of my life. Um, because as anyone who's in the uh Let's Be a True 950 knows, uh, when you are in theater at Boonville, you commit your whole life to it for like a good six months out of the year, um, between the play in the fall and the musical in spring, um, and then all the other little projects we do, and then if you're in theater class at that time, we had theater. I don't know if that was still something they offer at the high school, but we actually had a class during the day, and you know, it's like that was our whole life, and that was our group.

[4:39] DJ Martin: And the exact same way it's portrayed in so many different films and and theater productions and books and novels, like the the theater community becomes your family. And what I learned when I left Boonville, Indiana, and the high school and that world, is that that sense of community and camaraderie and that togetherness, that bond, if you will, um, that you get in theater that I found when I was in high school, exists in any different plateau of that art form. Um, very much the Broadway community is a very close-knit group of people. We are all we're all friends, we know each other, we are part of each other's lives.

[5:32] DJ Martin: My business partner is my best friend, and you know, we the producers and the other colleagues that work in the industry. You spend so much of your life with those people that they just become they become your world. And that followed me through college, that was the case. Um, and it was every sort of step I took to that took me to my path to New York that resonated, that consistency was there.

[6:01] Mason Bray: Yeah, and I'm so glad that you brought up Judy, because if you didn't, I would have. Um she has been volunteering and helping us clean out like the costume closet and our backstage to get everything organized. Um fantastic. But the night that she comes to see our show, everyone's like, oh my god, Judy McNeely's here. Everyone do your best. Right. Um, and we told her that, and she was like, I don't want to be scary.

[6:27] DJ Martin: She's great. She's great, she's not scary at all. She's great. I think we talked about this uh, you know, a little bit before too, but I also love that you know just like in Booneville, Indiana, and just like in where I went to college, Millikan and and New York, you know, traditions continue. And like I remember talking about how I was so amazed to see the circle up before I think it was like the most recent production of Boomville or some recent production of Boomville, it was on like Insta Reels or somewhere. And maybe Facebook. And they they were singing the song, and I was like, oh my gosh, it's the song. This song is the exact same song that we sang 25 years ago, and it was it was it was really cool to see how even though I haven't been to you know Boonville High School Auditorium in probably two decades. There's still a connection there.

[7:22] DJ Martin: There's still a um a connectivity that we sort of passed down, right? And I have a I have a huge connection to that school too. Um as does my whole entire family because between theater, all three of my so I'm the youngest of three boys. We were all very much involved in theater, more so my the middle brother Drew and myself, very much in the 90s. We were all like the very, very a big piece of it. Um and then we were also in the band program, so we were very much part of that. So that whole section of the school, the music department and the theater department, was sort of like that was our stomping ground for the better part of a decade.

[8:05] DJ Martin: Um and I don't know where I was going with that, except that uh it was really fun, and Judy really was like the ringleader, and she created that world and that environment where you just you felt like you belonged, no matter how different you might be, right? And I think anyone can relate to that feeling like an outsider looking in. But I especially, you know, growing up as a homosexual in Indiana that was part of Main Street Debs Church, it was like I always felt like very much an outsider, and Judy was the first to not make you feel different, one of the first. I had lots of great influences in my life, including my my family and my parents, but Judy was the first person who I felt like saw me and let me just be me, and that was that was hugely influential in those those years of my life as I was trying to figure it all out.

[9:02] DJ Martin: And I think that we share a lot of the same um feelings there with having theater be able to connect us back to ourselves and like figure out who we are and not hiding for people in other classes. I've often been told that like my personality changes from fourth period to going into the auditorium.

[9:21] Mason Bray: Yeah. Right. And that circle up is so special. It's been special my entire life since I did junior cast for Annie Get Your Gun. And I'm so glad that um you were able to see that, not only because I run the social media, but um Oh, that's so cool. Haha, I didn't know that. Um you said that and I was like, I wonder where he saw it. But the message of that song is that we're all together and we're friends forever. I'm not gonna give away the entire song. But also like that feeling of belonging was sort of the gateway into theater, and then and then when you're in you realize what theater actually can do and storytelling and the the worlds you can create in your head and on stage and off stage and and um the way you can sort of really step into other people's shoes and live different lives and become more empathetic and gosh darn our world produced some empathy.

[10:15] DJ Martin: So it it really did open up a whole store that allowed me to find my passion and you know at first I thought I wanted to be on the stage and it took me three years in college to realize that um I didn't really want to audition the rest of my life. Um, that wasn't it wasn't as important to me as I thought it was, you know, when I first went out into college. But I finished my theater degree and also got a degree in advertising and PR. And then I was like, back in the day, and I know you probably can't even well, not even probably I'm for certain, like, do not understand what this world means. But there was a time when we didn't have internet. It's like crazy.

[11:00] Mason Bray: What?

[11:01] DJ Martin: I know, but it's true. And when we did have internet, which is about the time that I was in junior high, is when that really first started. Um, it was like crazy slow dialogue, and it was made all these funny noises. But anyway, um, so I remember seeing a touring production of Phantom of the Opera at the Fabulous Fox in St. Louis. And in the back of the playbill, it said national press representative. And I was like, I don't have any idea what that is. But it's the first time I had like seen that caption, and then I went and saw Rent. It was Rent in Louisville, and I saw that block again in the back of the playbill, and it said TMG.

[11:44] DJ Martin: And then right about that time is when you could actually start searching for things. It wasn't Google yet, but there was search engines. And I looked up this TNG, and it was this marketing company in New York City. It was called the Marketing Group. Um, although actually that's not later on, many years later, I learned that it's not what the original letters stood for. That's just what they like changed it to be very clever. So I reached out to the office manager at this company and said, you know, I want to move to New York, I'm graduating from college. Um I'd love to do an internship. So, you know, do you have anything available? And back then it was very common you would do internships for nothing. We would do them for free. It was like you did not get paid. They were all internships were unpaid internships. It's gotten a little bit better now.

[12:34] DJ Martin: But he was like, sure, if you want to move to New York, first of all, he wasn't like sure. He was like, he called me almost immediately and was like, Hi, my name is Michael. Uh you just reached out to me at TMG. He's like, I just got your resume. You seem perfect, like, I would love to offer you an internship. I'm just letting you know there's no pay, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, fine, fine, fine. Because I had been saving up for this. I was like, I'm ready. And he was like, by the way, I'm from Mount Vernon, Indiana. And he was like, I will absolutely give you this internship. Like, I am I can't believe we're neighbors, and this is so cool. From the same so again, like you never know who you're gonna run into or what connections you'll have with people, and those are sort of the the way you get your foot into the door.

[13:20] DJ Martin: There is no way I would have ever done I would have ever gotten where I got without my college degree, and there's no way that you could ever work in the theater outside of being on stage without a college degree. It's just it's impossible. That is like that is a without that, you don't even get like the resume doesn't even get on the desk. So that's like uh a not withstanding, and then from there, it's like okay, are you the right fit? Or is there something that like collab what kind of collaboration can happen here? But the thing that also I was saying for college, because you just mentioned it sort of at the beginning, was that like you don't know anything living in the hometown that you live in, and it's only, it's only, you know, it is a step towards like breaking out into the world, but with some restraint to it, right?

[14:11] DJ Martin: Because it's also an opportunity to really get to explore and learn. You know, they always say it's wasted on the young, but like the ability to go, I wish I could go back to college and like take all the classes that were electives that I didn't take that were like our fascinating subjects that I was like, I'm too tired of going to get another class. And now I'm like, oh, that would be so fun to do. But I will say in hindsight, I wish that I looked for really great performing arts schools. And at that time, I think even still, Milliken was a great school. It has great programs, and I really loved my time there. Um, and I have several friends from that time who are all very much involved in the theater, both on stage and off, and it's always really fun to see Millikan alum.

Um, but you know, the town that Milliken is in is not great. And I will say I wish I would have paid a little bit more attention to the community as well as the school, because I think that's important, especially when you're like taking this first big step out. That being said, I'm also really glad I didn't move to like New York City to go to college because that's too much. Like you need like that's that's overwhelming, and you're not gonna focus on school. You need to have like some boundaries there, but also getting out of the Midwest is not a bad thing.

[15:32] Mason Bray: Yeah. So after you got that internship, what were your steps to now being one of the owners of Bond Theatrical?

[15:39] DJ Martin: Yeah, being a company owner, um, which was never a goal of mine. I was never like, ooh, I want to own a company someday. So I interned. Well, I interned for three months at that company, DMG. And while I was interning, I was showing apartments for a real estate agency based out of the Empire State Building, which was awesome because I learned the entire city in like a week. Um, just doing all of this, you know, show just going around showing people different apartments for rentals, right? Um, and that way the real estate agents didn't have to show everything to everybody, and I would get like a little cut of it, it was totally great, and I had very flexible hours and it worked for everything I wanted to do.

So I was seeing theater all the time every night on TDF, going to a bunch of Broadway shows, and I was, you know, working 20 hours a week at TNG and doing about 30 hours a week at this real estate agency. And four of us living in a studio apartment in the basement of a building in the West Village. It was crazy. Um, totally nuts. Four people in a studio, but we made it work, and we were all sort of like starving and living on ramen and enjoying life. As one does, as one does, and then so we I was there for about four months or so, three or four months, and then there was a job opening uh at a PR firm, and I had applied and got interviewed and had gotten a job, and so I had left the internship a little bit early, but they were totally fine with it.

They were like, that's great. You got something that it's amazing, and and it's incredible because that that company at that time would have people in it that would become hugely influential in my life, and I had no idea back then, right? That that they would.

[17:28] DJ Martin: Um so I went off to work at this this off-Broadway Broadway PR company, and I was there for three years, and I did a lot of off-Broadway things. One of my favorite shows that I did there for a few seasons was Forbidden Broadway, which is so funny, and then after about three years, there was a new marketing company being opened, and it was a Broadway marketing company, and they also do tours around the country. Market Broadway tours. And the woman who is like heading this company up was the director of the touring division of TMG, the place that I interned. And she knew me, and she needed some she had somebody who was leaving and she needed somebody. And so she'd reached out to see if I would be interested at all.

And I was totally interested, and I was like so nervous that I had no idea what I was doing. It turns out like I was like, I really was ahead of the curve, and it was a great experience. And so I the company named there was Type A, and I ended up working at Type A and actually running that company at a certain point for about eight years. Yeah, eight years. And at a certain point, the owners of Type A had just decided they no longer wanted to run this company, and so they were gonna dissolve it. And when that happened, I had four two I had four shows open Fiddler on the Roof, Anastasia, Dirty Dancing, and the band's visit. And I had these four running shows, and my company was closing, and I had to make a decision.

And I could either go somewhere else, I could stop doing this work altogether, do something else, work in a Broadway ad agency or leave theater altogether, which a lot of people were doing. And instead, I decided, you know what, I'm gonna start my own company. And I found some really amazing colleagues that I had always wanted to work with, but we didn't actually work in the same place, and they were looking for a change, and so we decided we would want to we created a uh Broadway marketing company. So we do Broadway shows and Broadway shows that go around the country on tour, which is really huge, actually. It's a massive network of theaters around the country that present Broadway tours. But I also knew that there was a component missing from the company that could be really useful, um, and that was to have a booking agency.

So the agency part that actually works for a lot of Broadway shows and is responsible for booking them in the figuring out how to route it all over the country and make that most effective. And that there was room for that in the sort of Broadway ecosystem, and I was right. And so, you know, we opened our doors July 1 of 2016, and we were able to stay afloat during the pandemic, and now we have a staff of 22, and we have an incredible roster of amazing shows, and we're having a lot of fun. It's been an enormous amount of work coming from the pandemic. We've it's sort of like we haven't left production mode at all since April of 2021, which was when we really started gearing up for the relaunch of Broadway, and it kind of hasn't stopped, and it's been a huge struggle, but it does feel like we are starting to come out of the darkness a little bit, and I think you know it's been very challenging, but we're better for it, and we live in a different world and we're creating a different world, and that's really exciting too.

[20:51] Mason Bray: Yeah, and I assume as like a company coming back through this pandemic, you've learned a lot about keeping actors safe and all the crew and company safe, but also new ways to get audiences to come to the show and feel safe going to the theater again, which is so important. But as an agency who focuses on marketing and other things with booking, as you were mentioning, what is your job as a company?

[21:21] DJ Martin: Um so it it can vary um show to show, right? Like I was recently kind of explaining this to a a newer staff member of ours, but you kind of think of every show as like a start because everyone is just a little bit different. Nothing is ever so cookie-cutter. But in general, be it on a Broadway show or a tour, my job is essentially um, and what my company does is essentially we are like marketing directors. We are the head of the communications cog. Um, and there's a lot of pieces to that, right? So that's advertising, that's social media, that's publicity, promotions, community outreach and engagement. And within advertising, I'm talking about traditional outreach, like TV, limited print, direct mail pieces, radio, uh e-blasts, and then and then digital, over-the-top media, um, out-of-home media, things like that.

So that all fits. So then we can take on varying roles. So for example, on The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, which I've worked on for many, many years. I've been on Phantom since 2008, in some capacity with another. And it was my very first tour I ever saw uh that I remember. Apparently, I went to Annie, and that was my first tour, but I don't remember it. Uh my very first tour I saw, it was my first Broadway show I saw with Judy McNeely when I was 17 years old, and it was the first time that she brought a Boonville group to New York. And we'll be there in June.

[23:00] Mason Bray: Really?

[23:01] DJ Martin: Oh, I would love to see everyone. That would be so fun. That's so exciting. So we could so on Phantom, we do partnerships, and we really focus on uh marketing partnerships around the brand. And it's been really fun because we've had these really cool tent pull moments in Phantom's life, with Phantom being the longest running show ever, that have given us opportunities to do really fun things. So, like for the 25th anniversary, we had this really amazing partnership with the Empire State Building. You can look it up on YouTube, where we our party after the show was in the Rainbow Room, which is the Rockefeller Center, and you we have a big switch and uh massive stereo system in that in the rainbow room.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron McIntosh, the producer, pulled the switch and the lights went out in the room, and it played the the overture, right? The whole overture, and the lights of the Empire State Building are timed to the music. So it actually does a whole light show to Phantom. And I mean, there were so many different components to this, including, you know, doing a helicopter ride the night before at three in the morning to film it during the rehearsal. So you could actually have this really amazing 3D film, uh 360-degree film, which we have, and which is what you can see on YouTube. But it was a huge show, and it got so much publicity. Um, so we should do fun things like that. We worked with, we did a a partnership with Fashion Week where we gave all these different high-end fat New York fashion designers masks, and they would decorate them in some different way, and then we would auction them off.

And there was like all these incredible masks that were made in this sort of partnership with Fashion Week. And then it made all this money from Broadway Care's Equity Five Saids, which is a huge organization that the theater community has rallied behind um for several decades now. Um and it gives back to people living with and and surviving AIDS as well as other health initiatives for people in the theater community um and artists. And so it was a way for Phantom to be back, but it also like gave us some this incredible exposure in a new sort of community that we don't talk to regularly. Um so we've gotten to do really fun set that so we do those sorts of things, and then we work on Broadway shows that go out on tour, and we are responsible for all of it from the advertising to the press to the social media and the um community engagement, and we have partners in theaters around the country that we work with all the time, and we help them with you know promoting the show in each of the cities that we go to.

So, like for example, we have shows that come to Evansville and we work with it's now Niederland National. It used to be jam theatrical slash SMG with present at the center, and so we we work with Needle International when we have shows come through, like we've had Anastasia come through and Blue Man Group and Cats and lots of things. It's always fun for me when I see Evansville on the roots.

[26:09] Mason Bray: Um and so we we work on that and we we can work and and sort of handle all aspects of marketing of Broadway show um in communities around the country.

[26:20] DJ Martin: I would love to go back through my playbook collection and see all of the times where it says Bond Theatrical, and I didn't even think I know. Yeah, there it is. Go have a look. Um I've been busy since I started working, so you'll I'll be in a few episodes.

[26:34] Mason Bray: Oh yes.

[26:34] DJ Martin: Um and I should have like talked to people more about um working with Bond because I told you this, but I worked with um some of your employees for a few interviews last year.

[26:47] Mason Bray: Mm-hmm.

[26:48] DJ Martin: And it was like, okay, Bond Theatrical, this is a great company. They were very great. And well done. So I had talked to Judy McNeely about doing the podcast, and she was like, Oh, you should look up DJ Martin. So I like wrote it down, and I was like, okay, I'll I'll revisit that. But I was watching um Diana, and I saw in the credits it said Bond Theatrical DJ Martin. And um you put the two together. I was like oh my god.

[27:16] DJ Martin: Southern Indiana was uh that's funny you bring up Diana. Diana was special, love it or hate it. Love it. Um it was a love it. I mean, me especially. I'm a I'm a huge Dai Fana, and I it coined the term Daifana. Um so hashtag me. Um but I you know Diana has been in my life, so I was started working on Diana, or the marketing director on Diana. And I started working on Diana um when it was in its first reading phase. And Gina DeVall was Diana, but everyone and Judy um Judy was the queen, and Aaron Davy was Camilla. But everyone else, for the most part, was different. Uh so and that was in 20017, maybe that that happened.

[28:04] DJ Martin: And so I was part of it from its and I had worked with Chris Ashley and Kelly Devine and the producers of Diana on Escapes Margarita. And so this is our second show, second big show like this together out at La Jolla. And so it was like having again your whole family together, and you're gonna work on this new project. And you know, Diana was very, very different in its early stages. Um, they made huge changes to that show that were just it really brought it to life, were incredible. And so, you know, going from La Jolla to then Broadway, and I remember when we finally were in previews on Broadway, and it was March 13th, 2020, so we started March 9th, I think is actually when we started previews if I go back and look.

And I remember hearing the first like the first time that there was like this clump of cops happening in the theater, and people were just really starting to talk about. I mean, I think that by like late February, we were all very aware of some sort of like pandemic-y thing happening, but we had also had so many false alarms before that Americans and I I remember New Yorkers when we would see like people in the subway with masks on, we were like, 'What is the matter with you? You're crazy!' And then Broadway shut down, and everything just halted. And it, you know, I think the pandemic destroyed Diana, frankly. And it was it was hard to come back from that. Now we did some pretty fun things, and I will say, like, again, it really made the show truly part of that whole time of my life because during the shutdown, Diana went back into rehearsal, and they worked on the show more.

They did a Zoom workshop in June. They went back and worked on it again more, and then I remember Beth called me, Beth Williams, who's a producer on Diana, one of the producers, called me in mid-May, and said, I have a crazy idea, I want to run a buy. He's like, Netflix is dying for content. They want to, they want to get back out there. And as you know, Frank Marshall has really Frank Marshall, who's also a producer of Diana, and who is a prolific film producer. Um, he's done just a few shows that maybe you've heard of E.T., Goonies. You know, it's incredible. He's one of the owners of Ambient Um Entertainment, which is the Steven Spielberg film company. And his wife, Kathle Kennedy, huge, huge Hollywood people.

Um, but really incredible producers, incredible people, human beings, um, and very connected to the film world. And so Beth was like, what if we created uh we brought the cast back and we filmed the show and gave it to Netflix? And at that time, we were all very clear that Broadway was not coming back until at least the summer of 2021 because we knew we had to have a vaccine, and we knew that the vaccine wasn't coming for another year. And so we were like, we're shut down. And so the idea at the time was we would go in, we would work on the changes, rehearse the show, record the cast album, which we hadn't done yet, and then go in for a period of like five days and film the show for Netflix.

And it would all be in a bubble, and nobody could be around the cast, and the cast had to all live in the hotel rooms, and like really treat it like a bubble. And that's exactly what happened. Um, they got it, they made a deal with Netflix, and they went to New Jersey and rehearsed for three weeks, and then they came into New York, and they were they had to quarantine, everyone had to quarantine for like a period of four or five days, and then you were in the bubble, and you couldn't have any communication or around anybody not in the bubble. And those are still pretty early days of COVID, and we still didn't know a lot about the disease yet. So there were a lot of extra precautions that are were sort of frivolous and not necessary now, but at that time we were still doing.

Um, and we had like the mask and the whole suits, like the hazmat suits, and we would those pictures, literally, the New York Times did a whole piece on it, of seeing the cast go from across like Ninth Avenue in these hazmat suits from the hotel to the theater to the long acre, and then um, and then they would go in and rehearse and and film the show. I went in to the so I quarantined the last week, had to do the quarantine period and went in for the last two days of the filming, and then we did a big studio photo shoot for the marketing materials for Netflix the day after the filming. So the four principals, Roe, Gina, Judy, and Aaron, um, all stayed, and we did tons of different photos in the different costumes.

So when you look at like the Netflix artwork, for example, that is from the photo shoot that we took on the stage. We created a seamless and just shot it on the stage during the shutdown. It was super fun. And then I got to work with Netflix for the whole launching of that, and the timing all got shifted for a whole lot of reasons, including, you know, the crown and when it was releasing, um, which is also Netflix. And so it ended up being that Netflix launched a month before we opened the Broadway production, which is never how we intended it to be. It was always supposed to be like a year apart. That didn't help anything either, because you could just go watch Netflix. Why would you go see a Broadway show?

And then it finally opened in November on Broadway, and Omicron hit, and it shut all the shows down. And Diana like barely had hung on and it played its last performance. And like we found out after that, I think that like four or five people had COVID in the casts. Um like it would have shut down the next performance. They would not have had the coverage that they needed to do the show, and so that was that. And then we you know it's immortalized in the incredible, incredible cast recording and the the Netflix filming. But the Netflix filming, as good as it is, just does not do the show justice. It was meant to see it, it was meant to be seen live and in person, and it was a very special show.

I became very close to Diana in the process, you know, of just really learning her life and all the research we did and getting to know her in a time that I, you know, I knew who Diana was, and I certainly remember the crash in Paris because I was in a freshman or sophomore in high school, so it was very much part of my memory. But I didn't know I didn't really know her story. I didn't know Camilla and how it was all set up and the whole thing. So it was it was a really fun journey, and I still listen to that cast album all the time. Love it. Love it. Anytime I put on my musical playlist, I move the finale if up to the very top.

[34:53] DJ Martin: Yeah. Automatically. If is one of the first songs that I mean, a lot of songs changed. If was always that song. There's a fun music video that we made of if we wanted to sort of highlight the urban feel. Like we there's no way we're gonna go over to London and film it, right? We had talked about that idea, and it was like, it's just too expensive. So we wanted an urban feel, so we knew we wanted to see the New York skyline, but we wanted it to have we wanted to sort of evoke the 80s music video style, right? Just some like nods to that that art form and that style of art form when MTV was really coming into its own and and and every song that was anything had an incredible music video. But the timing was such when we had all the assets to do that, we had the tracks, and we had the orchestrations, and we could lay them down that it was um and we were ready to go do this filming, and it was like November and unusually cold, like silly cold out, and we're out on the rooftop of this building in Long Island City and filming this music video, and like Gina, you can see her breath, and she's freezing, and we have all these like heaters outside trying to make it warm.

It's not working. And in fact, like you learn all the magic tricks, so she had to chew ice in between the chick takes. And if you make your mouth colder than the temperature outside in the air, you won't see the breath, and so it makes it look like it's in the middle of summer. So big big there's a trick, right? Uh Frank Marshall taught me that. I was like, oh my gosh, I just learned something from Frank Marshall about filming. Which is incredible because when you watch the video, it looks like it's the middle of summer at nighttime. It's not, it's freezing out. Um, but she like totally just nails it on that video, and it was great, and it was so much fun. She's incredible. She is totally incredible, and just the most gorgeous soul.

You couldn't ask for a more endearing and loving and committed leading lady. She was great. Um and you know, when Diana closed, it was super sad, but also all the cast went on to do incredible, wonderful things. Like the Diana Understudy is now our Nini in the Moulin Rouge tour.

[37:12] DJ Martin: I saw that in Chicago.

[37:13] DJ Martin: Oh, okay. Oh my gosh. That was that was very involved on Moulin Rouge and Chicago was again because of Omicron. I mean, it literally that story, like Diana closed. Our Nini that was on the tour had to go to Broadway because the Broadway Nini, the original Robin Herder, was pregnant, and she needed to leave. And so they took our tour Nini, like week before rehearsals, but then Liddy was available because Diana closed. And so she went in and auditioned, and like in 24 hours she auditioned, got the part, and went into rehearsals. And then we had to pause rehearsals for Omicron, and so it delayed everything in Chicago. But yeah, I was in, I mean, I was in Chicago between Moulin Rouge and Six, both launching their national tours in Chicago.

I spent many weeks in the Windy City this year. It was great because we the whole Diana community I would see in all sorts of different projects, and have you know worked with so many of them and different things, and there's some a few things coming up that that are I'm getting to work with a lot of them on, so it's it's really fun. And I have no doubt that there will be many, many reunion performances and benefits and all sorts of fun times when the Diana company will come back together.

[38:30] Mason Bray: Yeah, and I think I'm a registered Difana because when they when the Twitter account went on their following spree, they I was one of the first, and I will hold this as a badge for my entire life.

[38:42] DJ Martin: Love it.

[38:43] DJ Martin: I will the I will defend Ifana or Diana, oh my gosh. I will defend Diana forever. Um and that's not changing.

[38:51] DJ Martin: That's amazing.

[38:52] DJ Martin: Yeah, no, and like I said, I got to I have to be like part of four different versions of that show, and it was it was always amazing. I wish it was still around. Someday maybe it will come back.

[39:05] Mason Bray: I just have two questions to see if you were involved on two separate projects. So with Phantom, were you in charge of making Andrew Lloyd Weber a DJ?

[39:14] DJ Martin: Um I will say it was not my original idea. I won't take credit for that, but we did we were very involved in the execution of it. And it I have to say, like I was skeptical at first. I was like, really? Are we really doing this? And then it landed. It totally worked. And we had come up with so many different ideas. I mean, we had done all sorts of things from like simulcasting the whole production in different stations around the city where you could be outside and literally watch it, like sitting in Times Square and watching it on the jumper trunks screen from you know just all sorts of different things from like blasting it up on the side of the Brooklyn Bridge and things like that. But ultimately, that wasn't realistic, and and the idea of having Andrew out there with those headphones on DJing after the show was brilliant.

[40:08] DJ Martin: And if you ever look if you ever Google Phantom returns from like COVID or whatever, and you see um a photo of the entire audience with the phantom masks on, my husband and I are right there in the center, right on the front.

[40:24] DJ Martin: So like we have been shown up because that has come up now several times, especially with the closing of Phantom. Um they keep using that photo. So we we keep getting some national coverage.

[40:35] Mason Bray: Yeah.

[40:38] DJ Martin: Um second scenario that I want to ask about with the entire marketing for Diana, was it your company that put Charles on a trash can as a poster?

[40:50] DJ Martin: Yes, it was. Uh yes, it was. Um and it wasn't just Charles. They all got their due. But and we called those big bellies. I think it's just a nice way of saying trash can in Times Square. But we definitely our research has shown us, and it was so funny because at the shutdown, the last work thing I did before the shutdown happened was we were doing focus groups with Diana. Like the last thing I did was sitting in the ad agency doing focus group and listening to these people who respond to having seen the materials and then seeing the show. And what we learned was that while Diana wasn't necessarily a theater aficionado show, right? It wasn't like the upper echelon of theater people necessarily, Manhattanites still did gravitate towards it.

And tourists were gonna love it because it's a known brand. And so we really wanted to look for different ways in what we call the um bowtie, which is Times Square, when you look at the if you were looking at it from the aerial view, it kind of creates a bow tie where the where Broadway intersects seventh. And so we call that the Times Square Bowtie. And so we wanted to come up with different ways to advertise in the bowtie.

[42:01] DJ Martin: And now we have even new new units in Times Square, like the link uh digital boards that are on the sides of like the little bodega shops and things. We didn't have a lot of those quite yet uh before the pandemic, and so we did the big bellies, and all those photos came from that photo shoot we did uh in the shutdown on the stage.

[42:23] DJ Martin: Yeah, I sure answered someone on Twitter um stole one of them after the show closed.

[42:28] Mason Bray: Oh yes, I remember following all of that very closely.

[42:31] DJ Martin: I thought it hilarious. There was like videos of it showing up in Gina's apartment. I was like, what is going on? And we ended up giving like a lot of the all the actors got posters from all of those out of those outdoor units. But it was very funny uh watching all of that happen.

[42:48] DJ Martin: I mean, when we announced that we were closing, the gloves were off, all bets were off. We just had fun, and we were like being crazy on social media, and it was a blast, and you know, I just I wish we could have had a lot longer, but we had a great time while we were here.

[43:03] DJ Martin: Specifically, one of the best things that was on social media that I think was deleted was the drinking game.

[43:09] Mason Bray: Oh yeah.

[43:10] DJ Martin: Yeah, I talked to I don't know if it wasn't deleted.

[43:13] Mason Bray: That's fine.

[43:14] DJ Martin: I thought it was deleted. I had talked to the graphic designer at Marathon Digital about Diana and all that kind of switchcraft designer.

[43:23] Mason Bray: Carrie.

[43:23] DJ Martin: Oh yeah, sure. Yeah. She's great. Um we didn't do an interview because she wanted to stay more low-key at Marathon because she didn't know what she was able to talk about. Um but sh we talked about the drinking game, and she said I think she said that they had to take it down because they didn't want people to like actually follow it.

[43:40] Mason Bray: Right.

[43:41] DJ Martin: Right. Because it was like drink every time you hear the F-word.

[43:45] Mason Bray: And F you dress says it like 30 times.

[43:48] DJ Martin: Yes, it sure does. And on Netflix, of course, they so they recorded, I I think they ended up recording like four different versions of that song.

[43:55] Mason Bray: I'm correct.

[43:56] DJ Martin: Because there's the original version, which is the word, and then that was gonna apply for Netflix because they wanted it to be PQ thirteen at the worst.

[44:04] Mason Bray: And so for Netflix they did, which is funny.

[44:10] DJ Martin: Or the Queen does that a few times.

[44:12] Mason Bray: And then they did Fecity, right?

[44:14] DJ Martin: The Fecity, Fecadi, Fecity, Fecity, Fecity, Fecity, Fetty, Fecity, Fickity, Fecate, Fecate, Fickini, Fickity. Uh, which is funny.

[44:20] DJ Martin: And there was also there was another version that was recorded too. I can't remember what they had done in place of it. Anyway, hilarious. But yeah, there's many versions. If you saw the show live though, you got the full the the real McCoy.

[44:33] Mason Bray: I I want to see that first version.

[44:35] DJ Martin: Yeah.

[44:36] Mason Bray: So bad.

[44:37] DJ Martin: We'll we'll talk.

[44:38] Mason Bray: We'll talk.

[44:39] DJ Martin: But getting more into so I had mentioned Marathon Digital. Um and that wanted me to, or led me to wanting to talk about how do you work with other agencies as well, because they focus more on social media, but finding a way to branch out those um so and again it's all it's all relationships too, right?

[44:56] DJ Martin: So Mike Carnes, who is the um creator of Marathon. So Mike and I are really close friends, and we he was interning at the same office floor uh when I was starting at type A many years ago, and so we knew each other around the watering hole then, and he went off and did his thing, and I went off and did my thing, and then we found ourselves both at the same time starting companies.

[45:20] DJ Martin: We both started um our companies right around the same time. Uh and he's amazing, and he is such a visionary, and I love love working with him. So on shows like Diana, on Diana, I I acted as the marketing director, and in that role, I'm really responsible for being the direct conduit to all the producers, and on Diana, there were one, two, three, four, five, six, six, seven, seven producers on it.

[45:45] DJ Martin: Um, and so I liaise with those seven voices, and really make sure that like the ad agency and the social media content agency and the PR agency and promotions and partnerships agency are all like speaking the same language, and we're all saying the same thing, and we're all rowing the same direction, if you will.

[46:07] DJ Martin: And it's really just it's it's keeping us all on strategic point and make sure everything's getting done that needs to get done to launch a Broadway show. So in that way, I very much we are partners with Marathon, uh, and we work together to come up with the social content strategy and how to like and Diana is not the only show I've worked with on Marathon.

[46:25] DJ Martin: We've worked together on Escape to Margaretaville and Jesus Card Superstar and lots of other really great titles. Um we have some new things coming down the pipe that I'm really excited about with them. Um love, love, love them. They're great innovators, so I have no doubt you will have a wonderful conversation with Mike.

[46:44] Mason Bray: Yeah.

[46:45] DJ Martin: So there's been a lot of there's a lot of closures coming up on Broadway, which is not really a secret, but it's kind of sad because I want to see shows succeed. But a lot of the discourse on theater Twitter has been like pointing fingers at the marketing of shows and like the basis of that.

[47:01] Mason Bray: But for you, what does the future of Broadway look from a marketing standpoint, but also in order to be able to have shows have a longer residency on Broadway?

[47:12] DJ Martin: Listen, I think that there's it's important for us to realize that we have short-term problems and obstacles that we face, and we have long-term problems and obstacles we face.

[47:22] Mason Bray: Yeah.

[47:22] DJ Martin: And they're not mutually exclusive either. But one of the things we know is that during the pandemic, people lost the habit of going to live entertainment. They could consume entertainment in new ways that were that were less time consuming, that were more efficient in a daily schedule that allowed them to consume entertainment without having to be in a specific location.

[47:45] DJ Martin: They didn't make things easy for Broadway, no question. Coming back also had a lot of bumpy restarts. And the protocols that were put into place for all the right reasons to keep people safe are incredibly extraneous, and they are very financially difficult to manage, right?

[48:07] DJ Martin: When you used to have three or four swings or understudies with a production, now you have eight. That's four more salaries. But it's not just the salaries, that's four more salaries and four more sets of costumes and four more. Like it really adds up. It makes it a lot very expensive, right?

[48:25] DJ Martin: So opening shows during this endemic or the second half of the pandemic, or whatever you want to call the last two years, has been a real challenge that um that all of us frankly underestimated. We thought it was going to be hard, we didn't realize how hard it was going to be.

[48:41] DJ Martin: What we are seeing is that the road is incredibly strong. So when we talk about the road, we're talking about Broadway touring industry, uh, which is Broadway shows that play every city around the country outside of New York on some levels, from multi weeks to one nighters, right?

[49:00] DJ Martin: And what and across the board, we've seen great loyalty to those theaters around the country and and there's an appetite still for shows, right? Commercial shows. There is also during the pandemic a real awakening of a realization of just how racist American theater was.

[49:23] DJ Martin: And in the aftermath of George Floyd and the other deaths that the other tragedies lost during not only during the time of the pandemic, but the years we get to the pandemic, really just that whole shutdown and all of that coming together shined a light on our industry and opportunities for us to make real changes.

[49:44] DJ Martin: And those opportunities were offstage, backstage in all the different levels of the industry. And many, many things that started because of that shutdown in that period to be able to reflect are blossoming today, and there has been real change in the industry.

[50:01] DJ Martin: There also was shows that came to Broadway that absolutely deserved to be on Broadway, but didn't necessarily have the right mix of what is needed to be commercially viable, right? Like just because the show doesn't come to Broadway doesn't mean it's not good.

[50:16] DJ Martin: When you come to a Broadway house, you have to say, I am able to sustain at least 1200 and in many cases 1800 people a night to see this show. And can I do it or not, right?

[50:30] DJ Martin: And even before the shutdown, plays without stars, very difficult to work, right? Really challenging. Plays with stars, sometimes. Mega stars, yeah, great, awesome. You want to put Daniel Craig in a play, it's gonna sell out. Amazing.

[50:46] DJ Martin: But if you're just doing a play with very no record by the school names in it, very, very challenging. And so, you know, we had these incredible plays that were very focused on the BIPOC community, which were amazing productions and the artistry was incredible, but it did not have the runway or foundation that it needed to generate the audience that can keep that show sustaining night after night after night.

[51:17] DJ Martin: That's that's not gonna be a short-term problem. That is a audience cultivation. It starts now and we work at it now, but it's going to take many years for that to grow.

[51:27] DJ Martin: And so I think to answer your immediate question of like, where do I see that going? That is that is the big challenge in front of us, right?

[51:35] DJ Martin: Like Broadway will always be really nimble in how we advertise and how we communicate. But what I think we have in front of us is making sure that the doors are open and feel really welcome for all audiences and walks of life to come in, see themselves on their stage, be able to relate to the people who are sharing these stories, and walk away feeling renewed and fulfilled and like a better person and wholer.

[52:05] DJ Martin: Because if you don't leave theater feeling those sorts of things, you're not gonna drop the you know $100, the $150 for tickets, right? And so as international tourism rebounds and the city rebounds, Broadway's only gonna get stronger, and those things are are gonna work, and the shows that work are at an all time high, right?

[52:27] DJ Martin: Like Wicked and Langing and even Phantom Now is like doing incredible business. MJ and Moulin Rouge, like six, all the shows are doing great, and they're gonna be around for a very long time. The shows that would have had the challenge in the before times are really struggling.

[52:45] DJ Martin: When the ecosystem bounces back, that will be we'll have less of that, right? But there are yes, no question, there are going to be there are and will continue to be some casualties that in a different time would have had a stronger, healthier life in a theater.

[52:59] Mason Bray: That's fantastic. So as far as an entry-level person, I know that we talked about your way into the industry, but what are some what is the piece of advice that you would give someone wanting to get into the industry, say someone from Boonville?

[53:14] DJ Martin: Yeah, um first, you know, I would say next step is finding good programs to be in, or where wherever your whatever your major takes you, or whatever your next step is, like finding good programs to be part of that have tentacles to the major metropolis areas where theater is thriving.

[53:35] DJ Martin: And it doesn't just have to be New York because there are lots of places, like Chicago has an amazing theater community, Atlanta has an amazing theater community. LA obviously, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Hoya, right? There's lots of places where there's great theater is happening.

[53:50] DJ Martin: So be it college or these different nonprofit organizations, find a place and then intern, intern, intern. Because really the only way to really thrive in this business is to get your foot in the door and to make build relationships.

[54:08] DJ Martin: And the only way to get your foot in the door really is to do internships. And they're available, they're all over the place. The league has made the Broadway League has made huge strides in making various programs available all over the country.

[54:21] DJ Martin: There's lots of opportunities. Um, so um that is that is the single most easiest way to find your way into this industry is to.

[54:33] Mason Bray: Is there anything else that you want to add about your job about Bond Theatrical or about Broadway in general?

[54:40] DJ Martin: I would just say, you know, like the thing that is really incredible about you know theater and Broadway and New York City is its resiliency, right? It's it's incredibly resilient. There is a reason why this art form has lasted so long and continues to become like a a real staple of the 21st century, right?

[55:03] DJ Martin: More and more shows or movie musicals being made, more TV shows that have musical themes are out there. It's an art form that I don't think is ever gonna go away, and it's because of its resiliency, its ability to change with time, to be nimble, to learn from its mistakes.

[55:19] DJ Martin: In many ways, like the theater community is a breathing, living art form. And it you know, it's it's always growing and learning and changing. Um and being part of that journey is what makes it really exciting and fun.

[55:33] DJ Martin: Um be like you're doing something for me, makes you feel like you're doing something that's worthwhile and it's gonna be remembered. Um and that you get to sort of put your mark on.

[55:42] Mason Bray: Absolutely.

[55:43] DJ Martin: Um yeah.

[55:44] Mason Bray: Well, thank you so much for being here to be able to talk about that and share all of your wisdom.

[55:49] DJ Martin: Oh, it's my pleasure.

[55:51] DJ Martin: Super fun.