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[0:07] Gordon Cox: Welcome to Stagecraft, Variety's Theater Podcast, bringing you backstage and into the recording studio of the hottest shows on Broadway, Off Broadway, and on an audiobook platform near you.

[0:18] Gordon Cox: On this episode of Stagecraft, I'm talking to Kate Navin, the artistic producer at Audible Theater.

[0:24] Gordon Cox: That's Audible as in the Amazon-owned audiobook platform, which has, in the last few years, become a regular producer of theater both for stages and for earbuds.

[0:34] Gordon Cox: Audible has also partnered with Off-Broadway's Minette Lane Theater to stage new shows that are also recorded and distributed via Audible, with a lineup that's included Billy Krudep and Harry Clark, Carrie Mulligan in Girls and Boys, and Kate Mulgrew and The Half-Life of Marie Curie.

[0:49] Gordon Cox: More recently, Audible made news when it partnered with the Williamstown Theater Festival to make audio dramas of seven shows that would have made up the summer festival's 2020 season before COVID-19 disrupted everyone's plans for large gatherings.

[1:03] Gordon Cox: Navin is in the virtual studio with me to tell us all about how that deal came about and how she imagines Audible working in and with the theater industry through the coronavirus shutdown and beyond.

[1:14] Gordon Cox: Hi Kate, thanks for joining me.

[1:16] Kate Navin: Thanks for having me.

[1:18] Gordon Cox: So we're all wondering right now what theater is gonna look like over the next several months as we figure out how soon we'll be able to gather in large groups again and what those gatherings will look like. And it seems like the Williamstown announcement was something that offered one option for how theater can look in the kind of sort of near-term future as we figure all this stuff out. Um tell us a little bit about sort of how that partnership came about and whose idea it was.

[1:48] Kate Navin: Sure. I've been talking to Mandy for a while now. We've been looking for something to do together. And then as she was facing this is Mandy Greenfield, we should say the artistic director at Williamstown. Yes, and thank you, Mandy Greenfield from Williamstown. Um, and as the decision was approaching for what this summer was going to look like for Williamstown, she knew it would be different. She knew she wanted to figure out what might be possible in the face of what might become impossible, is right before the decision was ultimately made. And she honestly just called me one morning and said, What if we recorded the whole season on Audible? And I said yes. It was an easy yes. Um there. Mandy's got great taste.

She had put together a really exciting season, one that is a great mixture of classics and new work and familiar faces and new faces, which is a lot of what we it is what we're trying to do at Audible. Um we had already had the conversation at Audible about what we could do in this moment, keeping theater artists employed, keeping them working, uh, not just working for the sake of working, doing something artistically fulfilling. And so it felt like a perfect match. And we worked very quickly as she was as the countdown of having to cancel the season came to a close.

[3:06] Gordon Cox: Right. And we're some of the you mentioned some of the like familiar faces and then on some unfamiliar names with some new writers and some new talent. Um, but we're talking like there's a streetcar named Desire with Otter McDonald and Carla Gugino and Bobby Canavale, and then there are these five world premieres. Um have you started to answer questions like, how will these audio dramas sound? How will you do stage directions? Will there be a sound design? All that, all those questions.

[3:35] Kate Navin: We have started to. We are certainly not done with that process. Uh, for the world premieres, obviously there was a development journey that they are already on, and we are going to continue that journey. These are plays, and they will have a life on the stage as well. And so that development will continue, and then we will figure out what that audible production looks like as well. There will be sound design.

[4:12] Gordon Cox: And how do you yet know how and when people will record? Will they record presumably separately? Will they be recording at the same time so they can react off each other? I feel like there are all sorts of questions that are raised by this kind of new newish version of doing this.

[4:28] Kate Navin: The plan is to record when people can safely assemble again to do all of our work in preparation remotely. We will do all of the tools that everybody has been using to get there. Right. But we do assume that people will be able to be in a room together in groups of 10 or 20 much sooner than you can invite an audience into a space. Right. So it is our hope that we can do that this summer. Obviously, we don't know because the world changes every day, but we will record these in studio when it is safe to do so.

[5:05] Gordon Cox: And I imagine that was important to you and to them, just in terms of capturing the sort of live feeling of acting and of a performance in terms of having these people in the same room reacting off each other.

[5:18] Kate Navin: Yes, you know, it's so important to act together and be in a scene together.

[5:22] Gordon Cox: Yes.

[5:23] Kate Navin: Very important to everybody.

[5:24] Gordon Cox: Yeah. And so on your end, how are these productions, or do you envision these productions being different from kind of the more standard audible theater offerings? It seems like a lot of the stuff you guys have on Audible Theater is sort of, you know, a solo show that makes the translation to audio drama, uh, the leap to audio drama pretty um intuitive in terms of how uh you know, someone who's maybe not familiar with it can imagine a show, you know, moving into an audio drama. How how different is uh is this?

[5:57] Kate Navin: It's not that different from what the work that we've been doing, not all of it released yet. We have released some multicast dramas. Yeah. Uh it they are the conversations that we've been having, so it is a continuation of it. What's really unique about this experience is that slate mixture coming at once rather than having a conversation about a single property. Uh, we are having a cohesive conversation about what does look the same across the projects, what is unique and bespoke for each needs, uh, what the individual needs are on each. But this is territory we have been entering into already, um, both through our emerging playwright commissions and some things coming that you'll hear about.

[6:42] Gordon Cox: Right. And uh other theater festivals or producers or are other people in the industry sort of reaching out to you about uh something with similar ideas or similar talking about sort of similar thoughts in terms of looking ahead.

[6:58] Kate Navin: Yes. Um we're having a lot of conversations with producers with theaters. Nothing else that looks like an entire season at this point. But yeah, there's a lot of heartbreak around the abrupt stop that happened in March and then this continuation of the unknown. Um so we are talking about what role we can play within the community to preserve that work, to make sure that it didn't get lost, and or to also keep it top of mind for it to come back next season. Um so we're figuring out how we can best serve those needs in this moment. It's a pretty I feel lucky to be able to have that conversation.

[7:38] Gordon Cox: And in terms of audience access for specifically the Williamstown season, who how how would a listener go about uh accessing that?

[7:47] Kate Navin: There are a lot of ways to hear the uh our titles. The Audible Membership, which is you know, you get a credit every month to put you towards any title that you want. Um we also have what's we refer to as our member benefit, which is an additional choice of free titles every month, and you can choose two, and very often theater titles are highlighted as part of that. Many of our titles are part of that special promotion and get a lot of attention, and then you can anybody can come to our website and purchase a title a la carte at any time.

[8:19] Gordon Cox: Right. Uh and I imagine the theater uh Williamstown sort of uh kind of uh I'm not sure if they have subscribers, but their their usual sort of season sort of tick and holder space, uh an audience will also have sort of uh the special uh like their version of buying tickets for the season will this year being be buying tickets for or buying audio tickets for uh this audio season.

[8:45] Kate Navin: Yes, and we are going to give them you know, I don't know exactly how yet. Um figure this all will happen very quickly, but they're gonna have special access to the season. Um that is part of what we wanted to offer to Williamstown so that they can continue to speak to they call them their bundle ticket buyers.

[9:03] Gordon Cox: I see.

[9:03] Kate Navin: Uh we wanted to be able to continue to talk to them during this summer.

[9:08] Gordon Cox: Right. And let's talk a little bit about Audible Theater overall. What's your mandate as artistic producer?

[9:15] Kate Navin: So Audible Theater really started um out of a desire to make theater available to more people. I was brought in uh just over three years ago, and uh our founder Don Katz, who is an avid theater goer and a theater lover, said, how can we employ underemployed theater artists, make producing shows easier so that we're providing more opportunity. It's never gonna be easy, but what can we do to provide more opportunity in that space? Producing stage shows or producing audio dramas.

[9:47] Gordon Cox: Producing stage shows as well.

[9:49] Kate Navin: What what role can we play to make uh make it easier for other producers as well as us? What can we do for the industry?

[9:56] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[9:57] Kate Navin: Um, and then how do we get access for people who maybe can't get to New York? They can listen to it wherever they are, and it's not location dependent or date dependent if a if you miss a run, you can still experience it.

[10:10] Gordon Cox: Right.

[10:10] Kate Navin: So that remains the mandate today, and we do that in several ways, but at the core it is about making this this work available to more people in more places.

[10:21] Gordon Cox: And what kind of theater content, if any, did Audible have uh before you came on?

[10:28] Kate Navin: There were certainly titles here and there, and there are other, you know, colleagues like LA Theaterworks who certainly have a catalog and it is available on the website. Um, but really it wasn't an offering on the platform before I came.

[10:45] Gordon Cox: Right. And you were an agent before uh joining Audible. How did that background serve you in terms of what you do now?

[10:52] Kate Navin: It has served me incredibly well. Obviously from the obvious things of having relationships with artists and being able to call them and run ideas by them, but also bring them into the fold. But also I think that my role as an agent, I really saw it as a problem solver. I know that producers ultimately are trying to get the show up, and I know that artists need what they need. And so I have a lot of experience finding that middle ground. And that has served me well in this role when trying to play with different things and bring people to a new idea.

[11:23] Gordon Cox: Does your role at Audible kind of correspond at all with what we may think of as an artistic director role for, you know, uh a theater or a nonprofit or like Mandy's position in Williamstown or something?

[11:35] Kate Navin: Yes, that is the closest role. I just am not a director.

[11:39] Gordon Cox: Right.

[11:39] Kate Navin: And so often that is the assumption with that title that you are also going to direct some of the work, and a lot of them do. Um so producer, artistic producer felt more accurate for me.

[11:50] Gordon Cox: Yeah. And so tell us about the audience for audio theater content. Who are you finding seeks this stuff out? And who in particular is responding to it now that you're offering it?

[12:02] Kate Navin: It's been very exciting. Um, a lot of people are experiencing it, especially given that member benefit option. Um, we are finding, yes, the theater goers are showing up to listen to it and catch that show that they missed, but we also have this core group of book lovers who understand literature and understand great writing, who are trying it out and really responding positively. It's interesting to watch them watch meetings sort of in the member reviews. They can write in what they think of it. Some people sort of in a very inquisitive way saying this doesn't feel like a book, or this is more like a short story, trying to figure out what it is, but overall they're very positive about it. And then the best thing that I'm seeing is that these individuals who are sort of sticking with us and coming back every month for the next Audible Theater title are also starting to buy tickets to their local theater. We have received some comments along those lines, which is just thrilling to me.

[13:07] Gordon Cox: Yeah. And does the demographic look like the predominant sort of, you know, ticket buying demographic on Broadway and everywhere else? The sort of older white, often female.

[13:19] Kate Navin: It's we have a pretty diverse member base. Yes, we have that. You know, there are the commuting demographics in the urban areas and that might look similar, but we also have truck drivers that take really long drives and need entertainment in that place. We have, I mean, it really is a much more diverse, we have a more diverse political backgrounds that we find. Um, I think that we are starting to see a younger audience. We're starting to see that at the Mineta as well, which is exciting. So it's yes, and we are seeing these other audiences as well engage.

[13:58] Gordon Cox: What has been particularly popular for you? What shows have been particularly popular for you?

[14:03] Kate Navin: Uh, Evil Eye, which is one of our emerging playwright commissions. It's written by a playwright named Modery Schecker. Uh, really, really popular, won an Audio Award. It's really fantastic. Written for audio specifically. It's this great story about a mother-daughter, mother in India, daughter in the US, so they can only talk by phone. So it's a great medium to tell that story. And then The Half-Life of Marie Curie has been a real big hit on the platform. And that's Lauren Gunderson's commission that we produced at the Mineta with Kate Mulgrew and Francesca Faradani in the fall. And our members really love that too. They tend to love learning. This is a story about two women that they didn't quite know, this friendship. So it's been a big hit.

[14:51] Gordon Cox: Yeah, I was just gonna ask sort of how kind of discovery works for these shows, particularly these shows that are popular, like you mentioned Evil Eye, which is a thing that, you know, theater folks might not have heard of if they're not, you know, on the Audible platform.

[15:04] Kate Navin: Right. And vice versa. We've got non-theater going people trying out theater titles that they wouldn't have known about, and sort of so it is going in both directions, which is pretty exciting.

[15:16] Gordon Cox: And have you seen listener growth for this fare over since you've been doing it for the last few years?

[15:22] Kate Navin: Yes.

[15:22] Gordon Cox: And has it grown over the last several weeks?

[15:26] Kate Navin: You know, it's a changing world. I it's hard to speak to that sort of in this moment. I think we're all sort of figuring out what the world looks like. I'm certainly seeing an overall increase again in sort of the interest in the titles. Uh, it's a little, you know, it's hard to say much more at this point.

[15:43] Gordon Cox: Yeah. And what what are some of the obstacles for you? Or have been some of the obstacles in terms of producing this content and, uh, you know, sort of, you know, getting people to sort of pay attention to it once you do?

[15:59] Kate Navin: It's a great question. I think it's just the fact that it's new. And I think that that is sometimes hard for people to crack and decide, especially for artists who see their work and see their stories, you know, they decide to write it in a medium on purpose and sort of the conversation about adapting it, and not, you know, no, it's not that I've run against hesitation exactly. It's just more a question of can I do this? How do I do this? What's the vocabulary? Because it's relatively new. That's the biggest hurdle, and it's obviously being overcome.

[16:44] Gordon Cox: I'll have more with Kate right after the break.

[16:55] Gordon Cox: And now here's more with Kate Navin of Audible Theater. One of the things you mentioned, you alluded to the uh the commissioning program. Um, Audible, I feel like has a pretty notable commitment to new work, especially since I feel like new work kind of raises the degree of difficulty in terms of getting, you know, getting ears on it in terms of like if they've got this unfamiliar title with an unfamiliar, you know, writer, for instance, then uh you guys have to work a little harder to sort of educate consumers about what it is and why they might be interested in it. What explain to me the commitment to new new writers and new creators and new work?

[17:33] Kate Navin: The best news on that front is that that is where this initiative started from. That was Don Katz's priority. And so when the head of the company says, make this a priority, let's shine a spotlight, it is easier to get other teams to support it and easier to get marketing to sort of pay attention and talk about how to best elevate the material. That's where I've been lucky with my colleagues at Audible. Um, they've also been very supportive, you know, even without Don saying so, but that definitely helps. And um, the work is good. So that's always been helpful. And I wasn't surprised by it, but it was easy to share Evil Eye with colleagues and say, you know, listen to this, and they would get excited about it and say, okay, we've got to figure this out.

How do we make sure we get this in front of customers in a way that gets them excited and, you know, gets them engaged on it? And then the thing that I think we all sort of know, which is buzz and word of mouth helps a lot. So when something starts to get great reviews and starts to get attention on the website, it helps. And so I don't know if that answers the question exactly, but that's what it's looked like.

[18:46] Gordon Cox: Yeah. And what can you characterize a show that strikes you as a good fit for Audible? Is there sort of a, are there certain elements that kind of cohere across all the offerings?

[18:59] Kate Navin: What works great about the theater industry as a whole is that it is such a language-driven medium, and so something that is about the words to begin with is going to translate well into audio. Um, I think that most things can work with a little bit of a lift. Some things obviously, you know, if there's some if there's a super visual element or a surprise that the audience, if there's information the audience needs to know, but you can't talk about because the characters aren't supposed to know, that becomes tricky. Um, farce is tricky.

[19:36] Gordon Cox: I was gonna say the only the only play that I could think of that I could imagine sort of not at all working as an audio drama was Noises Off. Like I don't know how you make that work, right?

[19:43] Kate Navin: Yeah. I don't know how you make Noises Off work. And there are others in those veins. Right. Somebody brilliant will figure it out and worth it. Um, but yes, exactly. But the rest of it, you know, even if you need somebody to know that even if you need a listener to know that somebody's drinking a coffee cup, you can find a clever way of saying that in a line that isn't on the nose, because generally playwrights put it in the text anyway.

[20:09] Gordon Cox: Do you how often or if ever does is there sort of an adjustment to lines uh for the audio version uh to sort of solve some of those problems that you're talking about? Is that a thing that happens regularly?

[20:25] Kate Navin: Um, I would say, you know, except in the case of estates, right? It has happened um a hundred percent of the time. Again, sometimes it's just a little thing, sometimes it's bigger with an act of God. Um, you know, the playwright moved it from a theater to a listening experience so that the jokes work in that environment.

[20:48] Gordon Cox: And we should say we should say that this is act of god, the sort of solo comedy.

[20:52] Kate Navin: Yes.

[20:53] Gordon Cox: Uh Sean Hayes uh was you have you have the Sean Hayes in it, right?

[20:57] Kate Navin: Yes, yes.

[20:58] Gordon Cox: He did that for us.

[20:59] Kate Navin: Yeah.

[21:00] Gordon Cox: Um and so now also another element of this is the Manette Lane uh kind of partnership that you have where uh Audible produces these shows that um that are then recorded and distributed. How what's valuable for Audible about having this live theater um as opposed to just and these live theater runs as opposed to just you know finding a play you like and recording it?

[21:25] Kate Navin: It does two things for us that are important, and one is that there is some content that is better recorded live, uh, that the audience should be part of the audio experience. You think of Alan Cummings uh show Legal Immigrant? There's not just the energy, but actual sort of conversation with the audience that in if you take that out, it just changes what the content is so dramatically and in a way that you don't want. So it makes sense to record that live and make it that experience be the audio version. There's also some experimenting that we're doing with the producing model at the Mineta that makes it sound a little bit more mysterious than I mean it, but we're just sort of seeing what does it look like to try and bring in a different audience?

What does it look like to do these shorter runs? How can we create flexible models so that actors can come and do a run that fits within their film schedule? I mean, that's the girls and boys story with Carrie Mulligan. She her schedule is difficult and she can't do a commercial run. And she wanted to bring that show to New York, and it was a great fit for us for that reason. We're not looking to do we're not looking to produce in the same way. There are brilliant producers who can do that, but for Carrie, we were able to facilitate it. Um, so it that's the reason for those runs.

[22:50] Gordon Cox: Yeah. And you have credits, Audible has uh credits as a Broadway producer as well, particularly for um Seaball Life and Latin History for Morons. Is that a thing that you envision Audible will be doing more of?

[23:02] Kate Navin: Uh and I'm assuming you got involved in these projects because you that you would end up recording and distributing them.

[23:09] Gordon Cox: Yes, we will not do it if we're not doing the audio.

[23:12] Kate Navin: Right.

[23:12] Gordon Cox: Yeah, yeah.

[23:13] Kate Navin: Right. It's not not it's not the the side gig that Audible has going, probably producing.

[23:17] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[23:18] Kate Navin: Um, yeah, we it was it was because of the material seemed like such an important fit to the platform. We know that even with stars of that magnitude, those shows are difficult um to sort of make happen. And so it felt like it was good partner opportunity. We love the the producers that were involved with those. Yes, you'll see more of it. Um, but as you said, it's not our primary goal. Um, and what you started to talk a little bit about this in terms of figuring out how the form works for a lot of the creators, but in terms of the in the sort of theater industry overall, what was the reaction to Audible coming in? Was there any concern? You know, 10 or fifty if l even longer now, 15 years ago, people were concerned about you know, capturing um particularly with like video captures of shows because it would cannibalize, you know, the audience for the live show, et cetera, et cetera. Much of much of those are proving sort of groundless. But did you encounter any resistance in terms of talking to people about what and how the industry and Audible could work together?

[24:28] Kate Navin: Yes, there is that concern about cannibalization, as you say, it has proven to not be the case. Uh, but at the most we've ever seen hesitation on is the timing of a release.

[24:40] Gordon Cox: Right.

[24:41] Kate Navin: Yeah.

[24:42] Gordon Cox: And so how do you, what is the sort of broad vision that uh that Audible is sort of coming to in terms of how the work you guys do uh kind of fits into the broader industry and how they support one another?

[24:56] Kate Navin: I think we can work beautifully together in sort of a two-way street kind of way. We're finding audience that isn't yet buying tickets to theater, and theaters incubate great projects. So I think there's just this beautiful sort of harmonious relationship that we can have together. And I also think that theater needs a little bit of a PR campaign. And um, and I mean that with the love that I have for the industry, but I, you know, I I've even run across in some of my internal conversations people saying, so is the genre theater, and me saying, well, no, theater is so many things. There's theater stories about sports, and there's theater stories about scientists, and there's theater stories that are comedies.

And I think that we've sort of need to break down this wall a bit of what theater is and can be, and that will invite more people into our theaters to come experience it. And that's something that I really feel passionate about doing at Audible. I think we're doing a great job already, and I'm excited to continue that conversation more.

[25:58] Gordon Cox: And what is continuing that conversation look like actually? What are some of the uh initiatives that maybe we haven't talked about that you've got going and that you've got coming up that we should know about?

[26:08] Kate Navin: As we build out our catalog, we're able to talk to our membership more about the offering. So there's that piece of it, and it is a large off a membership, right? It's a it's a big audience that we can have that conversation with. It is also um further commissioning and giving playwrights a home and a way to flex their artistic muscles in this moment, which I think is incredibly important, um, and keep that going. And I think that I mean, we're really in this moment, in the time of our social distancing, I think that we're helping keep theater top of mind, and we're going to. You know, we've we've made some titles free to everybody in this for another six weeks so that people can engage with the art form at a time when they need to.

Um we're trying to be supportive. We're like I said, you know, we're talking to these producers about what we can preserve and revive and and keep going. Um, so in the short term, there's a lot going on as far as initiatives go. Um, but yeah, long term to me, it's just continuing to bring that variety to our membership and beyond about what theater means.

[27:30] Gordon Cox: And to get really sort of nuts and bolts uh with this, are there uh you know, you yourself used to be an agent. Are there is there a standard now for kind of how these deals work in terms of uh, you know, like what's how how does one get paid? Do you get paid a fee up front? Do you are there royalties or residuals or some version of that? I feel like because this is like two version, this is like a combination of theater and recorded it uh that must have taken some sort of hammering out, and maybe still does on a like per deal basis. I don't know.

[28:03] Kate Navin: Yeah, it's still it's still an evolution and it is kind of case by case on each project. Every project has different needs, but yes, everybody gets compensated for their role, and that does include if it's on stage and obviously but but it like if they're performing on stage and recording that is treated as two distinct jobs and that's you know acknowledged but yeah it it's really case by case and still an evolution I think.

[28:29] Gordon Cox: Yeah. And what kinds of projects uh haven't you been able to do yet with Audible theater that you're uh really interested in sort of uh getting on the getting creating and getting available for listeners the thing we haven't done that I really want to see happen and I think may in the very near future but is that we have a title in audio first and then it's done on the stage. And whether it's by us or by somebody else I think it would actually be more exciting if it was somebody else. I would love to see that that we were able to introduce an audience to it it was still worth producing because it's still brilliant material and you see that there is an audience that wants to experience that live as well.

[29:15] Kate Navin: It seems like the the world premieres that we talked about with Williamstown would be uh natural candidates for such thing.

[29:22] Gordon Cox: Yes.

[29:22] Kate Navin: Yeah yes hopefully what else do you have coming up uh that we should be aware of in terms of um offerings that people should be looking for uh over the coming months to to keep them occupied during these long theaterless yes see while a life is releasing April 30th beautiful recording done by Jake Jillian Hall and Tom Sturridge very excited about that one coming out. Um, we also have the release of In Love and Struggle that we recorded at the Mineta, which is a brilliant evening of stories by women of color in this political moment, um, all sorts of short stories. We had Sarah Jones, we had Anita Hill, we had it was really an incredible evening, and that'll be coming out soon, as well as um Peculiar Patriot, uh Liza Liza Jetsy Peterson's piece that she's been touring. We recorded that live as well. Lots going on, but those three top of mind.

[30:20] Gordon Cox: Well, uh, we will look forward to hearing those and to hearing the Williamstown Theater uh when Audible has them. Thanks so much for chatting with me, Kate. I really appreciate your time.

[30:29] Kate Navin: Thanks for having me.

[30:30] Gordon Cox: Very happy to do it.

[30:39] Gordon Cox: That was Kate Navin, the artistic producer of Audible Theater. If you like what you're hearing on this and other episodes of Stagecraft, you can rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, and you can subscribe and find past episodes there and on all the other pod places, including Spotify and on the Broadway Podcast Network, which is a great place to find more theater for your ears. I'll be back next week with another new episode. Thanks for listening, and see you soon.