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[0:09] Ken Davenport: Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Producers Perspective Podcast, episode number something. I can't even keep track. We're doing so many of these things these days. We are headed back inside the fort today, back inside the office of one of only a handful of people that are responsible for the real day-to-day business of Broadway. I'm talking about general managers. And today I'm talking to one of the general manager elite in the industry, Wendy Orshan of 101 Productions. Welcome, Wendy.

[0:40] Wendy Orshan: Thank you. Hello.

[0:41] Ken Davenport: Now this is the part of the podcast where I'd list some of Wendy's credits. But if I did that, this podcast will be longer than Le Miz and August Osage County combined. I'm sure that's why Wendy just chuckled. So Wendy, I'll start with this. How many shows has your company general managed on Broadway?

[0:59] Wendy Orshan: It's funny that you say that. Um, my business partner Jeff Wilson and I used to have a joke that when we hit 101 productions, we were going to close up shop. And recently the office did a list, and we have done 104 shows. And we've been in production, and I count doing shows more than just doing shows on Broadway, so I've never actually broken out what we've done on tour and in other places, but combined with everything we've done, 104.

[1:33] Ken Davenport: That's pretty amazing. And let's just for fun say each one had an average capitalization of about five million dollars. So doing the math, Wendy has written checks for over 500 million bucks. Uh so that's that's that's a lot of cash. You can understand that she knows the business inside and out. And God, the grosses of those shows come at another like 10 times out. We're in the billions of dollars here. Some of those shows uh this season alone, doing Elephant Man with Bradley Cooper, uh Hedwig, which was a holdover from last season, upcoming American in Paris, uh Bridges of Madison County, which I was a producer on last season, but going back in time, we had Lucky Guy with Tom Hanks, Adam's family, spam a lot, I'll eat your ass, nice work if you can get it, and you get it.

But more importantly, look, you can get all that and realize that Wendy's a very experienced GM looking at her list of credits, but uh credits, but I will tell you that if you have not worked with her, like I have, then you wouldn't know one very important thing. Wendy adopts each one of her shows like a child and cares for them more than you could ever imagine. When her kids are successful, she's smiling like a proud mama. And when one of her kids are sick, she's doing everything she can, even outside the scope of the GM to get them better. So, Wendy, uh one of the things I've learned in the few podcasts I've done already is that everyone's path to where they are very, very different, including many of the general managers that I've talked to. Tell me a little bit about your path to becoming a GM.

[2:58] Wendy Orshan: Well, I always knew I wanted to work in theater, and I auditioned for the High School of Performing Arts, the Fame School, and I was accepted there, and I went into the drama program believing that I wanted to be an actress. And along the way, a couple of things happened in my life that put me on a path of working backstage. And I was very happy being a part of what was behind the scenes in making other people's dreams come true. And I worked at dinner theater, I worked off Broadway, I worked at Barry and Fran uh Weissler's office for close to five years. I was Alicia Parker's assistant, and I very closely got to see how a general manager, she's brilliant and very experienced, got to work very closely with producers, and how the two of them had a particular kind of synergy.

And from there I was really lucky enough to work at Gatchel and Newfeld for close to eight years with Peter Newfeld and Tyler Gatchell, who were pre-eminent, brilliant, brilliant general managers and were also executive producers. And I worked with Nina Lannick very closely, who's done one of your recent podcasts, who's one of the most highly respected genes in the business, and was brilliantly happy being an assistant and thought that that was truly what I was going to do forever. And then when Tyler very suddenly sadly passed away, I was unsure of what I was going to do next. I really didn't believe I could be a general manager. I didn't believe I had it in me, having worked for people who were so brilliant at what they did.

But at that time I was working on a show called The Music of Andrew Lloyd Weber, and Jeff Wilson was a company manager, and we were traveling across America. And after Peter decided to shut down the company and go in a different direction, a friend of Jeff's and mine just said, why don't you guys open up your own company? I thought we couldn't do it. Jeff Wilson thought we could, and we opened 101. And I was very surprised and very lucky and very appreciative that people took us seriously. We had one show Crazy for You at that moment that we were still managing, and that was back in '94, and it led to many other kinds of work that we ended up doing off Broadway, on Governor's Island, for IBM, in the Bahamas in a hotel. We just said yes to whatever work came our way to really learn our craft.

[5:52] Ken Davenport: And when you were coming up, first of all, let me ask you work for Alicia Parker, who as an her assistant. And this is something I find a lot in this business because it's very small and people stay in it for a long period of time. Now you work alongside her on many projects. What's what's that like?

[6:09] Wendy Orshan: Um I am I I'm laughing because uh I have I sit in meetings and I watch Nina Lanning or I watch Alicia Parker, and I still believe I'm their assistants. I mean, I I don't I don't take myself seriously that I do what they do. Um I think there are still people in the business that we all will always look up to and will always think, I can't believe I just said that really stupid thing in front of that person. I'm very honest about it actually with both of them. Um I I think that each one of us have a different skill set. I'm very grateful for what you said about me, you know, adopting my shows as my children. I think that we each do things in a similar but in a different way. And when producers interview us and they're very honest and saying, I'm meeting a handful of GMs, I'm always grateful that 101 is on that list.

But I say to them, we can all do a budget, we can all sit in an advertising meeting. You need to make your choice based upon who you think you communicate with because it's a marriage, it's a forever thing with your show. Yes, sometimes GMs get replaced, but it's very, very rare. So if you're interviewing Bespoke or Foresight or you know, 101 or Richard's Klein, you're you're interviewing a group of people who have a dynamic and who have a synergy, and you have to figure out who you're going to want to speak to ten times a day.

[7:48] Ken Davenport: I ask you that question about Elijah because I'm faced with this all the time. I was Charlotte Wilcox's like Friday go get some wine from the store gopher guy, and now of course she's GM'd for me. Um and what I love about Charlotte and all these people in the business is they, you know, they don't look at you that way, certainly, uh Alicia and Nina. Um I know they respect you an incredible amount. So um tell me a little bit, what do you think a role of a general manager is today? If you could define it in a couple sentences.

[8:21] Wendy Orshan: Jeff and I work frequently for first-time producers. We like doing that, we enjoy doing that because you reinvent it every time. Because somebody from the outside world says to you, What do you mean you can't do that? And it makes you think about it. So I often say to people, a show is a wheel and the GM is the center, and everybody interfaces with you, and you are the motor and the engine that moves it up a hill. You do it in tandem with a producer, but every producer has a different level of experience, a different bandwidth for minutiae, and you have to sort of morph and fill in where those empty voids are.

[9:02] Ken Davenport: And how has the role of the general manager changed over the last couple of decades? Is it the same? Do you find your days spent today or divided among tasks a little differently than they were spent?

[9:13] Wendy Orshan: Yes. I think it's changed enormously. Um, back in the Gatell and Newfeld days, uh, Tyler often was an executive producer for somebody who wasn't living here. Let's say for Andrew Lloyd Webber on Aspects of Love, because really useful was producing it, but he was in London. Today, a general manager is teaching people who have never done it before, or you are somebody who often has an idea. You know, we've put together productions for people where we've had an idea, or we have a relationship with a director or with a star who wants to do something on Broadway. Um, you're often helping put together first-time investors that have come to you. We get phone calls from people saying, we want to be a part of theater, you know, what do we end up doing?

And you're spending endless, endless, endless hours talking about ticketing, dynamic pricing, and marketing, which can make an enormous difference for a show to recoup. Um, we did the heiress with Jessica Chastain and Dan Stevens, and for Paula Wagner, it was the first production that she had been a lead producer on on Broadway. Jessica Chastain was it's zero dark thirty, and through dynamic pricing and through very smart initiatives, that show ended up recouping despite blizzards and snowstorms and productions being canceled, in part because of who Jessica was and in part of the brilliant production, but in part because we worked really closely with Jamson on ticketing. But it's hours and hours and hours of discussing that.

[10:54] Ken Davenport: Do you prefer working on plays versus musicals? Do you have an individual preference?

[11:00] Wendy Orshan: I don't. I I think what's happened with Plays on Broadway is you can have four productions in one year in a building when you have a star in a limited engagement of 12 or 13 weeks.

[11:16] Wendy Orshan: But that's exhausting, that's difficult, and that's challenging, and the availability of the buildings are so difficult.

[11:23] Wendy Orshan: But if you get a musical that can sit in a playhouse, you can hopefully have a product that can run for a couple of years and spawn off companies.

[11:31] Wendy Orshan: And everybody's office needs to have that.

[11:35] Ken Davenport: If you could go back and do it over your path to where you are now, how would you redesign your training, if you will, or what would you prescribe to someone who wanted to get involved in general management today?

[11:48] Ken Davenport: What do you think they should study or learn, or what's the best path for the GM chair?

[11:52] Wendy Orshan: Um, I think the thing that was missing for me is I was never a company manager for enough years. Being a Tyler's assistant or Alicia's assistant, I supported the company manager. But I never actually got to be a company manager.

[12:07] Wendy Orshan: I'm very lucky because Jeff Wilson is an amazing part business partner, and I'm very lucky he's my best friend too. But he was a great company manager.

[12:17] Wendy Orshan: So there are things that I don't know how to actually do, or things that I don't understand to the degree that Jeff Wilson does. But that's why we're a terrific team together.

[12:30] Wendy Orshan: I don't think either one of us would do this if we didn't have the other person. I'm in awe of people, you know, like Charlotte, who is amazing and Jeff worked for her for years, that kind of does it, you know, on her own, but I work well with somebody who has done multiple payrolls or has signed a million different box office statements.

[12:53] Wendy Orshan: And I think that what we require out of company managers now has changed. We require so much more out of them that that's a whole part of my career that I missed.

[13:06] Wendy Orshan: I might have done it had Toddler not passed away and Gachel and Feld, you know, kept on running.

[13:11] Ken Davenport: And you are taking on the role of an executive producer now on several shows.

[13:15] Wendy Orshan: Sometimes, yeah, sometimes we do say yes. We don't always say yes to being an executive producer because it requires you to have a different faith and belief and understanding of the product that you're working on.

[13:28] Wendy Orshan: But then there are other times where something comes out of our desire to really work hard and sort of form something and make something happen.

[13:39] Wendy Orshan: Um, or there's an actual need for us. We were executive producer on Annie, a show that I love because we have a long, long history of working with Ariel Tepper Matover, who's an amazing producer. It was the first musical she was doing. It was a show that was her dream, and there were things she wanted us to do on that show, and she asked, and she thought we should.

[14:01] Wendy Orshan: There's other times where we actually behave like an executive producer, but that lead producer for whatever reason doesn't want us to have that title, so we don't, but we do the job anyway.

[14:12] Ken Davenport: And someone like Ariel, you call an amazing producer. What do you think makes an amazing producer in 2015?

[14:20] Wendy Orshan: It's an excellent question. If someone loves what they're doing, and once again, we work for a variety of people who are experienced to people who are first-time people with a really interesting idea. But when somebody understands their material and someone loves what they're doing, and someone's willing to do the work, I get excited about working for them.

[14:52] Wendy Orshan: Now that comes in a variety of ways.

[15:45] Wendy Orshan: Um push too hard on certain things so I'm not everybody's style. I sometimes don't know when it should come to an end. I sometimes believe in it too much. I don't want to see its warts as any mother about their child. I mean that's what your description of me I think is a really interesting one because I've noticed a couple of people that I respect a lot have said that about me and I think that is my strength and that is my weakness.

[16:27] Ken Davenport: Well, my first Broadway show was one that you generally managed and I remember feeling very taken into the community by you. So first of all I will say thank you for that. Um, but that's one of the things I think you do so so well is allow these first-time producers to get involved in the game and because of what you just said you believe that just because someone hasn't done it before doesn't mean they can't do it now.

[16:52] Ken Davenport: Have you ever wanted to produce?

[16:54] Wendy Orshan: No, um, it's very very funny you say that. Um, two people that are very close to me that I admire very much, Joe Moda and George Wolf have this conversation with Jeff and I all the time. Um, my parents were teachers and I think I was always raised and I think everything I look at is how do I support someone else to make it happen for them. In that I get ultimate joy.

[17:34] Wendy Orshan: I could list 50 productions where I've sat there with Jeff on that first preview and said, look at so and so. Like we helped make that happen. And I get a lot of joy about that. I don't the company name is 101 Productions, not Orshan Wilson because it's not about us.

[17:54] Wendy Orshan: It is in part because there's 101 ways to do it. There's 101, the basics. There was a concept in the name of the company, and not having it be us because it's not, it's great when you get the recognition. It's incredible when someone thanks you, you know, at an award show. Um, it means the world when somebody wins their Tony and your name is said.

[18:23] Wendy Orshan: But even if all of that didn't happen and they wrote you a note and they said, Thank you, I know you're a part of getting here, that means something. So exact producing for me gives us that little extra oomph where you do sit with the director and talk about the concept, or there's been times where we've been instrumental in the directoring coming on to a production, and um that tiny little change helped that production get over the finish line.

[18:58] Wendy Orshan: So I'm happy with that.

[19:00] Ken Davenport: We just got into the fourth quarter of the current Broadway season. So far this year, things are looking good, grosses are up, attendance is up, you know, we're trumpeting it like crazy from the hilltops. But let's I want to get your perspective on this. We go inside, away from the press releases. How do you think Broadway's doing kind of a whole in 2015?

[19:22] Wendy Orshan: Well, I think it's great that there's a variety of shows. Um, I think it's terrific that we all work hard at trying to have accessible ticketing. I think our numbers are obviously false to a great degree because there's only a handful of people, and look, we manage shows that do it all the time. Premium seating. Um, I love premium seating and I hate premium seating at the same time.

[19:50] Wendy Orshan: I think more and more the plays are driven by who you have in them. You and I are working on a show together where the question always is who's playing that part, and we all circle around the same ten directors and the same ten stars. That's not good.

[20:05] Wendy Orshan: Um, the lineup for getting a building is very, very difficult. We were doing Cripple of Inishemont, and Daniel Radcliffe couldn't move at a particular time. We then didn't have a building, then he could move the show at a particular time, and luckily we ended up getting a building because the shooters came through and Bob Winkel has a long history with him.

[20:29] Wendy Orshan: But it was all about his availability and the building's availability. So I worry that we are as limited in certain moments as we are, and that we are reliant on being a big hit. The mediocre hit, the show just hanging on, it's getting harder and harder to get that show to go all the way to the end.

[20:54] Wendy Orshan: We've been involved in a couple of productions where we've had to reinvent the financial structure of the show midway, in order to get that show to get that extra 10 weeks or that extra 20 weeks that it needs in order to last to the end of a run.

[21:15] Ken Davenport: So you coach a lot of these first-time producers again, you bring them a lot into the industry. And I first of all, I will publicly say in a business that can be very snobby, it's wonderful to have someone like you who really opens her arms and says, No, come, the water's just fine, and I'll take care of you.

[21:34] Wendy Orshan: Actually, I don't say that. I say the water is very trepidatious and it's going to be very scary, but you everybody started somewhere, and you have as much a right as somebody else to try to pursue your dream, and we're gonna try to help you.

[21:49] Ken Davenport: It's a much more accurate representation. Thank you. And so look, listen, I have a lot of first-time producers probably listening to this podcast right now. What would you say to them, young, old, middle, about how they get started producing?

[22:05] Wendy Orshan: Well, um, I'm not a produce, I'm not a snob about what a person works on. As I said to you, you know, David Binder had an idea about doing an arts festival on Governor's Island, and we were thrilled to be a part of that.

[22:21] Wendy Orshan: Um, we've worked on things, George Wolfe put together a celebration at the White House. We were ecstatic to work on that. You should work on live theater wherever you possibly can. And if that's in your hometown, if that's in your community, if that's off Broadway, if that's um in a fringe situation, Ariel Tepper did the summer Play festival, $10 tickets off on Broadway. We managed we worked on that with her. Wherever you get to put a group of people together and to make something happen, and to either charge for a ticket or do it for free, that gives you your experience in communication. And theater is communication. When we work for people from Los Angeles, either from movies or television who haven't necessarily done theater before, they're taking that skill set and they're applying it here.

And that is producing. So put together something, create something live, work with an artist who's written something, or get the rights to a revival and do it in your local theater. It's always the same. The budgets change and the playing field changes and the players change, but then you join a team. So we try to put people who haven't necessarily done a care together and surround them with other people that do. And that those people become their strategic partners along with us.

[23:56] Ken Davenport: And if we could take a time machine ahead 10, 20 years, what do you think Broadway is going to look like? What do you see coming in this business?

[24:08] Wendy Orshan: Well, that's a really good question. I don't know. I mean, I worry in part that we take one step forward and we sometimes take two steps backwards. We were very, very lucky. Uh, MT Live National Theater Live filmed Mice and Men, our production, which we were incredibly proud of. We were the first Broadway show that they had done that. It was wonderful to see that the unions were more willing to open their arms to understand the power and the importance of bringing a live Broadway show into rural communities and other places where people would never get to see it. So I felt like we took a very big step forward with that. But on the same hand, we don't have enough theaters. We're all driven to win awards, yet we'll have 12 new musicals competing for a slot that might be four or God willing this season five.

So I think I don't know what the industry is going to look like. I think it's important that people like you, people like me, people like Jeff Wilson, that we all continue to try and share information and say, here's something that worked that made this thing possible. How do we collectively move forward so that it's not a big rock up a hill the next time? It just happens. Everybody together understands how important it is. I know that sounds very Pollyanna, but I want to believe that it's not an adversarial situation all the time. It's a collaboration to help make it happen.

[25:44] Wendy Orshan: This is something that I've really obviously I try to do a lot of new and different things, and when I came, and you helped me a lot with this because as I came into the game, I think at times I wanted to do too much. Forgetting that there's a lot of tradition for a reason, a lot of things that we can learn, and then how we combine the old with the new. Because you push this a lot, I think, in the business. How do you deal with some of the other industry players that are like, no, no, no? We shouldn't, let's just keep doing what we've been doing. It'll be fine. One-on-one, we'll have lots of shows, you'll make a fine living. We don't have to reinvent that wheel. How do you deal with that?

[26:32] Wendy Orshan: Well, Jeff always says that we should pick the hill we want to die on each time. And that you can't reinvent everything. So you go into a show and you think to yourself, what is the most important thing that I need to make happen here? And I think you choose what it is. I think every one of our shows, I can look at something that meant the world to me, and I'm incredibly proud that it worked out, and other times where it didn't. Elephant Man was an incredible situation, totally driven by the passion of Bradley Cooper and his dream of playing this role. We kept on moving the schedule because he had filming commitments. He wanted to go into the booth theater. It's the only building that he and Scott Ellis wanted to go into.

And luckily, all of the teams, including the Bradley Cooper team, worked together to come up with an economic formula that allowed that play to go back into the building where it was 20 years ago in today's time and work for a 13-week run. And I'm incredibly proud that I was a part of that, and really everybody, the agents, the theater owner, the producers, the co-producers, the individual investors, they all looked at a different way of how to produce that show. And luckily it worked out wonderfully for everybody. So my hope would be were I faced with a situation like that again. I could say to everybody, but we did it last time, and it did work out okay. I'm not asking you to do that every single time, but when a challenge like that happens, rather than not do the show, we should do the show this way.

[28:17] Wendy Orshan: And what I love about The Elephant Man is you talk about it worked out for everyone. Obviously, you're probably mostly referring to financially, but I will tell you that from my it worked out so artistically well for everyone, and I think you take that charge on, it's a great responsibility. Yes. And uh it can you can reinvent the business model and the financial model and still deliver product that is a fantastic one. I think what's so amazing about the Elephant Man experience is artistically and financially, it worked out brilliantly, better than anybody's expectation. And when you do a production, and we are very, very lucky at 101 that we do a lot of productions that have stars in them, they are a larger target in our community, and part of your job is to try to protect them as best as you can so that they get the satisfaction of being artistically well received as well as financially.

If everybody gets bad reviews, if everybody gets picked on, if everybody gets um harped on, then why come and expose yourself? There's nothing harder than making a 13-week commitment and understanding that your show isn't doing well and you still have you know eight weeks left. It's very, very hard. And those people are our leaders. So something like Hedwig was a dream come true. David Binder had never gotten great reviews on a production, and that night after Hedwig opened, and all of those reviews were great for the show, for the entire team, for Neil, it was a massive celebration because everybody got the love that they had worked so hard to earn, delivered to them that night. Those kinds of instances are rare.

[30:06] Ken Davenport: Okay, my famous last question, which I know you've listened to a couple podcasts, so you probably cheated and done your homework like a good general manager would. I want you to imagine that you get one wish, you can change one thing about Broadway, whatever keeps you up at night, makes you mad, frustrates you, whatever it is. What is the one thing that with a snap of a finger you would change about Broadway?

[30:32] Wendy Orshan: This might sound uh shallow, and I did think about this answer, and I wish it was a more artful one, but I would change the way the awards are done. Because unfortunately, we are a competitive business. People are driven by awards. I've seen the power of what a best play or a best musical Tony Award does. I know what it's like when you are in a very crowded season and there's only four slots or not five or not six. Um watching the Oscars, I thought how wonderful it was that there was such a division of awards. Awards are important not only for artists but for producers but for investors. And I think I would take a look at how all revivals, new work, nonprofits. We all share in the same bucket, and that's very, very hard.

[31:32] Ken Davenport: That's a great answer, one we haven't heard yet. So thank you very much.

[31:34] Wendy Orshan: It's a little shallow.

[31:36] Ken Davenport: No, it's I apologize for that, but unfortunately it matters. You think we should change the schedule and the calendar of the awards?

[31:42] Wendy Orshan: Well, but I'm not sure. I just think it takes, I think it takes um a moment to look at all of it because it unfortunately it is a marketing tool, it is an artistic tool, it is a financial tool. It's all of those things, and therefore it needs an evaluation in some way.

[32:03] Ken Davenport: I'm gonna start a lobby for the Tony Awards in September, I think I've decided.

[32:07] Wendy Orshan: Okay.

[32:08] Ken Davenport: Thank you.

[32:09] Wendy Orshan: I would like that.

[32:11] Ken Davenport: Your summer might be a little busier, but uh okay. I want to thank Wendy for taking her time out of her very busy day. Uh there's probably a string of producers that have left her messages through uh through the past 30 minutes waiting for her to get back to work. So we will let her go, but first I want to say thank you so much for being here. I'm sure you've all got a glimpse of uh as Wendy said, anyone can do a budget, but not everyone can add the joy and the passion to your show like Wendy and her partner Jeff Wilson, who was the first company manager I ever worked for.

[32:41] Wendy Orshan: Okay, I'll have to hear about that.

[32:42] Ken Davenport: Oh yeah. Um not everyone does it like they do it, and uh I'm very thankful that they work on my shows, and the industry is very thankful that they're here for us and will be here for us. Thank you.

[32:52] Wendy Orshan: I think what you do is really terrific as well, and it's wonderful how accessible you've made it for everybody. So thank you, Ken.

[32:59] Ken Davenport: My pleasure. Thank you all of you for listening. Subscribe, download, you know the drill, the producersperspective.com. We'll see you next time.