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[0:00] Ken Davenport: Hey, it's Ken Davenport here on this week's podcast.

[0:03] Ken Davenport: Well, it took a long time, but this business model is finally coming to Broadway. Hear what that business model is and what I think about it coming up next.

[0:16] Ken Davenport: I wanna be a producer with a hit show on Broadway.

[0:23] Ken Davenport: You're listening to the Producers Perspective Podcast with your host, Tony Award winner, Ken Davenport.

[0:31] Ken Davenport: So I arrived in New York City during the golden age of Off-Broadway. That's what I call it. This was in the very early 90s when Forever Plaid, Nunsense, And The World Goes Round, Cryptogram, Family Secrets, and a bunch more shows were running in theaters under 499 seats. Which, if you don't know, that's the definition of Off-Broadway, 100 to 499 seats. And shockingly, many of these shows actually recouped. That's right. They actually made money. Now, when I started creating and producing commercial theater, I started Off-Broadway. I wasn't ready to raise 10 million dollars for Broadway shows, which is what they were back then, compared to the 15 to 20 million dollars they are now. I wanted to be a lead producer, and I didn't believe I had the decision-making experience yet to do that on Broadway.

And well, honestly, the ideas that I had for shows were Off-Broadway ideas. As many of you know, I come up with a lot of the ideas for my shows myself. And the ideas I had at the time just felt small, intimate, and unique, perfectly designed for the Off-Broadway that I loved. So that's where I started, Off-Broadway. The first three shows, Awesome 80s Prom, Altar Boys, and My First Time.

[1:45] Ken Davenport: Now, no one told me back then when I started, this is about 2004, that in the 15 years since I had arrived in New York City from those early 90s to that 2004 date, the Off-Broadway model had changed significantly. And trying to run and recoup an Off-Broadway show was a little bit challenging, and is actually even more so another 15 to 20 years later. In other words, commercial Off-Broadway was in a crisis in the mid-2000s. So I pivoted. And so did everyone else in the community. This is actually when the organization, the Off-Broadway Alliance was born. And I'm very proud to say I was in the very first meeting. I helped design the first 20 at 20 program. You should definitely check out the Off-Broadway Alliance if you are interested in learning more about Off-Broadway and how to produce there.

[2:39] Ken Davenport: Now, in that first meeting, we asked ourselves, what were the out-of-the-black box ideas that could help restore commercial Off-Broadway to what it was before and beyond? One of the ideas that was born in this era was the idea of two or three or more shows sharing a theater. We termed it bunk betting. Now, it required simple sets, similar lighting plots, and a whole lot of cooperation between companies, especially when the producers were not the same people. But it worked. My First Time, my third Off-Broadway show, ran at least an extra year because it was the top bunk, meaning there was another show in the same space, and we just performed at different times. It reduced costs, of course, but it also reduced the number of performances in a week that each show could perform.

Now, you would think that that would be a disadvantage, but this was actually an advantage. See, at the time, one of the problems with the Off-Broadway model is that there wasn't a demand for eight shows a week for 99% of commercial Off-Broadway shows. Bunk betting, or the fact that you only had four shows, three shows, five shows, increased ticket scarcity. Almost the same number of tickets were sold for fewer shows as opposed to the eight. And then those fewer shows were filled, creating a much better experience for the audience.

[4:10] Ken Davenport: For example, if I were to do an eight show a week model of My First Time and say our the number of tickets we'd sell would be 500, if I would reduce to four, what we found was maybe we'd sell 400, 450, but we'd significantly reduce the costs and only slightly reduce the number of people actually buying tickets. Because let's face it, if you want to go see a show, if you've made that decision and it's performing on a Thursday and not on a Friday or on a Friday, you're still gonna go. You're gonna just maybe push it out a little bit later until it works in your schedule. So if you need a case study on this, of the three productions mentioned already on this podcast that started my career, Awesome 80s Prom, My First Time, and Altar Boys, the two with less than eight performances a week did better financially. They were more profitable.

[5:09] Ken Davenport: So flash forward now, come to the present day with me, and Broadway and the theater industry is once again in a bit of a crisis as we stage our comeback from a pandemic. Again, producers face a question how do we decrease risk but still produce great theater? And also be fiscally responsible to the investors that are helping put on that great theater. Well, just a few weeks ago, a group of creative and outside-the-box thinkers, Dory Berenstein, Sally Horchow, and Matt Ross, proposed a solution to this problem. Using bunk bed theory, these first into the Broadway battle post-COVID producers are bringing two shows to Broadway. That's right, two at the same time and to the same theater. The plays, it's our Dana H and Is This a Room.

They're both transfers from the Vineyard Theater, nonprofit downtown. They begin performances in late September at the Lyceum Theater on Broadway. That's right, both of them. And both of these shows are being done for the price of just a touch more than one of them. So again, decreasing the risk. And most importantly, to quote Dory Berenstein, she said, it gives us an opportunity to bring great theater that might not otherwise make it to Broadway to Broadway. What could be better than that?

[6:36] Ken Davenport: This is one of the biggest challenges that Broadway has, and one of the biggest criticisms I hear from people. Does it all have to be theme park-like entertainment? Does it all have to be jukebox musicals, blah, blah, blah? This bunk betting model is a way, again, as Dory says, to bring great theater that might not otherwise make it to Broadway to Broadway. No one wanted the COVID crisis, but one of the blessings, which are a little bit hard to find, but frankly, every day I try to find one blessing, is that now is the time for entrepreneurial producers, writers, and all theater makers to challenge the precedents that have existed in our industry for decades and to come up with new ways to make theater. Because the theater is too important to not give everything a go.

[7:28] Ken Davenport: Oh, and when you're looking for ideas, sometimes big businesses like Broadway should look to smaller businesses like Off-Broadway to see what worked for them. So go idea exploring outside your industry, into smaller businesses, into the alleys, and everywhere that something is being created. That's where the creative solutions are found.

[8:23] Ken Davenport: My mission is to amplify the conversation about theater because if we get more people talking about it, we'll get more people making it, we'll get more people seeing it. It will be great for the industry as a whole. If you want more of my daily perspectives on theater and Broadway, check out my blog at theproducersperspective.com or check out my social media accounts at Ken Davenport Bway on Instagram and at Ken Davenport on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We'll see you for the next episode.