One Producer in the City

Amazing Monday advice from Gary V.

Happy Monday.

Below is some really good advice from Gary V. Invest the time to watch this video. He is discussing something incredibly important that many start ups forget about which is the focus on the user. Check it out below. Excelsior!

 

 

Guest blog# 29: Lessons Learned

This week's guest blog comes from a self produced playwright about his first Off broadway show. Truth be told, this is probably the most honest discussion of a process I've heard in a long time and there is a lot to be learned from his contribution. He also has an interesting take on the new world of online criticism that I think will spark some discussion.  Take it away Scott!

My name is Scott Brooks and thank you Michael for the chance to try out this new verb that is part of our culture now and BLOG. I already feel relevant.

I am a little older and a whole lot wiser than I was just a few months ago, and maybe I am ready to share why.

I once moaned to an old teacher/mentor of mine who has since passed, “Why do I have to learn everything the hard way?”  Without missing a beat he said, “That’s the only way you’ll remember it.”

 

I have just ended quite a chapter in my life and career. Long story short, a play I WROTE (I am a playwright) just ran Off Broadway at 59E59th St theatres. My first Off Broadway play. Pretty cool. I also happened to find myself cast in this one, something I pretty much never do – act on stage that is - and certainly not in a play I wrote.

(Which would be the first thing I learned, but I kind of knew it already – don’t be too good at too many things, you’ll piss people off.  See rule three.)

One thing I didn’t want to do was self-produce after we were a hit in the Midtown Festival last summer when people came to us and said “What’s next for this?”

One thing I never imagined for my first Off Broadway transfer was begging people for money.

 

Which brings me to the first thing I learned.

Or: RULE #1 -

Picture the one thing you don’t want to happen – imagine the one circumstance which if you knew it would come to that, you would never have moved forward. Got it? Now count on it. It is guaranteed.

We had to decide if we should even move forward with the project after being invited to produce at 59^th St. But we didn’t know if we were going to be able to raise the tens of thousands of dollars. Some people said they would probably be able to get us the money. We signed the contract – they didn’t raise the money. Not a dime. I don’t blame them at all– raising money for a theatrical venture by an unknown group of artists sounds impossible at best and in this case it apparently was.

The director and I raised all the money through our families and we proceeded because at this point we kind of had no choice.

But we were still crazily optimistic because we had a kick ass play that was sure to be a hit and giddy at the thought of being “all in” on our own venture.

 

I then found myself as the only non-equity member in an equity mini-contract in a show I happened to now be the lead producer on.

Which brings me to the next thing I learned:

 

 

RULE #2-

YOU CAN WEAR MANY HATS BUT YOU ONLY HAVE ONE HEAD.

 

I knew this already too, but I found myself carrying the ball and had to run. The director and I were shouldering all of the responsibilities of producing, fund raising and everything else, but as the novice actor in the cast I had to eventually decide to back off of all of that if the product we were selling was going to be the best it could be, I had to be the best actor I could be in the play. And that meant handing off all the behind the scenes stuff. Unfortunately that would mean much later there were things I would have changed had I had a spare second to do so.

Also, being an actor/writer who is also the producer can be an awkward spot to be in when the unions show up and everyone starts signing documents. That unfortunately, is all I can say about that here.

I hear rumblings amongst the cooler, less entitled heads out there that more needs to be done to make it possible for developmental producers – or actor/producers or writer/ producers or director/producers to try to hire actors try to create that Next Big Hit without being suspected of something sinister. I hope that day is not far off.

The unions are an important part of the fiber of our country, and nowhere is the culture of a united labor force stronger than in New York City. I have since joined Equity myself.

Hey don’t get me wrong, the cot was really comfortable.

 

But I still hadn’t thought of the one other thing that might go wrong. The one thing that never crossed any of our minds- because the play and all of us in it - were bullet proof. It worked, it was commercial, fun to watch and audiences loved it. (see rule #1)

So bring on the critics, I can’t wait to read about how awesome I am!

Wait… what?

Like scary bugs crawling out of the walls, one at a time, that Monday morning, the reviews came out. We got slammed. The first five or so reviews – all from the midsized websites for some reason hated the play. And hated me for writing it.

They must have been the ones not standing up during the curtain call.

Which brings me to the next thing I learned.

 

RULE #3 - WHO REVIEWS A NEW SHOW AND HOW NEEDS TO BE CONTROLLED.

I have been reviewed many times and like everyone else in my field am used to it – or I thought I was. These did not feel like reviews they were personal attacks with questionable grammar. Of course we were helpless to do anything about it. And for a show with a limited run there was very little time to rally. The Sunday before the reviews eviscerated me a woman I’d never met before stopped me in the lobby of the theatre to call me a genius. But if a tree falls in the forest are you still a genius? This meant that bigger reviewers – ones that maybe might see a play in it’s own context and not a play a frustrated writer wished they had written or role an actor wished they had played because that is who reviews plays at that level – would or maybe should not come. Which begs the question, who are our fellow artists and what is their agenda?

Never mind all that. The damage was done, the damage to the shows box office, and to its’ immediate future. Because, sure, no one reads the reviews at backstage.com except the people who just put up the play, so if they hated it no one necessarily has to know, but if they love it, that is a tank of gas for the show. For a transfer, for regionals to get excited about it, for big publication to consider reviewing it and then if THEY were to give it a good review, the play would be living a different life now.

 

Word of mouth continued to grow, and we did get enough good reviews to fill a full page in Word – single spaced - but the blow to the damage was done and it was almost two weeks before we started to see the numbers we would have needed for all four weeks to break even.

 

I really don’t know what the solution is here – and I know unfair reviews are problem as old as the head bartender at Joe Allen’s – but in the internet age a fledgling new property should not be the target of any old person with a laptop – but they are. Theatre criticism should be a dialogue. There were several things a reviewer said that made it clear they just didn’t know what they were seeing and if it could have just been explained maybe it would have helped. Writers, directors and producers should have a right to know the credentials of someone who is going to publish something about their work –writing that will be a Google search away for the rest of their lives.  Because, as Aaron Sorkin wrote in his amazing screenplay The Social Network, “The internet is written in ink.”

 

Organization is great, but it's not all there is

Today I want to talk about organization. It's essential to have things organized so that you can get more work done and very few people will argue with that statement. The challenge comes when your organizing crosses the threshold into the world of over organizing which decreases productivity. This manifests in a number of ways:

1. It's great to create folders for your different projects, but it can become a vicous waste of time if you create 20 or more folders for subdivisions of projects etc. I learned this the hard way. I at one point had over 50 folders in my inbox. I spent nearly as much time filing as I did answering emails. I learned this great system from the Hamster Revolution that involves knocking down your email folders to four and I felt liberated. It was tough at first, but when I realized the amount of time that was being wasted on filing I made the commitment and now I file my emails faster than ever. 

2. It's great to have a spreadsheet to organize your current database of contacts, but it can become a waste of time when you add 13 different columns to fill in and spend an afternoon on just data entry. What I started to do when I saw that this wasn't working was to have one window open with my spreadsheet and one with my email. When I was sending an email to someone I wanted in my files, I would take an extra second to cut and paste their info into my spreadsheet. This has saved me hours of needless data entry. 

3. It's great to write a to do list, but the second your list starts getting too long, you end up on a roll and spend an hour writing down what you have to do. Next thing you know an hour has been wasted and you're looking at a list of 33 things. It's much better to decide on 5 to 6 things a day and make sure your work focuses around completing those tasks. This helps me stay focused on what really needs to be done now and what can wait. 

So as you can see, organization can become a real time waster if you don't keep it in check. Hopefully these tips help. So what will you be working on today?

Excelsior! 

The due date vs the "do" date

When a project is assigned, it is given a date when it is due. We all know this from school reports, projects etc. 

I was a notorius procrastinator when it came to the date something was due in High school and even college.  I often wrote 30 page papers in one day, developed a presentation during a lunch break, I once even memorized an entire Shakespearean monologue three hours before I was supposed to perform it in class. When I taught, it was just as bad. I'd wait until I had a big pile of papers and then sit down a few days before grades were due and correct one Saturday from 8am-6pm. I'd then use my free period that day to calculate and enter my grades. 

Yep I was bad, but I would argue that it wasn't just me causing this problem, it was also the concept of the "due date" 

How many times has someone told you that the event you're doing is happening in five months and you think to yourself that you have plenty of time?  When someone gives us a date that something is due by we are given a choice. We can either do portions of the task every day up until it is due or we can wait to the last minute and hustle and get it all done. 

Why do so many people wait to the last minute?

I would argue that it's because we set a "due date" and never set a "do" date. A "do" date means that we will do something by that date and we can "do" something leading up to that date every single day if we choose. I think everyone struggles with this in some way or another. We have deadlines and we try to meet them, but what are we actually doing up until the deadline? If I told you that we were doing a show in January of 2012, would you do anything today?

Probably not and that's the problem. 

Take so time today to look at your current projects with "Due dates" and start setting some "Do" dates for yourself today. What are you going to actually do right now after you finish reading this post in 3, 2, 1......

Excelsior!

 

Fixing what's broke is Friday! Get your tickets here. 

 

 

This is post #....

Hard to believe I know, but this post marks my 500th blog post! When I started this blog a while back, I had no idea how long it would last. But it has yielded some incredible programs, reviews, and musings that I am very proud of. 

A special thanks to those of you who have been reading since the beginning and to those of you who came on a bit late in the game, feel free to read the archives and to tell your friends! I plan on continuing to write this until I run out of things to say, so thanks for sticking with me on the journey.

Remember that there are a few more days to sign up for Fixing what's broke! 

Thanks again for reading and for the 500th time...

Excelsior!

 

Guest Blog # 28: Some Inspiration from a graduate of PLAE

This week's guest blog comes from a graduate of my first PLAE Class. Enjoy.

Excelsior!

There's Swan Lake.. and then there's SWAN LAKE

I was so inspired by Michael's post yesterday, that when I saw his FB status looking for a guest blogger, I leapt at the opportunity.  :)  Michael was kind enough to invite me to blog today.  I'm a dancer/choreographer *insert shameless plug: www.tinydancernyc.com*, so I'm going to shake things up and share some recent inspiration from the dance world.

Last night, I went to see NY City Ballet's production of "Swan Lake."  Timely, with the whole "Black Swan" film everyone is either raving about or disgusted by or both, but nonetheless, always a very popular ballet at major companies.  The house is packed and everyone is desperate to see Odile execute her solo with 32 fouette turns in the second act.  City Ballet never disappoints.  They have MON-AY coming out of their ears, they have it together, production values are through the roof, the dancers are arguably the best in the world.  I'm pretty sure there are severe penalties for not being PERFECT 24/7 at City Ballet.  That goes for everyone from ballerinas to bartenders!

Now, I'm a huge dance enthusiast.  Things that sometimes bore the average audience member fascinate me, and I was looking forward to an amazing show.  But in all honesty, I found my attention wandering at times. Why?  Well, traditional ballet is all about the fancy steps.  And personally, there are only so many times I can watch the principal male do six perfect pirouettes into a double tour and get excited about it, as amazing as it is.  You look BEAUTIFUL, but what else have you got?

Yawn.

For comparison, a couple months ago I was fortunate enough to see Matthew Bourne's "Swan Lake" at NY City Center.  I don't know if any of you have seen it but I was RIVETED.  It is essentially thestory of Swan Lake, but with men playing the corps of swans.  It is also set in a more modern era, and at one point, the prince and ensemble are dancing in a night club to Tchaikovsky.  It was so innovative!  My absolute favorite moment - the prince gets thrown out of the club by the bouncers after getting into a fight, and out of nowhere, a paparazzi runs by and snaps a picture of him.  The attention to detail and the comedic timing was astounding.  I would later find out that Mr. Bourne is a serious movie buff who has intensely studied screenplays and story structure.

So besides the glaringly obvious, what is the difference between these two productions?  The emotional element.  The STORY.  

In the dance world, there is so much pressure to have the longest extensions, the best turns, the highest jumps, and to be technically perfect.  But once you have all of that, where is there to go?  There IS an emotional element in watching a dancer accomplish a really amazing physical feat, but it wears off after about 24th time you see the same thing.  Matthew Bourne's dancers did not sacrifice technique, they just re-prioritized it. The story came first.  Every unit of action in the production furthered the connection between the audience and the performers.  For City Ballet, it's the other way around.  The ballet is about the virtuosity of the dance and THEN the story.  This has obviously been working for centuries, and it's a respected art, but what is more relevant for audiences today?

It just goes to show you that sometimes, I'm not gonna name any names of any current Broadway shows or anything, but SOMETIMES, even all the bells and whistles in the world can't get you everything.  Constraints like the ones us indie artists deal with are kind of a blessing in disguise.  

Just a little over 2 weeks ago, I began a blog project called 100 Auditions (www.100auditions.wordpress.com).  The way it works is I am going on one dance audition every week for 100 weeks and blogging about each audition.  I completed an audition on Wednesday and learned an important lesson, which I wrote about. In my observation, the dancers who make the cuts are not necessarily the dancers who perform the combination perfectly.  They are not even the dancers who have the highest jumps, the longest extensions, or can do the most turns.  The ones who make the cuts are the ones who know the role they are playing.  Even if there's no clear beginning, middle, or end, they create a story arc with the combination and show the auditors that they can play the role.  And if they mess up, they still, as Martha Graham would say, "go for the jugular."  

Lady Gaga would never, technique-wise, be good enough to sing at the Met... unless, of course, she's Lady Gaga.  Now she's TOO good to sing at the Met.  She had her finger on the pulse of the archetypes her audience connects with, and it paid off.  Literally.

I'm also reminded of a quote from the movie Million Dollar Baby, when she faces the first opponent she can't knock out, Clint Eastwood's character says, "She's younger than you, stronger than you, and faster than you.  What are you gonna do about it?"

Dancers, actors, producers, directors, theatre artists of all kinds - there is always someone prettier, richer, smarter, faster, younger, taller, shorter, thinner, and...well, better, in those superficial areas.  Technique is necessary.  It allows us to speak with clarity.  But it isn't everything.  Know what you are, know your strengths, be human for crying out loud, and tell us your story.  It's so much more interesting.

Until the next audition, thanks for reading :)

Katrina Ylimaki

www.tinydancernyc.com

www.100auditions.wordpress.com

A lesson from Tony Stark about starting your business

Producers produce.

Seems simple enough, but it's actually fascinating how many people forget about that. 

Why?

We do a bunch of uneccesary stuff, which is why I think we need to take a second to refer to the world of comics for some guidance. This week's lesson is from Tony Stark or as most know him, Ironman.

The image above is the first Iron Man suit. Notice how it's big, clunky, and kinda silly looking. That's how most businesses look when they start. I'm here to tell you that's ok. Why?

Look at it this way: Tony was stuck in a cave with a bunch of hardware that no one was using. He could have said that none of the things around him were useful and he could have sat drawing the perfect Iron Man suit, but then he wouldn't have been able to get out of the cave and build this sleek little number. He recognized that he had to use what he had to build something that would get him out of his situation. Asthetics and improvements came later. 

Your business is the same. You probably are looking at that new idea you have or that business you want to start and it looks a little ugly. There are rough edges, it's a bit clunky, and you're not sure if any of the tools around you can help to change that. 

Think like Tony. What do you have that you can use?

You don't need a ridiculous amount of start up capital to make something and try it out. You just need some drive and what's in the cave. 

So produce.

Nuff said.

Also, if you're really spinning your wheels and need some guidance, there are still spots left for Fixing what's broke. Come and meet others who also want to start businesses. Have fun!

Excelsior! 

The future of publishing and what it means for our plays

As we start to move away from the printed word and into a time when digital formats are the norm, a lot is coming into question regarding the idea of publishing. It used to be simply that you found a publisher who put your work out there and you hoped people bought your book. Now you can self publish, create an E-Book, make a Kindle version etc. 

Seth Godin has recently started something called the Domino Project which explores the places publishing will go. He's doing some very cool things with this, especially in terms of social media outreach, but I am actually interested in exploring what these changes mean for plays as well as books. Many of you know that I am also a playwright myself and I think that there are probably better ways for dramatic writing to reach new audiences and find new distrubition channels. I'd love to chat with other playwrights about this and see if we might find an alternative to the traditional models of publishing and distribution. If you want to chat, email me. 

Excelsior!

P.S.- Only 8 seats left for Fixing what's broke. Got a great idea and want to monitize it? Sign up! 

Do you like to write?

So as many of you are aware, I have a ton of projects that I'm working on these days and things are getting very busy. For that reason, I have decided to bring on some more writers for the guest blog section as well as my Broadwayworld Column 99 and Under the Radar. I may also include some of these writers and content providers in my upcoming books and seminars. So if you love writing on the topic of the arts, I'd love to work with you. If interested, fill out this form and I will be in touch. Happy V-Day! 

Excelsior! 

Read this if you're broke

As I continue my work on my new book Why you're starving, I am constantly doing new classes as research. 

I am trying out this brand new class meant to help those who aren't making the money they want to make or who are not happy with their current job and some of my friends think I'm crazy for how low the price point is for such a small class.

Intrigued? 

Read more about it here.

Also Solving for X is tomorrow and there are still some tickets left. If you decide to buy the premium ticket, I will throw in the new class as a bonus in addition to the one on ones.

See ya there. 

Excelsior!