LIRR 終於有離家越來越近的感覺

Far From the Spotlight, the True Powers of Broadway
 
By JESSE McKINLEY
Published: February 26, 2006

EVEN if you're an avid theatergoer, you probably don't know any of the 20 people pictured above among the orchestra seats of the August Wilson Theater. But in a business often associated with name-brand stars, diva-wrangling directors and picky playwrights, these are the people who help bring those characters' talents to a paying audience. They range from Tara Rubin, an unsuccessful actress turned very successful casting director (she has accounts with six musicals now running on Broadway) to Freddie Gershon, a smooth-talking show salesman whose work on the road keeps royalties rolling in for cash-poor creative types back in town. While much of the power on Broadway remains in the hands of the producers, the theater owners and the critics — and much of the business's day-to-day is handled by camera-shy tribes of press agents and general managers — many of this assembled cast are valuable specialists in an increasingly complex industry. Armed with talents like negotiation (see The Lawyers, The Labor Leaders), sales (The Licensers, The Group Seller), buzz (The Marketers) or taste (The Agents, The Casting Agents), each has a niche, if not a big name. Here is a selective look at some of the behind-the-scenes players on Broadway, what they do, and why. Even if you don't know their faces, the spring theater season would be hard to pull off without them.

Guide to the Players (click on photo to enlarge)

Whatever the show, if it's been on Broadway recently, one or more of those above probably had something to do with it. 

1) Seth D. Gelblum
2) Stephanie Lee
3) Alan Eisenberg
4) David Lennon
5) James J. Claffey Jr.
6) Jay Binder
7) Peter Hagan
8) John Buzzetti
9) Freddie Gershon
10) Bernard Telsey
11) Tara Rubin
12) John F. Breglio
13) Laura Matalon
14) Tanya Grubich
15) Trish Santini
16) David Kalodner
17) Ted Chapin
18) Jim Carnahan
19) Damian Bazadona
20) Nancy Rose

The Labor Leaders

There are three men on Broadway with the power to shut it down, and one of them plays the viola. That's DAVID LENNON, 46, the wiry, thin-mustached president of Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, who closed Broadway for four days in 2003. The issue then was — as it will be in March 2007 when the current contract expires — the future of live music on Broadway, Mr. Lennon said. In particular, musicians are worried about "virtual orchestras," advanced synthesizers that imitate the sound of actual musicians. "I don't see technology as evil when it makes something better," said Mr. Lennon, who studied at Juilliard and has played on Broadway and with symphonic orchestras. "But not when it destroys something."

While it was Mr. Lennon and his board who called the strike, they also relied on the support of the actors as well as the stagehands, whose union is led by JAMES J. CLAFFEY Jr. Mr. Claffey, 42, worked in props and carpentry before becoming president of Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, considered by many producers to be the most hard-hitting of all Broadway's unions. And true enough, Mr. Claffey — whose five brothers are all Local 1 members — looks the part of the union boss: he's tall, he's broad and his handshake feels like greeting a porterhouse. But in his two years on the job, he has emphasized that his goal is to be "a gentleman and a general" in negotiations with the League of American Theaters and Producers, which represents Broadway's producers. "They are preparing for such a battle, and we'll be prepared, too," he said of the talks in 2007. "But we're not looking for a fight."

Actors' Equity, representing 45,000 actors and stage managers, was the last Broadway union to go to the mat with producers, nearly striking in the summer of 2004. ALAN EISENBERG, Equity's outgoing executive director, led that negotiation — as he had every other for the previous two decades. And he has noticed a change. "It remains a mom-and-pop industry in many ways, but it's become sharper," said Mr. Eisenberg, who demurs when asked his age but will complete a 25-year run as chief in October. During that tenure, he said, he has helped to establish a 401(K) plan, improved health benefits and raised salaries more than 30 percent. One thing he has not been able to solve — and really, who could? — is the union's chronically high unemployment rate. "On quiet days here," he conceded, "I can hear the walls say, 'I need a job, I need a job, I need a job.' "

The Casting Agents

Casting agents know disappointment — by the thousands. TARA RUBIN, who keeps the casts fresh for musicals like "Mamma Mia!" and "Monty Python's Spamalot," estimates she has seen 100,000 actors in her career; JAY BINDER, the business's elder statesman, puts his number at more than 500,000. Serving as the creative liaison between producers (who usually want stars) and directors (who usually want Actors, with a capital A), casting directors have to juggle the needs of the play with the needs of the box office. "It's very difficult to see how talented people are and still tell them no," said Ms. Rubin, 50. A former actress, she earned her stripes at the Broadway casting agency of Johnson-Liff before setting up her own shop in 2001. She works regularly with directors like Des McAnuff ("Jersey Boys") and has the accounts for two other long-runners: "The Phantom of the Opera" and "The Producers." She is already at work on next season, for "The Wiz" (with Mr. McAnuff) and another potential blockbuster, "Mary Poppins." 

Mr. Binder, 55, has the strength of connections with Broadway's old guard like Emanuel Azenberg, the Neil Simon producer for whom Mr. Binder has worked more than a dozen times on Broadway, and Elizabeth I. McCann, for whom he is casting "Well." He also cast Disney's "Lion King" and "Beauty and the Beast." His first casting job came from the playwright Edward Albee, who asked Mr. Binder to find him a one-armed actor for a role. "I said, 'Left-armed or right-armed?' " Mr. Binder recalled. He still likes to work the old-fashioned way: with pictures and printed résumés. "We're pretty much computerized, but there's something about paper that makes me feel secure," he said.

BERNARD TELSEY owes his Broadway career to "Rent," a show whose demo he could barely get through the first time he heard it. "I was like, 'O.K., if I have to,' " he recalled of casting the original Off Broadway run. But when that show exploded, it established Mr. Telsey, now 46, as someone with an eye for offbeat talent. You know, newcomers like Julia Roberts, who is starring in "Three Days of Rain," one of Mr. Telsey's three springtime shows that also include "Tarzan" and "The Wedding Singer." Mr. Telsey has seven other Broadway accounts, including "Hairspray," "Wicked" and "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels"; in addition, he runs the MCC Theater off Broadway. He also worked on the movie version of "Rent." "TV and film, that's where the money is," Mr. Telsey said. "But theater, that's where you find the new talent."

The Agents

Any discussion of Broadway agents usually starts with GEORGE LANE, 53, the Creative Artists Agency star whose negotiating style falls somewhere between tough and unbearable, his contractual opponents say. Mr. Lane (not pictured) represents many of America's A-list playwrights, including John Patrick Shanley, Suzan-Lori Parks, Richard Greenberg and Douglas Carter Beane, whose "Little Dog Laughed" could go to Broadway later this year, as well as A-list directors like Daniel Sullivan, Joe Mantello and Doug Hughes. That extensive client list is what helped him assemble the deal that is bringing Julia Roberts (another Creative Artists client) to New York for her Broadway premiere in "Three Days of Rain," a Greenberg play directed by Mr. Mantello. And Mr. Lane has already landed a Broadway home for his client Conor McPherson's newest offering, "Shining City," which was bumped from the schedule earlier this year, but is now expected to open at the Biltmore Theater in May.

DAVID KALODNER, 48, who once worked under Mr. Lane at William Morris (in a division now headed by Peter Franklin and Jack Tantleff), is now one of the Morris agency's Broadway-actor specialists. His client list is geared toward regulars on Broadway and in Tony Award categories (think Audra McDonald, Cynthia Nixon, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Cherry Jones, Robert Sean Leonard and Mary-Louise Parker). With a sharp wit hidden behind heavy glasses, Mr. Kalodner started as an agent after ambitions to become a producer bottomed out. Theatrical stars appreciate that he understands the particular lure and challenge of the stage, even though the pay and perks are smaller than in Hollywood. "The stage is the only place where the actor is the last step in the process," Mr. Kalodner said. "It doesn't mean it's not collaborative, but no one comes in after your work is done and decides which part is going to be seen, or how it's going to be underscored."

JOHN BUZZETTI and PETER HAGAN pretty much founded the theater department at the Gersh Agency in 1997, an operation that was suddenly enhanced last month when the company took over the Joyce Ketay literary agency and its list of playwrights, including Tony Kushner, Neil LaBute and David Rabe, as well as the writer-director Moisés Kaufman. Mr. Buzzetti, 34, tends to scout at the grass-roots level, a method that has resulted in a roster of young playwrights like David Lindsay-Abaire, Adam Rapp, Stephen Adly-Guirgis and the entire creative team of "Avenue Q." (He found Mr. Lindsay-Abaire, for example, at a scene night at Juilliard.) Mr. Hagan, 51, a William Morris veteran, has a more experienced stable, including the director Walter Bobbie, the "Six Feet Under" creator Alan Ball and the playwright Horton Foote, whose "Trip to Bountiful" is still hoping for a Broadway home this season.

The Marketers

For a long time, Broadway didn't really use marketers, figuring that advertising agencies (a business still dominated on Broadway by two companies, Serino/Coyne and Spot Co.) and press agents were getting the word out just fine. But in the mid-1990's, big corporations began to take more active interest in Broadway, bringing ideas like cross-promotion and sponsorship to an industry whose idea of innovation usually meant placing a bigger ad. "When Disney and Livent came to the table, a lot of independent producers said, 'How can we get that?' " said LAURA MATALON, 45, who founded the Marketing Group with TANYA GRUBICH, 42. "And corporations would say, 'We always wanted to do something with Broadway, but we don't know how.' " So a liaison was born: since founding their company in 1999, the two women — working with TRISH SANTINI, 40, who runs the company's Broadway division — have been active in courting corporations that want to get at Broadway's demographic (largely well off, educated and white) — while simultaneously trying to tap niche markets and potential corporate sponsors. This spring, for example, they are focusing on Elton John fans for "Lestat," for which Sir Elton wrote the music, enlisting soft-rock stations to promote the vampire musical. For "Drowsy Chaperone," a slapstick musical about a Broadway bride, they sent wedding invitations to 150 corporate "partners," announcing the show and its willingness to entertain promotional offers. Ideally, such deals heighten a show's profile without inflating its budget.

In a similar vein, the Internet long baffled Broadway. Was it a platform for advertising? For selling tickets? What is this "Google" you speak of? DAMIAN BAZADONA, 29, has gone a ways toward answering those questions for many producers; since 2001, when he founded Situation Marketing, an Internet strategy and consulting group, he has worked on dozens of Broadway productions — he got seven Broadway accounts this spring alone — using everything from podcasting ("Lestat") to free MP3's ("Brooklyn, the Musical") to streaming video ("Sweet Charity") to initiatives on myspace.com to drive ticket sales. "I've quickly learned that it's not easy selling a $110 ticket," Mr. Bazadona said in an e-mail note. "And the Internet is still relatively a new marketing channel." But he has seen signs of success: Mr. Bazadona said that a promotion on "The Color Purple" Web site — complete with an order form — had resulted in more than 3,000 requests for blocks of tickets.

The Group Seller

STEPHANIE LEE was just 5 years old when her father, Ronald S. Lee, first brought her to the office — the Group Sales Box Office, the ticket agency he had founded in 1960. "I used to roller skate order forms to box offices," Ms. Lee, now 34, recalls. When Mr. Lee retired a couple of years ago, Ms. Lee took over the family business. Since then, she has orchestrated a merger with another group sales company and now oversees $40 million a year in ticket sales to groups ranging from church parties to high school students to nonprofit companies looking for theatrically themed fund-raisers.

Not that it's easy money. "Sept. 11 really changed the business," said Ms. Lee, citing the decline in advance sales. "And it was our company that went to producers and said we're not getting the groups." The conversations led to discounts for smaller groups, a change that Ms. Lee said has spurred sales to younger theatergoers, another highly prized demographic. The company also sets up lunches and special performances for tour operators around the country. All of which, Ms. Lee said, she learned from her dad. "I shared a partner's desk with him so I could hear everything he said," Ms. Lee said. "And I absorbed everything."

The Lawyers

Over the years, JOHN F. BREGLIO has represented, well, just about everybody who's anybody on Broadway. 

He has worked for every major theater owner — he is still the counsel for Jujamycn, which owns five Broadway houses — and many of the nonprofits (the Public Theater, Manhattan Theater Club, Playwrights Horizons and more). He has represented stars like Bernadette Peters and Patti LuPone and is the lawyer for Stephen Sondheim. It was Mr. Breglio, now 59, who announced the death of Michael Bennett, the choreographer and director, in 1987; he still oversees Bennett's estate and that of August Wilson. Part of his prominence can be traced to his well-connected roots: he started his career with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in 1971 under John Wharton, a legendary theatrical lawyer, and Robert H. Montgomery Jr., who represented Mr. Sondheim before Mr. Breglio.

SETH D. GELBLUM, 51, used to live with an actor — his brother Peter. "He was good," Mr. Gelblum said. "Not usually employed, but good." Thereby disabused of any romantic notions about the theater, Mr. Gelblum went to law school and, after a stint as a litigator and corporate lawyer, ended up working on film deals. That led back to work on theater deals, where he was pleasantly surprised: he really liked it. "It's a back-end business where the back end is real," said Mr. Gelblum, a partner at Loeb & Loeb. "No one really makes money unless the show does well." (Translation: Years of weekly royalties can make people very happy.) He has built one of the most active rosters around, with directors like George C. Wolfe, Julie Taymor and Des McAnuff. "The collaborative nature of the theater business makes it much more appealing" than film, he said. "People admire work that isn't that commercial. And it's small, so people have to get along."

NANCY ROSE, 47, a founding partner of the firm of Schreck Rose Dapello & Adams, is a "Wicked" woman, having represented its two lead producers (Marc Platt and David Stone) and the composer (Stephen Schwartz) on that blockbuster. Other clients include the playwright David Lindsay-Abaire, as well as the director John Rando and the Araca Group, the producers, who are collaborating on "The Wedding Singer."

The Licensers

So you want to do "State Fair" on Broadway and you've got a director, a star and the designers. Big whoop. Because unless you've talked to TED CHAPIN, your "Fair" isn't going anywhere. As the head of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, Mr. Chapin, 55, has control over the rights for all of that classic team's musicals, as well as many of their solo efforts, and those of more than 100 other writers, including Irving Berlin, Lorenz Hart and Rodgers's grandson, Adam Guettel ("The Light in the Piazza"). Thus, Mr. Chapin can not only pick when and where, say, "The Sound of Music" or "Oklahoma!" is produced, he can also veto your director, your star and even your designers. Oh, yes, he is also the chairman of the administration committee for the Tony Awards, which decides which shows and stars end up in which categories.

A son of a former cultural affairs commissioner for New York City, Schuyler G. Chapin, Mr. Chapin got the job in 1981 through a family friendship with Mary Rodgers Guettel, Richard Rodgers's daughter. He keeps a list of distinguished friends, including Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer and, of course, anyone who can put on a smash revival of one of his shows.

Everybody knows there's no money in the theater, and everybody's wrong. A composer of a hit Broadway musical, after all, can earn tens of thousands of dollars a week while the show runs, which can add up to a house in the Hamptons pretty quick. But not every show runs forever — or ever — on Broadway, and that's where FREDDIE GERSHON comes in. Mr. Gershon's company, Music Theater International, controls the non-Broadway rights to 300 musicals, ranging from "West Side Story" to "Big," which can fetch its authors $25,000 a week playing in an average-size regional theater. "Every author on Broadway lives off secondary rights," Mr. Gershon said. "They can work on a show for five years and nothing comes of it. Our job is to give them the luxury of having a safety net" of out-of-town royalties. All of which makes whether Mr. Gershon likes your show a very important question. Mr. Gershon, who is, he said, "between 60 and death," has also tapped into another fast-growing market by adapting major musicals — "Ragtime," "Into the Woods" as well as Disney animated films — into shows suitable for your local school. The British producer Cameron Mackintosh — a partner in Mr. Gershon's company — credited his program with generating another generation's interest in "Les Misérables," which, in turn, has inspired Mr. Mackintosh to bring the show back to Broadway next fall.