How to Be a Producer with Kevin Surace

Today’s guest is Kevin Surace - producer, investor and VP of operations at WitzEnd Productions, the company behind Some Like it Hot, A Beautiful Noise, 1660 Vine, and Diana. He is also a Silicon Valley executive, but I met him many years ago as a drummer. In this episode, we discuss WHAT IT REALLY MEANS to be a producer, new strategies for helping a show make it on Broadway, why producers are actually our greatest asset, and absolutely should be your friend. I think this episode is one of the most informative yet, and a must listen for anyone interested in developing a new work or getting the opportunity to work on a brand new show.

Theme music written by Rachel Dean and orchestrated by Katie Coleman

Audio engineer Mike Rukstad

Special thanks to the following folks from the SIX Boleyn Company for lending their voices to the intro:

Mike Rukstad
Dylan Dineen
Sarah Ortiz
Jane Cardona
Kaitlin Ciccarelli
Kami Lujan
Jillian Bartels

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[00:00:00] Katie Coleman: Hello and welcome to How to Succeed in Theatre by Sacrificing Everything. I'm your host, Katie Coleman. All sacrifices discussed in this podcast were fully consensual and 100 percent worth it. Because we love what we do. Right, guys? Right!

Hello there, friends! Today's guest is Kevin Surace, producer, investor, and VP of operations at Wits End Productions, the company behind Some Like It Hot, A Beautiful Noise, 1660 Vine, and Diana. He is also a Silicon Valley executive, but I met him many years ago as a drummer. In this episode, we discuss what it really means to be a producer, new strategies for helping a show make it on Broadway, why producers are actually our greatest asset and absolutely should be your friend.

I think this episode is one of the most informative yet. And a must listen for anyone interested in developing a new work or getting the opportunity to work on a brand new show. Enjoy.

[00:01:18] Kevin Surace: Yeah. Your name came up on something. Some Jake, Hey, it was, uh, it was, uh, Aaron, I think who said, Hey, Kevin, do you remember when, you know, Katie, she was off in the wings, we were doing this, whatever it was, some show.

I don't remember what the show was. Some show, maybe Joseph or something, who knows, but you know, lots of memories in these kind of community theater things that you come up through. So, uh, which is true. Everybody, everybody's got to start somewhere. Absolutely.

[00:01:40] Katie Coleman: And there's something so comforting about going back to visit and being like the same people, the same

[00:01:46] Kevin Surace: same people.

Yep. One thing about community theater. That's interesting. That theater, right. That was, that theater was started by Steve Wozniak's mom. Oh my God. Yep. She was the founder. Uh, Uh, uh, along with the mom of a friend of mine who, who is a vice president at a bank here. His name's Ed. And, um, it was his mom's theater with Mrs.

Wozniak and they would go play the shows. He's a guitar player. Oh my gosh. So, you know, he was playing shows in 68, 69, 70 as a, as, you know, as a kid. When was that theater founded? 68. Wow. 1968. And Sunnyvale built the theater for that theater company so that they would have a local theater. And. Times when, you know, people could do that and you could probably build a theater for a million dollars, not 60.

Yeah,

[00:02:28] Katie Coleman: I think I did one of my very first theater experiences there with, um, for, with CTC, California Theatre. Because they worked with kids, right? Um, so I think when I was like, Five years old. I was Helen of Troy

[00:02:41] Kevin Surace: and some little, Oh my goodness. I didn't know that. Not playing piano, but literally singing and dancing.

Yes.

[00:02:48] Katie Coleman: Very little,

[00:02:49] Kevin Surace: very little. It's okay. Do you know, um, the theater actually started out as a junior only program and then became a senior program. Uh, by the seventies adult theater and then after CTC left, we, you know, somewhat under my watch brought back big junior programs, a junior program, and then one or two junior shows in the summer.

Um, one, it's great for the kids because they need a place to go and do that stuff. It's kind of like theater camp, right? But the other thing is, you know, we lose money on our adult shows and we make money on the kid shows. It's just the way it is. Both in regional theater and in community theater, a kid's program can pay the bills.

Really pay the bills. Like it, dislike it. It's, you know, it doesn't matter. Pays the bills. It fills the seats. All the families come over and over again. And of course, you know, the kids pay a fee to be part of the program, right? And everybody gets in, generally. You're not all going to have leads, but you'll be a tree.

Uh, it's great for the kids. It gets them on stage. It gets them used to doing it. We've had great people like Alex Brightman, right? Came through that theater. You know him from, uh, Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice, right? But he's a kid from this area and came through Sunnyvale. The one of the stars of Six on the West End.

Oh, yes, Roxanne. Roxanne. Roxy came through Sunnyvale. Roxy just, she's crushing it, right? You know, once in a while, you get these kids come through and somewhere around 12, 13, you go, that's going to be a star. They actually need to go do this, right? There's

[00:04:17] Katie Coleman: something so magical about a kid on stage just killing it.

I can't get enough of that.

[00:04:23] Kevin Surace: But it doesn't happen very often. You know, when I, when I, I did a movie last summer called 1660 Vine, it's a musical. Yes, I want to talk more about that. And we had a, a, a great, one of the, we had a kid in it who was 14 and she used to be in Frozen on Broadway and she could just kill any part, like any part, you know, and so she's a superstar at 14, you know, she's going to be a star at 22, right?

I think unlike the movies where you have these kids stars and they pick them because they're cute and they're eight or whatever. Yeah, you know if you're going to be on broadway at 12 13 14 or even in a [00:05:00] regional show or something You have real talent or yeah, you know, you got to sing and dance, right?

You also have

[00:05:04] Katie Coleman: to be really good to work with.

[00:05:06] Kevin Surace: Yeah, you know, that's true Also the parents have to be good to work with because we Theater is a people business and it's people working with people and you know this and we both know this about Broadway is You know it's very easy and I know a lot of people who very talented and they sort of got a bad rap about oh, They're hard to work with and this could be in the pit.

It could be his music director could be his director It could be a choreographer could be an actor doesn't matter, right? Once you start that once that word gets around to directors and producers. Nobody calls you You don't work. Oh,

[00:05:38] Katie Coleman: yeah, absolutely. It's like just as much of the job as

[00:05:41] Kevin Surace: talent. It's just as much as the job as talent.

Yeah, EQ matters as it turns out.

[00:05:46] Katie Coleman: Yes. So you have produced a lot of things. So I'm just curious what you've produced and how you got into producing and what that Even means

[00:05:57] Kevin Surace: what did it even mean? So look, I think like anyone else, you, uh, you know, you learn your chops first, whatever it is, whether it's onstage or offstage in community theater, then regional theater, then Broadway, right?

It's what you do. Yeah. That is the pathway. And. And I do worry that our, both our community theaters and our regional theaters are under great duress post COVID. Yeah. People have learned to entertain themselves at home with 20 streaming services that they don't need and they're not leaving. This isn't about, I'm scared to go out.

We've done survey after survey. It's basically, you know, I've paid whatever, 14 a month for this service. I'm behind on eight shows. Yeah, I don't need to go see something. I'm curious

[00:06:40] Katie Coleman: if that's true everywhere in the country. I mean, I think it is. I think it probably is particularly in Silicon

[00:06:46] Kevin Surace: Valley.

Theater works needs 3 million to survive and they need it in three months. It's TheatreWorks, one of the top places in the country. I'm on the board of the Rubicon in, in, in, um, in Ventura, and, uh, Rubicon is under the same duress. Yeah. But had we not gotten some, you know, some real help, the, the, even the donations could not, uh, deal with the costs.

This is a very complicated issue because theatres must survive or there won't be theatre. How about that? Yeah. It's very complicated. You know, that leads you to say, well, we've got to reduce costs and we've got to increase ticket prices. Yeah. But you can only reduce costs so much, and then it's below what anyone will work for you for.

And, and that isn't fair to musicians and actors and whoever else is paid or not paid or whatever the deal is, right? Right. Well, the, the number, the, the tickets prices can't go up that much, right? Yeah. Can't cover it. And so there is this stress. Yeah in in the system. So you asked me about producing so yeah in the producing realm There are very very very different producers that are all called producers and this is complicated Probably to all your listeners, right?

So there is the lead producer and the lead producer Or production company is truly doing all the work. They have, um, done all the contracts. They hired the general management team. They have a lot to do with the cast. If they're getting Michael Aarons to recruit, uh, uh, all the musicians in New York, you know, they, they choose, you know, they're, they're making those choices.

So they

[00:08:16] Katie Coleman: choose kind of like the higher team. And then that team kind of chooses everyone else. More or less.

[00:08:21] Kevin Surace: Um, more or less. Uh, but, but they have a lot of sway. So for instance. If we're bringing a show through regional and on to Broadway, we as a production company, which I'll talk about at what's end, uh, have probably already chosen most of our leads.

Like we know who we wrote these parts for, you know, if it's our show, right? The ideal cast. We probably have talked to them and they've probably been cast, at least in our mind, assuming they're available. So I think a lot of people on Broadway think, Hey, look, I'm. You know, I'm going to go for this lineup.

You know, you're probably, unless they told you you're up for some lead, you're probably not up for a lead. The producers, maybe even before the director or in conjunction with the director, have in mind who those leads are, because even during the creation of the show, when it's being written. You're working as a producer.

We're working with the writers to say who do we have in mind here? Yeah, and you probably talked to them three years before and you probably did table reads with them, right? So so, you know the the little bit of dirty little secret All I'm giving you the secret is if you know lead producers and you know The probably 12 directors that probably matter on Broadway.

You really want to get to know them And they need to get to know you not through an audition. You just really need to know each other. And there's table reads that do that. There's parties that do that, whatever, but you need to know those. That's a

[00:09:45] Katie Coleman: great thing to think about. So yeah, if I want to meet producers, how would you recommend that I do that?

[00:09:51] Kevin Surace: Table reads for sure. I mean, you, and by the way. Like, we as producers generally choose the people at the table read. Yeah. Um, it's our show at that point. There [00:10:00] may not even be a, a final director yet, you know, it could be early in the process, but we're getting to know the people who are on that table. And I got to tell you, we find people at table reads, we go, Oh my goodness.

Had no idea. Yeah. Okay. That is our Betty, you know, or whatever. Absolutely. That's it. So, I know, I think people get sick of doing table reads, um, because, you know, they're often either not paid or paid very little or very minimal and all of that, but, but it's a very important way to get in front of directors and, and produce, the producers are in the room, the lead producers, right?

Not all the people later on. Um, so, so you have to know the producers. So. Everything I'm working on, I go, Oh, you know, I worked with Pia Toscano on this movie last year and she crushed it. And I can see Pia in this role. So in the producer realm, there's all these tiers of producers. There's the lead producer, and then there's co producers, associate producers, executive, all these other things.

Most of the other people, as you get down the line, did write a check. And they're very good people and we need them all. And there could be hundreds of those. Okay. They are all producers of some level. Right. They will come at some point to the party and meet the people. And, and again, these are critical people like this industry doesn't survive.

without, um, the whole cadre of producers. Right. And, uh, depending on how far up the list they are, they might be involved in some decisions. So the lead producer certainly will have a regular calls with just the closest co producers, right. Who might both be somewhat artistic, but also they're going to be companies probably, and they probably put in.

A million or two million dollars, right? So these are very, these are the close people. But all the way down the list is people who wrote a 10, 000 check. So the

[00:11:44] Katie Coleman: lead producer is, is not the person who gave the most money. They're the person that's

[00:11:48] Kevin Surace: doing the most work. They're the person who found the show.

It's their show. Oh, okay. Now they're still responsible for bringing in the money, but they're going to go to 20 other small production companies, producers, right? Who raised money now, those producers who raised money for your show. So Ken Davenport has a show. Yeah. Uh, Harmony's coming up. Okay. So Wits End is a producer on Harmony, but not the lead producer.

It's Ken's show. Got it. However, we're the lead producer on another show called Dark of the Moon that's on its way going there. Yeah. And, and Ken will probably put money into that. So we'd be, we'd be the lead. And in that case he'd be, uh, you know, a different level, you know, like a co producer. Does that make sense?

Yeah. That sounds like a

[00:12:27] Katie Coleman: logistical nightmare, but I'm sure you have people that organize

[00:12:30] Kevin Surace: it all. It's just how it's worked on Broadway for decades. Yeah. And, and so, so you might be a lead producer on one show and not on another and then vice versa. But you all know each other like cool. We all know each other like all the major producers on broadway production companies, right?

Yeah, um, we've all had lead roles. We've all had secondary roles because we go and support each other great And so we can all raise money. Yeah need each other. Yeah but the lead producer may not be Themselves the lead funder, but they're still responsible for getting all 23 million for that musical in the end, right?

So if if if we're doing dark of the moon, I think we'll do dark of the moon probably in in In west end first, but we're doing dark of the moon and that is our show We started the show seven years ago. We brought it all the way through. We are the lead producer Ultimately, we're going to have to raise 23 million to put that on Broadway, plus or minus a few million.

Wow. And we are responsible for going to all of the other production companies and saying, this is a great production, by the way it is, and uh, you are, um, going to want to invest in it for your investors, right?

[00:13:38] Katie Coleman: Yeah. So it sounds like it's actually kind of a smaller world than

[00:13:41] Kevin Surace: one might think. Smaller world than one might think.

If you go all the way out to the people writing 10, 000 checks, there, there are hundreds and hundreds, maybe a thousand of them, right? There's a lot of them. But at the top tier, 10, 15 production companies that probably matter, right? Right. And we all know each other because we've all participated in each other's shows.

Yeah. And we say no sometimes, we go, don't like that. So we have two shows on Broadway right now, Wits End does, where we are a co producer or lower, but we participated. Yeah. Because they're our friends. One is, um, Um, some like it hot, which is great. It's doing great. Have you seen the show? I haven't,

[00:14:19] Katie Coleman: but I've

[00:14:19] Kevin Surace: heard really good things.

Well, you have to go see the show. Clearly not right now because you're in Cleveland or something, but you can go next week. Please go see it. It is fabulous. Yeah. And I, and even I was unsure how they would deal with, um, you know, how do you deal with cross dressing today? Like that just is an old meme, right?

I heard it

[00:14:38] Katie Coleman: was very tastefully done though. Everyone seems happy with how

[00:14:41] Kevin Surace: it's done. Blew it, blew it out of the water. Brilliantly done. Yeah. And uh, Casey Nicholaw, uh, director and choreographer, and won for Best Choreography and he should have. So, so there's an example where we really believed in the concept of taking this movie and revisiting it in a new [00:15:00] way.

And so we raised, uh, a good portion of the, you know, a good chunk of the money for, to, to get that on. Nice. And the show is doing well. We also did, but we're not the lead. So we're way back there and someone else took the lead. Ken Davenport is the lead on the Neil Diamond show, which we are also a producer of.

Uh, it's a great show. The, the people who go see it, love it. Although some people come out and say, but that wasn't Neil. No, no, no. It's a show. It's like, Neil's not doing that. Well, right. They're like, he was there the first night, but I don't think he's going to play shows a week. No, no, no, no, no. But that, but that one just, you know, isn't hitting the numbers.

We wish it would hit. And this is how Broadway is. So, right. And we should talk about what's really going on there. All of the actors I've talked to, and I I've gotten to know so many. Wonderful people on stage and they're so freaking talented or else they wouldn't be there, right? Right? And um, We've had many to our house in upstate new york and um have had shows there and you know Concerts and fundraisers and all these things and you sit down and they look at me and they go So how does this producer thing actually work?

Why do they get all the money? That was the thing. Why did they get all the money? And then I go through the metrics and they go, couldn't someone have told us that? Like we didn't know that. So I think that's probably worth doing. Yeah.

[00:16:19] Katie Coleman: I would love to hear about that. It feels like producers are absolutely necessary and artists need producers, but then sometimes it does feel like they're the enemy

[00:16:27] Kevin Surace: in a way.

Well, I think it's, it's, I think it's that way because there is this sense. Like I said, I never, I will tell you all the producers I know are wonderful people, but I think that actors and others think the producers are making a killing on every show because here's what they see. They say, wow, the show's doing a million dollars a week.

500, 000 a week. I guess that all goes to the producers. This is unbelievable because I'm only getting, you know, whatever, 1, 500, 2, 000 a week, right? Well, my

[00:16:55] Katie Coleman: favorite is okay. If I make 300 of performance and the ticket price is a hundred dollars a performance, then it's only three people in the audience.

[00:17:07] Kevin Surace: That's how you're thinking about it. So here's, here's the thing. So right now on Broadway, depending on the size of the theater and based on, this is based on lots of, you know, negotiations over the years with a variety of unions, including uh, the people who run the theater and have to be in the theater and ticket takers and a program people and musicians and how large they are just got to be or not be in all those things.

Right. Yeah. And how large the show is. Right. Yeah. In general, if you see a show doing five, six, 700, 000 a week, they're probably losing money. And this is like a Broadway level. Yes. Broadway level, right? So forget regionals different. Every regional is different, but let's talk about Broadway. So, so if you look at some of the shows and you can look at the Broadway grosses every week, they're on the Broadway league and you see a show doing five, six, 700, 000 a week, maybe even 800, 000, depending on the size of the theater, they're probably losing money.

Now let's talk about how that works. You raise, Call it 20 million to put on a big show today. Okay, plus or minus a few. So you raised 20 million. Almost all of that 20 million was spent by opening day. And the reason is, is you've got rehearsals and previews and set building and all of these things that have to be paid for, right?

By the time you open, you've put a few million aside for some bad weeks. Okay. And you, you know, and you don't want to open in the dregs of February, right? Right. So you try to build up some good grosses in the summer, for example, to then make it through the dregs of February, March. Yeah. Okay, fine. So let's say, so, so what happens is everyone sees 700, 000.

Wow. The producers must be making half a million a week. No, no, no, no, no. By the time they pay the bills every week inclusive of marketing. And by the way, the marketing budget each week could be $200,000. It's huge. Yeah. You have to advertise all over the northeast. You have to advertise on all the ticket sites.

You have to advertise in the newspapers. These are big and social media and everything else, right? Yeah. So it's not unusual to see 50, a hundred thousand, maybe 200,000 a week in marketing budget. Wow. Oh wow. You gotta compete against the other. 20, 30, 40 shows that are on, right? So huge budgets for marketing.

You are losing money at 700, 000 a week in most of the theaters on Broadway. Losing money. That means you're depleting, and you might be losing 50 or 100K a week, you're depleting your couple million that you set aside. Now, if you deplete at 100, 000 a week, you can do that for about 20 weeks and then the show closes because there's no more money.

You can't raise more money. It's over. Right. It just closes. Now, what happened? What about the producers? All that money was coming in. Okay. The 20 million is lost. Everyone lost their money. The lead producer and everyone all the way down the line. The person who put 10, 000 in. It's gone. It's

[00:19:54] Katie Coleman: just gone because you deplete that and it closes.

[00:19:58] Kevin Surace: Yes. Once it closes, [00:20:00] all the money's gone. All the money's gone. Unless it ran for many years. Now, so then you say, okay, well what about once in a while I read a show it says it recouped. Yeah. Recouped means if I put in 10, 000. Probably three years ago or four years ago because you do it pretty early before it goes to broadway Because it's got to make its way and then it has run on broadway for maybe one to two years Uh, it takes it takes one to two years for a show to recoup you get your 10 000 back So you didn't make money breaking even Okay, Katie, I could have put the money in my mattress and I had a better chance.

Okay? Okay, let alone the stock market Let alone the stock market. So first of all, I think that's eye opening that you see these huge grosses and people are actually losing money And then they lose it all when a show closes in under a year everyone lost their money It closed because it ran out of money.

The 20 million dollars is gone It's gone. So what are the odds of that happening? Well, you in, in the peak year, 2018 or so, we used to say there was a one in five chance of recouping, and there might've been a one in 10 chance of making some decent money. Yeah, one in ten. Okay today. Those are about half that you got a one at rough numbers One in ten chance of just getting your money back ninety percent of the time You don't get your money back and maybe a one in twenty chance of having a real hit.

What does a real hit look like? Hamilton real hit all the disney shows are real hits, but it doesn't matter they produce it themselves So nobody makes any money there disney makes the money You know, Lion King is a forever hit. It does 2 million a week. Right. Uh, here's a great example. Funny girl dead show had basically spent all the money.

It was ready to close. And then the producers who never wanted to bring in. Leah, Michelle, um, for whatever reason decided to bend over to what the audience was saying the entire time is that she. Begged to play the role and maybe we'll just let her play the role We'll see how it goes. And then the ticket sales go to two million a week.

Wow Okay from about four hundred thousand a week or five hundred thousand. So they were losing money They had lost all of the money. They had lost all the money. It was basically empty They bring her in for a lot of money call it a hundred thousand a week, right? She's not cheap. Yeah, however While that increased the cost of the show from call it six to seven hundred K a week rough numbers I don't know exactly because we're not producers on that but call it it took her from six to seven hundred K a week It took the gross from 500 K to two million a week.

Oh my god, and she was only gonna do it for a year and so she saved the show And, um, made enough money to, to, to recoup and make a little more, not a, not a huge win, right? Cause it had to close cause she wasn't going to do it for more than a year, whatever it is, but actually saved the show and save the investors without that investors lost all the money.

Okay. It would have been one of those nine, you know, uh, right, right. So now you say, how do I have a big win one that really pays? And that's right now it's six. It might be MJ, which surprises me a little bit, but it is what it is. Um, it, it, it looks like obviously Hamilton. Wicked. Wicked is the gift that keeps on giving for 10 years, right?

So, if you look, there, there, there are a maximum of 41 theaters that can be filled on Broadway. Yeah. And there are, out of that, 20 something new shows every year. Just rough numbers, right? Yeah. Could be 30 in a year, could be 24 in a year, but numbers like 20 to 30 a year. Yeah. Out of the 20, 30 new ones a year, you get one winner.

Basically, that's going to do that. And so if you're a producer, you actually have to pick from what you're, what you're going to spend your time on and the money you're going to put in. You have to get that 1 out of 20 to really make money. And when it makes money, that's the interesting thing. When you got a Hamilton, you get paid for 30 years, you know, a check every month.

It's amazing. So, so I think when actors say, Oh, the producers make all the money. It is true. If you happened to have invested in Hamilton, that is a true statement. Right. Happen to take the risk on six, which was no, not clear that that would ever be a hit. Like would anyone want to see a near Vegas show in that, you know, I mean, it's a very unique thing.

On the other hand, if you put money into any of the other shows from Kimberly or Kimbo to just, just go down the line, anything had opened in the last, you know, year or two, you're going to lose your money. All of it. It's not going to break even you will lose all your money. You're not getting the money back.

It's gone. And so people need to understand the risk that people are taking with their money is incredibly high. It's higher than the stock market. They're doing because they love the art. They may be doing it because they love opening night. They may be doing it. Uh, [00:25:00] to hopefully land a Tony or some other award.

If you win best musical, you can get a Tony statue. So that's really cool because they did support the thing. But note that most of them lose all their money and who the heck would ever do that? Like, you know, it takes a very special person to say, I'm probably not getting my money back, but here's a hundred K.

[00:25:18] Katie Coleman: Yeah. Cause you believe in the art. Yeah, you're not doing it. It's not a sure

[00:25:22] Kevin Surace: bet. It's the opposite of a sure bet. It's, it's, it's, it's one of the poorest bets in the betting world. You could put that

[00:25:29] Katie Coleman: money in a high yield savings account and do much better.

[00:25:32] Kevin Surace: Right now. 5 percent all the time. Yeah. Every day.

This is good information to know. So does that make sense? Like, I think it's important for actors to go. I had no idea. I just see these huge grosses and I think they're just raking it in. No, almost out of all the time. They've lost everyone's money. They've made not even the lead producer made nothing and had to work.

And so a lead producer has to have a lot of shows kind of in the hopper and coming to get that one out of 20 that happens to be the next Hamilton or six, maybe MJ. That's

[00:26:03] Katie Coleman: why it makes sense that there's so many people involved in producing one show because it's actually better for everyone that way put a small amount of money

[00:26:10] Kevin Surace: into all of them.

That's right, and also the lead producer doesn't have a 23 million dollar check to write, but they know a lot of people that eventually will get them the 23 million, and so you might have hundreds of people literally who invested in that show, but again, the lead producer. They're taking all the risk, they have to raise all the money, they're going to have to disappoint people, you know, nine times out of 10 or 19 times out of 20, and they're doing all the work.

Like it's a full time job to be a lead producer on something. Okay, so you're, you're really doing the work and putting all that effort and it still might result in nothing. Okay. Hard

[00:26:45] Katie Coleman: business. You have definitely changed my, um, feelings about that. So I appreciate it

[00:26:50] Kevin Surace: very much.

[00:26:57] Katie Coleman: Okay, folks, I am taking a quick break to ask you to please support this podcast by hitting follow and or leaving us, well, me, a review. The goal of How to Succeed in Theatre by Sacrificing Everything is to bring you stories about theatre people and how they've found success in order to help you find success yourself.

I am also very eager to hear suggestions from you so I can bring you more of what you want to hear and questions that you might want answered on an episode. Please find me on Instagram and check the show notes for more information. Thank you! How do you choose shows to

[00:27:39] Kevin Surace: produce? Well, again, there's two kinds.

How do you choose shows to invest in and be a producer versus how do you choose shows to, to be a lead producer? Well, let's talk about lead producer. So in lead producer, some people have different ways, like Ken Davenport has this whole thing, even online, you know, send me your script and I promise I'll look at it and I might produce it.

And, you know, um, that's interesting, but, but the truth is. Is that you put money, you know, you raise money from your partners like at what's and we'll raise money from our what's in partners for shows that we believe in that are someone else's show. But we really believe it has a shot and the things that we're going to produce ourselves, which takes seven to 10 years.

From inception to get to Broadway, right, you know, as you know, it's not fast, it's not fast, it's very slow. Although we've got this thing with speeding it up now with streaming, but we'll talk about that. So, um, we look at a couple of things. Do we think that it'll at least break even or make money on Broadway?

And we can get some hints of that through the regional circuit. But not great hints because Diana is a great example we were very involved in Diana and we we you know watched it go all the way through the regionals and crush it like all of the Reviews were excellent at the regional. Oh, what regional theaters was that in La Jolla Playhouse?

Okay, and some and somewhere else we did a couple but it crushed it like it did great And then we did the previews, and then of course it shut down, and then they did the Netflix uh, capture, but the show wasn't quite done, and the ending wasn't, you know, I don't think that was a good idea, but Gary Marshall was involved, and that's what he wanted to do.

Sure. The net result was once it opened on Broadway, the critics panned it and it was done. What was funny is the audiences, and I was in, I must have seen it six times, the audiences loved it. And then it got this big following because, uh, especially the LGBTQ audience looked at it and said, Oh, I get it.

You're making fun of this whole thing. Like, this is supposed to be like parody and, Like, I, I don't need to take all this seriously. Like, the guy comes up on a horse and he's, you know, he's got no top on. Relax, we're just having fun with this, right? Yeah. And, and, and, and the critics said, Well, we're not learning anything new about the Diana story.

No, it's based on a book that was published, you know, 15 years ago. You're not supposed to learn anything new. We know how it ends. So something

[00:29:59] Katie Coleman: wasn't [00:30:00] quite communicated right.

[00:30:01] Kevin Surace: I think the Netflix thing hurt it because all the reviewers watched the Netflix thing and made up their mind. And the Netflix thing was panned by movie reviewers.

Because stage reviewers couldn't review it at the time, movie reviewers saying this isn't a movie. It was filmed on stage and I don't understand it. And why is it literally, why is it even a musical? And you go, well, cause it's a musical. So, so that didn't translate well. You know, it's not like you put Hamilton on Disney and people go, I know Hamilton stage show.

All of a sudden this Diana thing showed up that had never been a stage show on Broadway. And this is because

[00:30:34] Katie Coleman: of COVID

[00:30:35] Kevin Surace: timing, right? Okay. Right. So it was a very unusual thing. So you've got a great show. The other problem with that show that I recognized the first day I saw is immediately from the very beginning, they vilify the press because of course, Oh, now you get it.

And it turns out, I looked to my co producers and they said, I don't understand why, why the press, you know, why the reviewers don't like it. I said, who do the reviewers work for? Well, the press. Oh, I mean, they blame the press for killing Diana. Yeah. Okay. And I, and I look at him and say, who thought that would end up as a good idea?

Right. You know, Mr. Green at the New York Times, he's going, you vilified me through the whole thing. You put me in trench coats and made me have cameras and you know, all this stuff, and then you, and then you blame me for, Killing Princess Diana. Am I really going to say this is a great show, go see it?

Can't do it. So be careful, you know. Look, if I was really going to back a show, I'd want to back one that makes the press the hero. Because, because it is true that New York Times and, you know, much of the rest of the press. Can make or break a show. And they do that because still, no matter how much advertising you've got, people are going to go look at those big reviews.

Were

[00:31:50] Katie Coleman: ticket sales for Diana good? Or it was just the

[00:31:53] Kevin Surace: timing was weird. Ticket sales were fabulous in previews and full houses and standing ovations every night. And deserved standing ovation. Gina Duvall, spectacular. Yeah. I don't know if you know Gina, she's fabulous. I mean, I saw the day on Netflix. Oh, yeah, you needed to.

Also, it didn't work well on Netflix. It's a big rock show, so you sort of needed to be in the auditorium. You know, some things really, you need to be there. Well, there's a reason theater is live. There's a reason theaters live. Uh, so the, so the net result is, uh, you know, that night at the after party of the opening, you know, opening night, you see all the reviews come in, you go, well, that was good run, you know, a close 32 days later.

[00:32:34] Katie Coleman: thought that that had kind of changed, um, these

[00:32:36] Kevin Surace: days. People say it changed, but no, you, you, you know, people really look at the reviews and they look at the Tonys also. I mean, both of these still matter. So did you

[00:32:45] Katie Coleman: decide to close after the reviews or did you see what happened with

[00:32:48] Kevin Surace: ticket sales? We ran out of money.

When? You know what closes the show? About 32 days in. After opening. Uh huh, after opening because ticket sales plummeted after the bad reviews and then but but we were doing like rush tickets at like 20 bucks And what was happening is the theater was getting full of twenty dollar thirty dollar tickets, but you can't pay the bills And and it was um to to a great extent the lgbtq community came in and they started singing the songs uh collectively You know, with the people on stage, like they were all into the thing.

It was crazy. It became this whole thing and it got this crazy following. And finally, everybody who went started to understand what the show was really trying to do. It was just too late at that point. It was too late and the reviews were bad and. And you know, so, so the point is, is, um, you know, a lot of these shows and some recently did this several, including the Andrew Lloyd Webber, uh, bad Cinderella, what the New York times say was actually bad.

It was Cinderella. Then it's bad Cinderella. At least he named it properly. Now I didn't see it and maybe it was an excellent show. The point is when the New York times says it's bad, it's over. Nobody's going to spend 250. a seat. But then I, you know, the, the prices today, you see average, you know, average ticket price across the house at 170, but those front seats were probably 500 and the back seats were 50 and it averages out.

Right. Yeah. But, but this is very expensive night out. Very expensive. Yeah. So reviews matter and yeah, you get panned and I'm sorry. I know you all worked seven years, but it's over. Here's the other side of this. If you can stay at least a year on Broadway, then you can license your show to MTI Concord or TRW.

So you can't if it's not a year? Well, you can, but nobody wants it. It's a dog. Like, like, okay, so they did, you know, Diana got licensed. Yeah, it seems like

[00:34:43] Katie Coleman: it'd be worth licensing no matter what.

[00:34:45] Kevin Surace: Yes, but you'd never make any money. So the real money in licensing, and there's great money in licensing for 30, 40 years, but that real money comes from the fact that everybody wants to do the show.

Yeah. Nobody wants to do a show that closed in 30 days. I mean, they'll [00:35:00] occasionally do one, right? You need, so, so the biggest, one of the biggest licensed shows ever in the history of ever was High School Musical. Yeah, I did

[00:35:07] Katie Coleman: it. I had music directed that like five times.

[00:35:10] Kevin Surace: Yes, I have, I have too. Every high school.

Every high school. Yeah. And that thing was licensed a thousand times a year and printed money for Disney printed money, by the way, it was never a Broadway show. Got licensed from Disney plus at the time, right? The Disney channel, whatever it was called, Disney channel. So that gave us some idea on this new model to say.

You know, there's a hundred billion dollars of consumer spend right now in streaming hundred billion a year Ah, and there's about a billion and a half on Broadway just to put it into perspective, right? Wow, and so you go we are producing entertainment Yeah, and there is nothing wrong with putting our entertainment in front of a streaming audience but not like Diana was done as a filmed stage production, but actually Do a real, you know, on location movie of this musical, like High School Musical was, right?

So that's what we did with 1660 Vine. Before that, we did Estella Scrooge. We got five or six more in the pipeline right now. Nice. And, um, and those are shot truly like a feature film. Now, we have learned to do it at a lower cost and faster and multiple units in parallel and some really fun stuff. Yeah.

But, you know, these actors can sing and they can dance. And, uh, in 1660 Vine, our, uh, Choreographer is Paula Abdul and, and our music producers are, um, David Lawrence. David Lawrence is the son of Steven Eady. Oh, okay. And so, uh, you know, we produced a real musical first for streaming, and it's for sale to the big streamers right now, but first for streaming.

Already have a license for MTI because high schools want to do it. Oh, wow. And already Hollywood High did it, and we expect it'll be licensed a hundred times a year or more. Wow. And it, and it didn't go to Broadway yet. Yeah. It might. Yet. Okay. I was just going to ask that. That didn't go to Broadway yet, but it deserves to.

It's a very modern musical about basically influencers, uh, on YouTube and tick tock and their life and how they come together in Hollywood to live together, to try to figure out how to influence better as the case may be. Right. Interesting. And it has a great message in the end, which is, um, you know, this is all fake.

Oh, it's, it's not real. Like it's be real is the message, right? Uh huh. That

[00:37:17] Katie Coleman: seems like a really great way to go about it from the back end and then still produce It's on Broadway,

[00:37:23] Kevin Surace: eventually, possibly. That's the, that's the point. Come around it the other way and if people really love it in streaming, then we have a bigger hit already licensed and we can still go to Broadway.

Like I can put a show on Broadway anytime that already has licenses, West Side Story is an example, right? Sure. It has plenty of licenses and I can still run a new thing on Broadway.

[00:37:42] Katie Coleman: And they can pull the license for a period of time or whatever.

[00:37:46] Kevin Surace: Oh, you can, if you choose to, not, not all of them do. Some say, keep performing.

We don't care. More, the more the merrier, right? And, and, and a Broadway show helps expand that. But some Broadway producers will say, I want you to suspend licenses for two years while I'm on Broadway. Yeah. And they'll make, and they'll make the licensors do that. I don't know if it works or doesn't work.

It's interesting, but Right. But some producers wanna do that. They just wanna have the whole market for my fur lady or whatever it is. And I don't

[00:38:12] Katie Coleman: know. Yeah. I don't think there's a lot of competition for like Sunnyvale community players doing a show that's also on Broadway. Like we probably, that's nobody,

[00:38:19] Kevin Surace: nobody thinks they're the same.

Right. But, but we do know a lot of people can't make it to Broadway. Yeah. You know? And so, you know, if you're in the middle of Kentucky, you're not going to Broadway and you go to your local regional theater and that's what you see. Great. You know, it's all supporting the art all the way up. And if it's a national tour that comes through, great.

I mean, all of these are good. By the way, we do national tours where shows are still on Broadway, purposefully. Right. So that's six is that's

[00:38:43] Katie Coleman: exactly what I'm

[00:38:43] Kevin Surace: doing. Six is that's what you're doing today tonight. Exactly.

[00:38:47] Katie Coleman: This has been so great. I'm so glad to have had you on

[00:38:50] Kevin Surace: here. Well, it's great that we've got to work together over the years on different shows, which was really fun.

And, um, both in the Bay area and, uh, You know, that's a little different because there's lots of people that you sort of run into and you say, be on the podcast, but yeah, we'd probably go back 25 years. Yeah. Totally. And at all the levels and all

[00:39:10] Katie Coleman: the levels, yeah, you were the drummer and I was a keyboard

[00:39:13] Kevin Surace: player.

That's right. That's fine. That's right. That is exactly right. Yeah. And you were a wicked keyboard player then. Ah,

[00:39:20] Katie Coleman: well thank you. And you were a great drummer. Thank you. What was that show? Necklace? Is that where we met? That brand new show in Santa, Santa Cruz. Do you remember that?

[00:39:30] Kevin Surace: I don't know. I did so many shows.

I know.

[00:39:32] Katie Coleman: Yeah. They just, it's easy to rack them up.

[00:39:35] Kevin Surace: I know we did Joseph and we did something else. Joseph, Joseph's fall was fun because it's just a really great drum part and you could play it as it's written in the book or you can play it like it was on the album. And I, you know, I had my electronics set, I think for that one.

And I played it to sound and attuned it to sound like it was on the album. Doo doo doo. You know, it had that kind of electronic y sound.

[00:39:56] Katie Coleman: Yeah, what you get is the materials of like the original production [00:40:00] with very basic

[00:40:02] Kevin Surace: orchestrations. And the drum book has like boom chick, boom chick in it. And you have to know the tunes and then you can play it like that.

And this came up at this Sunnyvale meeting. It was one of the things that, uh, I was playing half the run of Joseph, I think at, at SCP. And, um, and then when I left, uh, another drummer came in and the drummer, that drummer played what was written in the book. I played what was on the album and everybody in the cast goes, what happened?

Where are all those drum cues? So when they're not written, you just have to know the album. And I, you know, I was, then I went to travel, so I couldn't come back. So they had to live with boom chick after that. Got

[00:40:36] Katie Coleman: to prepare your sub better next time, Kevin.

[00:40:39] Kevin Surace: Yeah. Yeah. It's that's right. It was, it is, it all falls on me.

[00:40:44] Katie Coleman: Thank you so much. This is so great.

[00:40:47] Kevin Surace: Well, I hope it's enlightening to people because I'm always happy to share all the secrets. I would love

[00:40:53] Katie Coleman: to work together sometime. Maybe there's a show in our future.

[00:40:56] Kevin Surace: Again, there is a show in our future. We will, we will do something, um, in New York or somewhere else for sure.

You're incredibly talented. So an incredibly talented music director. Right. So, uh, and on stage and actor,

[00:41:11] Katie Coleman: I can do a line

[00:41:11] Kevin Surace: or two here. Well, in, in six, you know, you're sort of right there. I love the band on stage stuff. Oh, I love

[00:41:18] Katie Coleman: it so much. It's just. I, at first I was very nervous about it. Not with six, but like years ago.

And someone would be like, Oh, the band's on stage for this. I'm like, Oh, I prefer to be not seen or like in the background. But the more I did it, and the more I realized you just have to commit to it, to have fun. Then I, I had so much fun and now it's like what I always want to do.

[00:41:39] Kevin Surace: Um, as a music director, you start to realize, Oh, I can actually play with this and have fun with it.

Yeah. And, and, and when you watch these, um, you know, orchestra directors and I've, and I've gotten to, you know, direct with an orchestra, you know, with orchestras, I totally play it up. Like I'm jumping, I'm having fun. It's theater. The audience can see you too. Right. And, and, and so, it's part of the show. So just have fun and the more energy you put into it.

You know, you're part of the theatrical experience.

[00:42:07] Katie Coleman: Yes. And I think the orchestra will play better that way. Like it's more fun for everyone. If you, I mean, it's still taking it seriously, but having fun with it. Right. All right. Thank you again. I will let you go. Sure. You have, you know, companies to run and

[00:42:22] Kevin Surace: interviews, interviews to do.

Most of my podcasts are on artificial intelligence today. So I was so excited to be able to talk about. About theater. Because I'm spending a good, you know, probably half my time on theater efforts, uh, and arts and movies and musical films and, you know, we do get to do all of these really interesting things.

Some of them have real meaning. Yeah.

[00:42:44] Katie Coleman: Yeah. As they should. That's why we all love

[00:42:47] Kevin Surace: theater. That's why we all love theater. It's a pleasure, Katie. It's always such a pleasure to see you, Kevin. Always. Okay, see ya. Thank you. Bye.

[00:43:05] Katie Coleman: Thank you so much for joining us today, and until next time, say thank you to a producer.

How to Succeed In Theater (by sacrificing everything)

How to Be a Producer with Kevin Surace

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