EPISODE EIGHT - “HOW DOES THEATRE BECOME PART OF CULTURE?”
Mike Isaacson, artistic director and executive producer of the iconic MUNY in St. Louis, shares his producing philosophy. From his beginnings as a theatre critic to the Broadway stage, Mike chats with Hal about his key to success, the importance of giving young artists command of the stage, and what it means to be part of St. Louis’ summer ritual.
Mike Isaacson is in his ninth season, and he is only the third person to hold this position in The Muny’s 101-year history. To date, he has produced 56 Muny shows, 23 of which had never been produced at The Muny before including Dreamgirls, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Jersey Boys, Kinky Boots and Matilda. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch named him “Theatre Artist of the Year,” noting that by “staging one impressive production after another, he made The Muny simultaneously hip and – believe it – important to our community.” During its record-breaking 100th season, The Muny became the first theatre in the world to produce the legendary Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, doing unprecedented archival work on both the artistic and the business side to make it happen.
With Kristin Caskey, Isaacson has produced more than 23 Broadway musicals and plays, national tours, and off-Broadway and London productions. All told, his productions have received more than 122 Tony Award nominations and 34 Tony Awards. Most recently on Broadway, he and Caskey produced the highly acclaimed David Byrne’s American Utopia; opening this fall at The Hudson Theatre will be their production of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite, starring Mathew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker. Spring of 2019, the duo co-produced the Tony-nominated Lanford Wilson’s Burn This, starring Adam Driver and Kerri Russell. Other career highlights for Isaacson include: Fun Home (2015 Tony Award, Best Musical; 2018 Olivier Award nominee, Best Musical); Legally Blonde the Musical (2011 Olivier Award, Best Musical); Thoroughly Modern Millie (2002 Tony Award, Best Musical); Red (2010 Tony Award, Best Play); The Humans (2016 Tony Award, Best Play); If/Then, starring Idina Menzel; Bring It On: The Musical (2013 Tony nomination for Best Musical); A Doll’s House 2 (2017 Tony nomination for Best Play); You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown (1999 Tony nomination for Best Revival of a Musical); The Seagull; Caroline, or Change; One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (2001 Tony Award, Best Revival of a Play); and Death of a Salesman (1999 Tony Award, Best Revival of a Play). For the Independent Presenters Network, Isaacson served as producer for the Broadway shows Spamalot (2005 Tony Award, Best Musical), Ragtime (revival), and The Color Purple.
He has received the St. Louis Arts and Education Council’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, and in 2018, he was awarded The Broadway League’s and Theatre Development Fund’s Commercial Theater Institute “Robert Whitehead” Award for excellence in producing. He has served on the board of governors and executive committee of The Broadway League and received the Samuel J. L’Hommedieu Award. In 2016 he received the Equality Award from the St. Louis Chapter of Human Rights Campaign.
To see the latest news on the MUNY, visit MUNY.org. Follow America’s oldest and largest outdoor musical theatre on instagram @TheMuny.
TRANSCRIPT BELOW!
Hal Luftig:
Hi, everyone. This is Hal Luftig with my Broadway Podcast Network show, Broadway Biz, where every episode I will chat with my friends, some of the top theater professionals in the business, about the business of Broadway.
Hal Luftig:
(singing)
Hal Luftig:
Today my guest is Mike Isaacson. Mike is one of my best friends and producing partners in the business. He and I have known each other and worked together for the past 20 years. Mike is currently the artistic director and executive producer at the MUNY in St. Louis. Today we'll talk a little bit about what we worked on together in the past and the current projects we're working on together right now, on this episode of Broadway Biz.
Hal Luftig:
Mike, I want to thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy day and joining me on my podcast, Broadway Biz. Full disclosure, you are one of my favorite, favorite people to work with and to know. There are many times that I think back on certain situations that you and I have experienced together, and I just howl with laughter. I can't recall if at the time it was so funny, but now it's hilarious. So, I want to you thank you for all of the years of friendship, years of being a co-compadre, and now, thank you for joining the show.
Mike Isaacson:
What's funny about that is that I try to describe to people, when you're fortunate enough to be a part of a Broadway show, and particularly a new Broadway musical and all of that, and it even extends at the MUNY too, is the very special particular experience in all of those people when you do that. You have something that you all know for the rest of your lives. It's just singular and distinct and strange and beautiful [inaudible 00:02:43]. And you and I and Kristin Caskey have really been around many amazing experiences and people and moments, and that's a gift to my life. You've been a gift to my life.
Hal Luftig:
Well, thanks Mike, and you mine. The one that keeps on giving.
Hal Luftig:
Mike, I couldn't help but heartbreakingly read about the postponement. What was that like? I'm just so heartbroken for all the people in St. Louis. How's that all going?
Mike Isaacson:
Well, we let everybody know, you and I are talking on, what day is it today? Today's Thursday, and we told the community on Monday. You have to deal with sadness. What has been very moving is people's response of we're really going to miss this. There was one report that actually really gladdened my heart. One of the independent weekly newspaper that never reviews us and never had I thought paid much attention to us did an article or an online piece, and they literally wrote, "Theaters have been canceling and this and this, but when the MUNY announced, that really fucking stings." I was just ... I laughed but I was moved by it. It holds a really special place in this community's ... And people were really rooting for us. Once everybody knew and I what I call light pencil sense of what we could do and what those parameters were, we had to take a step back and imagine what that would be like, and ask the question, is this so far off from what we're doing, is it a mistake to do it?
Mike Isaacson:
But the big factor we were looking at is the local requirements put down of our health and city officials is 25% of your total occupancy, plus social distancing. Which means essentially for the MUNY, it would have been 2,500 people a night, and you would have had to spread them all throughout 10,000 seats. And if you looked at that, that I think would be very hard to enjoy and experience no matter what's on the stage.
Hal Luftig:
Yeah, I can understand that. Even though 2,500 people a night sounds like a lot of people, knowing the MUNY and the configuration as I do, it would have looked sparse. I know it sounds like a lot of people, but it would have looked like a quarter full or something like that. Unlike other theaters that I've ever experienced, the thing that when I heard about the postponement that hurt my heart was that I knew through you, and experiencing myself, that it's not just theater for the St. Louis community. It's a cultural event. People go and they have dinner there and they have picnics there and they see their friends. It's just more than going to, quote unquote, "A theater." It is really about, like I said, a cultural event that happens every summer. And that broke my heart.
Mike Isaacson:
We're fortunate enough that over the span of the theater, we picked up the essential gift of ritual.
Hal Luftig:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Mike Isaacson:
It carries a place in people's lives.
Hal Luftig:
Yes.
Mike Isaacson:
It's so painful to not be able to provide that.
Hal Luftig:
I know. I can imagine. Well, my offer still stands, Mike. I told you on another conversation. If you want, I'm happy to fly out there and you and I can do the Hal and Mike Show.
Mike Isaacson:
We are all about sock puppets.
Hal Luftig:
Right. Absolutely. I find us very entertaining. I don't know why they wouldn't. But to each his own. But you know what Mike, it will come back, hang in tight.
Hal Luftig:
Mike, I want to start at the very beginning, because I know that you have a very interesting trajectory. Can you tell our listeners how you got started in this business, and then what was your journey from that to producing?
Mike Isaacson:
I mean it's admittedly strange and certainly not a straight line. I actually never studied theater. It was a passion where I'm completely self taught. I moved around a lot growing up. My dad was a wonderful, is a wonderful man who had an uncanny knack of getting a job with a company right before it went down the dumper. Yeah. As my older brother used to say, we'd get to a new city and he'd look around, be like, "Don't unpack."
Hal Luftig:
That's hilarious.
Mike Isaacson:
Anyway, home base in all these cities for me was the library. And wherever we went, it was a household that really loved journalism and newspapers and magazines. So somehow in all that I really began reading about theater. I didn't even see any live theater. And then I would go to the library and read plays, and that's when I discovered cast albums, and went down that rabbit hole that so many of us did.
Mike Isaacson:
But then I also discovered Variety. And I would read the Legit section, Hummel and all that stuff, back in the '70s. And it was fascinating to me the Broadway grosses, and the road, and how it worked, and reviews and out of town reviews. It was like this mystical world out somewhere that I was like well this is interesting, and I subscribed to Variety in high school. I mean I was in the high school shows, type stuff, but I knew I had no talent, and I had no interest in performing.
Mike Isaacson:
I ended up, I got a scholarship to St. Louis University, and while I was there, I ended up on the newspaper, and now when I reread it it's painful because I'm just aping everything I ever read. But I was the film critic and the theater critic. And my first week in St. Louis, they reopened the Fabulous Fox Theater, which was the big Broadway touring, gorgeous touring house here in town. Beautiful old historic music, movie house. There's one in Detroit, St. Louis, and Atlanta.
Mike Isaacson:
The very first day, I'm walking around campus and somebody mentioned, "Oh, they need ushers." I was like, "Great." So I went down, knocked on the door, signed up to be an usher, and it's all weird how it all came together, it was the Fox Theater, the MUNY was actually the presenter of the Broadway shows, and they had the free seats there. So between ushering and the free seats, I would see these major tours two, three, four times, and that was sort of my class, because it's really understanding musicals, because you know with a musical you got to get under the hood.
Hal Luftig:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Mike Isaacson:
And how all the parts relate. And I was fascinated by it, and the impact on the audience. And again, this was sort of something I was doing right after college, the journalism led me to McDonnell Douglas, where I was in corporate PR, which was an interesting chapter. But I stayed a freelance theater critic and kept going there. Then I ended up back at the university in the marketing department, and then the press department, and then I ended up as the assistant to the president of the university, writing speeches, managing that. And that was really the beginning of an intense education. I was still doing the theater reviews, but that's when I began working with board members and donors, and you see what a university president does, which is basically have to raise money all the time.
Mike Isaacson:
They made me head of fundraising for the university, which was a ridiculous endeavor, but [inaudible 00:10:59] fill a hole for awhile, and I did it. And then I thought, I am just in the wrong place. I don't know what I'm doing here, and everything was good, but at some level I thought you've made a wrong turn here.
Mike Isaacson:
All during this period at night, I'd been going to school getting an MBA. I thought I don't want a career in university fundraising. And the thing about universities, they're amazing, but you blink and it's 20 years later. They just have a sense of time that is so paced and methodical, and that's just not the way I wanted to live my life.
Mike Isaacson:
So I left the university, and then it's just one of those random, crazy things. I knew David Fay, who was at that point running the Fox Theater in St. Louis, because I was a theater critic and because I'd been at the university, which was down the street from the theater, I called him and asked him to lunch. And he said yes, because we casually knew each other. And we were sitting there talking. And he, amazing human being, I'm forever grateful to him. And three quarters of the way through the lunch he said to me, "So how's the university?" And I said, "Well I'm actually in the process of leaving." And he said, "Really, what's going on?" And I said, "Well, you know, I just feel like I need a change." [inaudible 00:12:17] And he goes, "Well what are you interested in doing?" And I said, "Well, I think I should come work for you."
Mike Isaacson:
And he looked at me, he just looked at me and he went, "Huh." And it was one of those ways he said, "Huh," I went holy shit, something's going on here. And we began this conversation, and suddenly I realized there was something, and about 20 minutes into it he said, "Well that's interesting. We were just talking today about how we needed to bring somebody on because we're about to take our first show to Broadway." And I'm like, "Is this happening?"
Mike Isaacson:
So we began talking, and I said to him, "Look it, here's the deal, the university's paying my freight for the next couple months. So you give me something to do, I will do it for you for free, you will see my work ethic, you'll see my work, you'll see if we get along, because I know this is an important position, and the deal is if I do it right, you'll hire me on Labor Day." And he said, "Okay."
Hal Luftig:
Wow.
Mike Isaacson:
That's what happened. So that's when I started working for Fox Theatricals, which at that point was ... There was St. Louis, David and I, and in Chicago it was a guy named Mick [Levitt 00:13:27] and his assistant was Kristin Caskey.
Hal Luftig:
May I just ask, are we talking about Thoroughly Modern Millie was the show that David Fay was referring to?
Mike Isaacson:
Jekyll and Hyde.
Hal Luftig:
Hyde, oh, okay.
Mike Isaacson:
The story of Millie, this is where that goes. They hire me on Labor Day. I go to that first [inaudible 00:13:48] festival, for me, which was like three or four weeks later. And I see the Millie reading, and I come back, and David's like, "Was there anything good?" I was like, "Yeah, there was this amazing quirky strange beautiful stage adaptation of Thoroughly Modern Millie. And I think there's something there." But at that point Fox wasn't really known as an entity, and the rumor was Nederlanders were going for it, there was all this stuff, I said, "I don't know if we have a shot at it."
Mike Isaacson:
Then maybe three weeks later, he walked into my office, and my office, let's call it what it was, a closet with a door. And he looks at me with that same look with huh and he goes, "So tell me about this Thoroughly Modern Millie." And I looked at him, I said, "Did you get a call?" And he goes, "Yeah."
Hal Luftig:
Wow. I didn't even know that story. Wow.
Mike Isaacson:
And so at that point, Kristin and I didn't even really know each other. We actually first met really at the opening of Jekyll and Hyde, which was April of '97. And then, you know the journey from there.
Hal Luftig:
Right. The rest as they say is history. You know Mike, I've always been fascinated by, I always wanted to ask you, was your life as a journalist and a drama critic, how has that impacted on you as a producer, when you read someone else's review, do you look at what's on the stage or in a script differently because of that experience, that skill?
Mike Isaacson:
Yeah, I think it had a huge impact. I think it still does. I think I'm really good at reading audiences, and I think I'm really good at looking at what they're seeing and figuring out when they're getting it, when they're not, when the information isn't happening. Sort of that, or what's not. I don't have the answers, the creative answers of how to fix it, but I'm a really good ... I can make the diagnosis. You can feel when the audience is engaged, you can feel when they pull back, you can feel when they're confused, you and I, certain generation all grew up on Walter Kerr and then Frank Rich were the icons. And what was interesting about those two writers, when they saw something that was really exciting, their writing was exciting. That's why ... So yes, when I read writers now, and theater criticism is essentially completely gone right now because of what's happening with newspapers and everything, but there are very, very few writers who are even professional that I read that I think actually have that quality.
Hal Luftig:
But I love the fact that your writing, your criticism was based not only on your thoughts but what the audiences around you were feeling. I think the next show we produce together, man, you need to write a review, we'll quote it to the nines, and just say Mike Isaacson. Just, there you go. Mike Isaacson.
Mike Isaacson:
I always felt like if you walk in as a writer, as a critic, and they're doing a restoration comedy, your job was to experience it and essentially evaluate for your reader how well they did at their goal of a restoration comedy. The thing that ticks me off so much, which is around so much more now, is you get these reviews that begin with, "Well why would anyone do a restoration comedy?" And that to me is actually deeply offensive. Your job as a writer is to evaluate based on what they believe is their valid artistic mission and what they're trying to accomplish and create and celebrate. I'm thrown by this new school of criticism that's like, "Well why would anyone do a musical?" Or, "Why would anyone do ..." You're sort of like really? Okay.
Hal Luftig:
Right. Yeah. I agree. Sometimes you read them and you think ... One of the things that bother me most is I finish reading a review when I say to myself, did he like it? I feel like I'm reading an essay. I wanted to talk a little bit about your journey to the MUNY. I know that we probably have a lot of listeners who are not familiar with what the MUNY is or where the MUNY is or how they tie into the community of St. Louis. I'm wondering if you could give us a brief history of the MUNY and what it does.
Mike Isaacson:
Yeah. The MUNY is, for decades, its slogan was Alone in its Greatness, which is actually I think still applicable. It is 11,000 seat outdoor theater in St. Louis, Missouri, situated in a glorious public park, Forest Park. This season will be its 102nd season. It first began as a civic idea. It began as an idea by the mayor. Mayor Kiel, who said, "We will be a better city if we can all gather in this central place of the city, in the park, together and experience these great works of music and theater and what it is." In its core mission is access to all.
Mike Isaacson:
Part of the obligation as a producer and a businessman and an artist is that everyone feels welcome, and how do you constantly answer that question? So we do a season of seven major musicals, and we rehearse each in 12 days, and they run for seven nights. If we do 70,000 people, that's like five weeks in a Broadway theater.
Mike Isaacson:
It's this extraordinary, crazy, beautiful, challenging idea and place, but the real gift is it's part of people's lives. They've been going since they were kids. Their parents went, their grandparents, their great grandparents, people keep their tickets in families for generations. We have the gift of that time of ritual. You're given the gift of a place in people's lives.
Mike Isaacson:
You have parents bringing their kids to The King and I for the first time knowing they had that shared experience with their parents, which is really mind boggling. It's this strange, quirky, fabulous, unbelievable tradition.
Hal Luftig:
Well I want to give you a couple of shout outs. First of all, when you were just talking about having the community at the theater, I've had Tory Bailey, who is the head of TDF, on the podcast, and we were talking about the importance of making theater not just a specialty, like someone's birthday or someone's anniversary, not being that, but making it a regular part of their socialization, of their ... The way they get entertainment. Things like that, especially from a very young age.
Hal Luftig:
One of the things that I truly love, and I want listeners to know, is that the MUNY gives away 1,500 free seats every night. And all you have to do to get them is show up. It is an example, I think, a beautiful example, of the power of theater not only to touch its audience but to unite a community. I tip my hat, hat off to you for that. And if my listeners are out ever in the St. Louis area in the summer, I beg you, it will be the best three hours you ever spent. It will be an experience you won't forget.
Hal Luftig:
Mike, you're a Broadway producer, you produce at the MUNY, and I'm sure that there are certain considerations, both, first being I'm sure that the budget at the MUNY is nowhere near what a Broadway show would cost. But what are some of the things us as the producer at the MUNY think about when you're choosing a season?
Mike Isaacson:
The primary thing I look for is, again, when you have a mission of ... I believe that if you try to please everyone, you'll fail.
Hal Luftig:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Mike Isaacson:
Try to be one thing, I don't know what that is. So if you're a theater that is supposed to be a celebration or a reflection or have a relationship to a community, and St. Louis is an incredibly diverse community, you should have diverse offerings within the world of musical theater. Since I've been there, each season there's always two classic, from the historic great American musical, per season, two classic titles. There's always at least two shows that have never been on the MUNY stage before. There's always one family classic, Disney or Wizard of Oz or something which is a huge cultural ritual. And then the other two is where you really bang your head against, when you look at the five, and what's come into licensing, what's available, who artists, directors have been working out, what is their dream.
Mike Isaacson:
My hope is when ... There's two things. As a subscriber, if you're going to give us seven nights, which is unbelievable, within 10 weeks, that you would look at this and go, "That's a great adventure." If you're a single ticket buyer, just somebody in St. Louis, my hope is you would look at one of the seven shows and go, "Oh, that one's for me. I want to see that."
Hal Luftig:
And you have, if I understand correctly, your subscribers have not only held steady but have increased over the years under your guidance. Is that not true?
Mike Isaacson:
Yeah. I mean, we have. It's been lovely. You know, sales, or so many factors that go into sales, I think I changed the whole philosophy and model of how we created and produced the shows there. And by year, I want to say by the third season they were really into that new energy. They got it. They got the new sensibility, and the new ideas, and they really relished what that was, the inventiveness, the surprise, the us testing ourselves and pushing ourselves. That created its own conversation. And that conversation translated into more and more ticket sales and more and more people making the choice to say, "Okay, I'm going to make this a part of my life."
Hal Luftig:
But I do think that, like I said, it's not the words, it's the actions, and this theater means so much to so many people that they're going well above and beyond a ticket purchase by committing to this institution so it can last for even longer.
Mike Isaacson:
But part of that is what I wanted the community to see is if this institution, if this theater, which is so different from the Broadway idea, which we're going to get to, but this institution is a mirror of what we are and who we are. I kept asking the question, "Don't we then deserve the best, things that are wonderful?" This audience sees our commitment to them. I don't care ... I can't control whether you like a show or not. I don't even know what that means. But I can control is you walk out, if you want to say, "Okay, that's not my thing, but boy, they really did it. But boy, that was something." That I can do, or that's what I have to do.
Hal Luftig:
Right.
Mike Isaacson:
Taste is something, when you have 10,000 people, you can't play to it. But the idea of the passion and the ingenuity and the power and surprise of the production, yeah, I better damn well answer that.
Hal Luftig:
The real point is that whether they like it or not, they come back. They've accepted, okay, that show wasn't my cup of tea. But the next one might be. Mike, I wanted to ask you a question, since this is about the business side of theater, had there ever been a show that you couldn't do because it was just too expensive or too big, or has there ever been a show that you thought was too expensive or too big and you figured out a way to actually do that within the parameters of what you have?
Mike Isaacson:
Yeah. And this is where my chapter when I was at the Fox Theater here in St. Louis where that experience of education really came into play at the MUNY, because you've got seven shows, right? I mean it's so hard because we just finished a season and we immediately have to go diving into very clear budgeting for the next season to get a sense about it. So I present a budget to the board and say, "Okay, this next coming season is going to cost us X. Now, here's what I know about X. I know I'm building seven houses. I know basically this one has three stories, I know this one has a pool, I know this one is an RV. But what I don't know is who needs curtains, who needs a staircase, how many lights, how many that. But I'm committing to this number." And then we go into the actual creation of the show, because I need as much flexibility working with the designers and the directors and the choreographers and the artists to help them realize their dreams, and to listen to their ideas and go, "That's fantastic, I got to figure out a way to make that happen."
Mike Isaacson:
So you're doing that in relationship to this fixed set of resources. When you only know you have 12 days to rehearse, and of those days, when you're doing your vet, you've got to build in six days, you've got to paint in three, there's certain things that have to happen for there to be a show on opening night. It actually puts in sort of a great natural control of expenses. it's this forever moving Rubik's cube, but the cube never changes. Does that make sense?
Hal Luftig:
Yeah, totally, completely. I'm still fascinated and I think what the MUNY does is so terrific. Another thing that I've noticed you do is you give young would be directors a chance, someone who has not directed before. You up a lot of people's game when they work at the MUNY, because they are suddenly given a lot more responsibility. How did that come about? Does that make you worried, nervous? Because on Broadway if that doesn't work out, you're kind of screwed. It's a problem with Broadway.
Mike Isaacson:
It's one of the reasons I wanted to take the job. Because what I felt what was going on in our Broadway world is incredibly talented people were not getting opportunities to learn their craft, and safe places to experiment, to grow, and to make mistakes. You don't become great at anything without serious learning, success, and mistakes.
Mike Isaacson:
I mean, you know, Michael Bennett went and did stuff. Tommy Tune choreographed his first show in his career at the MUNY.
Hal Luftig:
No, really? Wow.
Mike Isaacson:
Yeah. Yeah yeah. Yeah.
Hal Luftig:
Wow.
Mike Isaacson:
So it has this tradition of being a place where people could learn, and safely find their voices. And I really, really wanted to honor that and continue that. And I want that, because it brings such an amazing energy. It inspires the company, it inspires everybody backstage. There's this incredibly talented woman, Beth Crandall, who first came in as a dancer early on, and then she was an assistant to several of the choreographers. And then last season I lost somebody at the last second, and I said, "Okay, you're up." And she did an incredible job on Matilda. And everybody backstage was so inspired by her, and willing to help her out, because she's our gal, it was sort of that thing. That's very moving to me.
Hal Luftig:
It's choking me up, because I agree with you. But it is, you have to admit, it's gutsy, and it's bold, because someone's a good assistant in a different venue like Dennis Jones, he was working under Jerry in a commercial arena, to give him a whole show at the MUNY, which is four times the size of whatever theater we played in, it's a bold move, Mike, and I commend you for it.
Mike Isaacson:
I say it constantly. The only way we can do what we're doing is no fear allowed. What's interesting about it is because of the 12 days, because of everybody working, you can get fear out of the system. Look it, let's just do the best we can, let's set our ambitions high. We can do this. Just trust yourself. And that's actually, for people onstage and backstage, that's a very moving part of the whole experience. And that's the difference that happens in the Broadway development thing is the more time there is, the more fear can creep in. People get into their heads. They begin questioning themselves. It's a natural part of it.
Mike Isaacson:
But what's glorious about the MUNY is we don't give them the space or the room to do that. We all just go all right, let's do it. Let's do what we do, who we are. And for the most part, that has really worked out. Again, it's kind of baked into the system.
Hal Luftig:
Which is terrific. But you know Mike, you gave me a wonderful ... You're a wonderful guest, you give me all these great segues. So I am now going to drag you from the Midwest all the way to the East Coast and Broadway. I'm dragging you. I want, from your point of view, different from what draws you to shows at the MUNY, what draws you to a story for Broadway?
Mike Isaacson:
I think what's brilliant and daunting about Broadway is that the tradition of the Broadway musical is the outsider, insider idea, and composers, and how the music has reflected the people of that era, people in the seats of that era for the most part. And there's this whole strain of who we are as a country, who we are as a culture, that is so amazingly a part of Broadway. And I just love being a little part of that. All of my Broadway producing has always been done with my partner Kristin Caskey. She and I have done this together for ... So whenever I'm saying I, please here we.
Mike Isaacson:
A Broadway musical is a singular event in American and world culture, and it impacts people's lives, and it is exciting and beautiful and surprising. It's like going to the Olympics. The stakes are part of the endeavor when you're in Broadway. You can't pretend there's no stakes.
Hal Luftig:
The stakes have ever increased. If you think about what the stakes were for the first time we worked together with Millie to what the stakes are now, Becoming Nancy, or even Plaza Suite, which is a play, what do you see, how do you see, the future of that, and do you just see it going continually up, up, up, or is there something that in your opinion we need to do to start pulling in those reins?
Mike Isaacson:
Well, that is the question for all of us right now that we're going to have to find out, you and I and Kristin stood in the lobby at the La Jolla Playhouse, in I guess 1999, and Jimmy Sr., is like, "Well, what do you want? Do you want the Marquee, do you want the Palace maybe?" Pick your theater. It was a whole different time. What has happened, and it's a whole different four hour lecture I have, but musicals have now grabbed a place in popular culture that is even bigger than what everybody calls the golden age.
Mike Isaacson:
The economic stakes grew because more people were buying tickets, and you and I both know the people, the men and women without were part of building this industry, artistically, business wise. Nobody could have predicted even 10 years ago something like Hamilton, on a success, financial, cultural level. No one could have conceived of that. The question is, it's is there a middle between that and something like the MUNY where we find the ticket price and the accessibility where people are coming to it more regularly, is the question that coming out of the pandemic we're going to have to answer.
Mike Isaacson:
The short term question is economically, will people have the resources to pay some level of ticket price. We're going to have something that I think people will desire. Can we find a way for more people to afford that and make our numbers work? Because it is an expensive environment to work in. That is the tough question that we're going to find out pretty quickly.
Hal Luftig:
As we come back, there is going to be a greater than ever concern about the budgetary elements, yet we're not going to want that to dictate the art. You can't have the tail wagging the dog. How do you see that merge of reduced costs by an audience that may need incentive, reduced ticket prices, things like that, not only to get them to feel safe coming back in the theater but too because so many people are out of work and have lost a lot of income, and they may not be able to afford the $200 ticket?
Mike Isaacson:
I think the onus is going to be, for a period, on the artists and the creative teams to be wildly inventive with, for lack of a better word, less resources. We're going to have to rely on, return to, celebrate those core fundamentals of theater and musicals for awhile to bring people back. We're going to need really well written and interesting stories. We're going to need great music. We're going to need very inventive direction. You and I and everybody listening both know, everybody knows, Chorus Line was a line on the stage and eight mirrors. It's not my show. I love Come From Away. I don't know, what is it, 10 chairs? I don't know. It can be done quite beautifully and successfully.
Mike Isaacson:
Just talking in the commercial theater, in order for us to gather investors and gather the resources, we're probably going to have to demonstrate that for awhile. You and I both know, we've both been through this enough, individually, collectively, I truly believe, this isn't the producer calling, this is talking, the whatever artist in me, every time I've worked with a director or a choreographer or designer and said, "We don't have that, you're going to have to solve it another way," the vast majority of times the solution is creative, inventive, and arguably better than the first idea. That is what we do. We are a community and people of doers, of accepting it and getting it done, and we just have to go into a period where, until we understand where the audience is and what they're willing to pay, we're going to have to rely on that.
Hal Luftig:
Completely agree, although I did have Dory Berenstein as a guest earlier, and we were commiserating about having that philosophy, and I think that philosophy that you just said about finding creative and maybe less expensive ways is 150% true. But we couldn't help but laugh. Where was that philosophy with the elevator and party bike? How did that happen?
Mike Isaacson:
No, you're right, we didn't, and we subsequently learned, and certainly the whole team did, Jerry, in subsequent productions without it, they were fine and spectacular. And I think ... But that goes to what we were talking about earlier, and I think this extends to producers along with artists. You have to have a career where you can learn and grow. I always tell interns and young people when I'm talking to them, I've learned nothing from success, whatever you want to call success. It's failure where you really learn in this business, and you learn how to get yourself back up and keep going and believing in yourself. That's foremost. But then what is the lesson?
Mike Isaacson:
That lesson, you go back to the elevator and certain things we have is I now know, when I sit in a Broadway production meeting, to look at everything a different way, if a designer's saying, "This moves here," to think circular around it, go okay, that moving there means ... To ask the question, "How many crew guys? And how does that block the seats?" And all of those questions that have those impacts. To talk about we didn't know to ask that question. Because it was presented as one idea, not the ramifications of those ideas. And that's what I feel like I've learned in time.
Mike Isaacson:
That was certainly integral to the fun home experience, going from proscenium at the Public to ... Well, the lab, which is a whole different idea, then proscenium at the Public, in the round at Circle in the Square, and then back to proscenium for the national tour, and then London was its own idea. But each time we knew how to sit in the meetings and ask the pertinent artistic and budgetary questions to really understand the impact of the choices the designers and the artists had made.
Mike Isaacson:
I think the MUNY has helped me hone that skill a great deal. I can look at anything now and go wait a minute, let's talk about what that move is or what that item is, and how is it moving and created and what is that impact on the running crew, and that. Which isn't you're saying no, but it's understanding deeper.
Hal Luftig:
Clearly, we've not made it secret that you and I and Kristin are working together on developing a new musical called Becoming Nancy. I've never asked you this. What made you personally want to become part of the producing team, and I guess what attracted you to the story that made you then want to join the team?
Mike Isaacson:
I think it began with that breakfast the three of us had with Jerry, and we heard that special thing you rarely hear of somebody inspired in a way that goes beyond a job or a show or something. There was something very powerful as he talked about the story and why it mattered, and how truly you could begin to see him envisioning something, which that spark is everything I think when you're beginning the creation of a show. You hear that thing that's sort of I have to make this happen. And you heard that.
Mike Isaacson:
When I read the book, I was knocked over by the original voice of David, our leading character. I thought it was theatrical and fresh, and I turned the page, and I cared about him, and there was an honesty and a point of view that I thought this would be really exciting to hear this voice on stage in a musical.
Hal Luftig:
I want to back up for a second. When I read the book, there were parts in the novel that clearly are not on stage, and I wondered when I was reading it, wow, that's a little harsh, how do we ... Are we going too far with David's story and some of the horrible things he had to endure. Did that ever occur to you when you were reading the novel itself? Like wow, that's just way too harsh?
Mike Isaacson:
It did in the sense that my memory of those things that were harsh involved a lot of people and a physical environment that didn't make sense within the confines of honestly a stage and then a musical. I don't know about you, but sometimes when you're reading a script or a book, pondering does it become the source material, you get a sense of oh, this would be better served as a film. That was my reaction to some of those things that David goes through in the book. I'm like these are film concepts.
Mike Isaacson:
What's also fascinating about your question, or observation, is that it's a period of discovery of what an audience will accept in a musical. I'm a big believer now, you can't do a musical now without a dramatic soil. I mean, I've worked on a show with incredibly talented people that was in essence a musical comedy and you could feel as much as the audience was enjoying it, something was missing. Like a meal. It didn't feel robust. I don't believe right now any successful musical. I mean truly successful musical, can exist without it. It's just my opinion. I mean I'm always ... If you actually look at how really, deeply dramatic and challenging the story is of the Lion King, it's unbelievable.
Hal Luftig:
Yes, basically Hamlet.
Mike Isaacson:
And we're bringing the kids, and they understand it. Those things don't scare me at all. It scares me more, ew, is this a souffle? Is it just a souffle? Is it just dessert?
Hal Luftig:
Ive seen you in action actually talking about what you just said to the creative team, to the director, and I'm always amazed by how articulate and sensitive you are to both sides of that, of not making it too heavy, but not making it so light that people are disinterested. But just that right balance that they can accept what they're watching on stage, because it is entertaining, and it is fun, and it's cleverly written in stage. But yet it gives them something to think about. You are one of the best people I know that can actually discuss those things with the creative team.
Hal Luftig:
In that vein, when do you feel most creative or artistic?
Mike Isaacson:
What really gets me going, I love to be in the back of the room and watching really talented people have everything they need, and them in the zone really creating exciting work. That moment when it is most communal, most collaborative, most the accomplishment of so many, and it's all in unison, it is all, that is really exciting.
Mike Isaacson:
In the MUNY world, it is this incredible moment where, it's a 12 day rehearsal process, and seven days in we do essentially our designer run, so everyone's bracing this thing. But that is a moment where, interestingly enough, everybody in the cast, a lot of the companies, actually sees their show for the first time. And it's so powerful, and it's so beautiful, because you feel this transfer of anxiety and fear and being overwhelmed to I got this. They're confident. They see it. I mean there's still work to be done, it's not that, but they understand why we've all done this. And it's really, really beautiful to me.
Hal Luftig:
You know Mike, I'm hoping that part of our listenership is people who are interested in producing or want to know more about producing. This is going to be a little weird question to ask someone who has been my producing partner. But in your opinion what makes a good producing partner?
Mike Isaacson:
I think what makes a good producing partner is an ability to truly listen, ability to be brutally honest in the kindest way possible, the ability to understand that within a partnership, different people have different strengths that they can bring to the table, and in the development of a show you're going to need that strength. It's important that you work with people in that partnership that you can very clearly, together, privately understand at the beginning of the journey what your artistic hopes are, what you see the show as. So you're all unified in that, even as you go down the road, that will change. But I think it's important for everyone you're collaborating with and leading and guiding that they see that you all have a united vision and see what you hope is coming along, because that gives them strength.
Hal Luftig:
Yeah. That is so perfectly said, and it is something I hadn't even really given much thought to, but you're absolutely right. If the rest of the team sees the producing team as a whole, almost like children, how they pick up, they get daddy to say yes and mommy says ... That kind of thing? There's been instances where creative teams have, or actors have done that. And I watched you in particular as a partner make sure that as a producing team we stand as one. That was perfectly said Mike, thank you.
Hal Luftig:
Well, as they say, all good things must come to an end, and this is true of this program as well. But before you go, wait, you're not off the hook yet, what is your favorite musical?
Mike Isaacson:
Sunday in the Park with George.
Hal Luftig:
Wonderful. Man after my own heart. Number two, what is the wackiest moment you've ever experienced in the theater?
Mike Isaacson:
Oh jeez.
Hal Luftig:
I always get that response. It could be funny, silly, something you observed.
Mike Isaacson:
Realizing three days into my second season at the MUNY that the sound designer on his own volition had gone and changed the national anthem that the MUNY audience had been listening to for 97 years and didn't tell anybody.
Hal Luftig:
What did he do?
Mike Isaacson:
It's such a great story. On the first show of the season, I have to go out and do the curtain speech, welcome everybody back, and it's this great tradition. It's terrifying, talking to 10,000 people, and I do it, and I run out. So I'm so focused backstage, I'm not listening. So three days in the show, I had a member of the staff come up and scream at me for how dare you change the national anthem, this has ... Who do you think you are, blah blah blah blah. And I'm like, "I don't know what you're talking about." I mean, screaming at me. And then someone else comes up next and screams. And I was like, "Can we ..." And I'm thinking they're just not hearing right.
Mike Isaacson:
And I go over to the rehearsal platform and there's an actor who had been a MUNY kid in the teen who was there and a MUNY staff member there, and I was like, "You guys, is the national anthem any different?" They're like, "Oh yeah, it's terrible, it's awful." And I found out that it was really slow. So 10,000 people very politely were singing the national anthem ... And everyone had thought that I had done this. And they were all boiling and polite about it where they confronted me, and I finally called ... I was like what is happening, and I called the sound designer [inaudible 00:54:05]. He's like, "Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know."
Hal Luftig:
I'm surprised somebody in the audience didn't just scream out, "Pick it up. Five, six, seven, eight." Yeah. So okay, here's the third and final question. The lesson you learned from that wacky moment was?
Mike Isaacson:
The lesson I learned is when you are the leader, or perceived as the leader, their instinct is not to tell you the hard, bad truth. And you have to set an environment where I'm not the last person you come to with the bad news, I need to be the first, to help fix and make things better. And then I learned as a leader is you, and it's so hard because, you've been there, it's a tough job and you can get frustrated and it's long hours and that. But you have to make sure everybody feels comfortable just walking in your door and saying, "I got to talk." And they can't be afraid of you, and they can't feel like you're not going to listen.
Hal Luftig:
And that is a lesson that where we're currently in needs to be heard more and more.
Mike Isaacson:
Yeah.
Hal Luftig:
That you have to be able to speak and not be afraid of it. It couldn't be more timely.
Hal Luftig:
Mike Isaacson, I can't thank you enough for partaking in this podcast, for being a great friend, and most importantly, for being such a wonderful producer. Thank you so much.
Mike Isaacson:
You're amazing. All right, love you. Talk to you soon.
Hal Luftig:
Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Broadway Biz. If you have any questions about today's episode or the business of Broadway in general, let me know on Instagram @broadwaybizpodcast, or via email at broadwaybiz@halluftig.com. Be sure to follow me @broadwaybizpodcast for updates on everything Broadway Biz, the business of Broadway. Broadway Biz is part of the Broadway Podcast Network. Huge thanks to Dory Berenstein, Alan Seals, and Britney Bigelow. This has been produced by Dylan Marie Parent and Kevin Connor, and edited by Derek Gunther. Our fabulous theme music is by [Annelle 00:56:37] Benjamin and Lawrence O'Keefe. To learn more about Broadway Biz, visit bpn.fm/broadwaybiz.