EPISODE eleven - "IS THEATRE ON THE VERGE OF A RENAISSANCE?"
It was such a treat to sit down with Jeffrey Finn, the Vice President of Theater Producing and Programming at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. As the curator, commissioner, producer and presenter of all aspects of the theater for the "Cadillac" of institutions, he opened a Pandora's box of questions sharing his keen insight on how he communicates with this subscribers and what he's done to adapt their programming during an uncertain time. You'll see why I'm such a fan of Jeffrey, and the iconic Kennedy Center, when you listen in!
Jeffrey is an award-winning Broadway producer and a five-time Tony Award nominee. At the Kennedy Center Jeffrey created and produces the Broadway Center Stage series with a mission to showcase popular musicals produced exclusively for DC audiences with stars and the talent direct from Broadway. He is a lecturer on strategic fundraising, investor relations, and developing new works for the stage. Jeffrey received the 2013 Robert Whitehead Award for Outstanding Achievement in commercial theatre producing. Current and upcoming productions on Broadway include Ain’t Too Proud - The Life and Times of The Temptations, Company, and Plaza Suite.
Follow Jeffrey on Twitter @JeffreyFinn and keep up with the Kennedy Center @KenCen.
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:
My guest today is Jeffrey Finn, the vice president of theater producing and programming at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Jeffrey is also a Broadway producer working on shows such as Company and Ain't Too Proud. I have always loved the Kennedy Center since I was a little kid. It's so exciting for me to get a peek behind the curtain with Jeffrey on this episode of Broadway Biz. So let's give a big Broadway Biz welcome to my good friend, Jeffrey Finn. Hey, Jeffrey. How are you?
Jeffrey Finn:
Hey, there. I'm so happy to be here talking with you today.
Hal Luftig:
I'm thrilled, I'm thrilled that you're here too. And I'll tell you a little secret why. To me, the Kennedy Center is like the Cadillac, the pinnacle if you will of performing arts centers. And I remember very clearly when I was a kid, maybe just becoming a teenager, the family went down to Washington DC and we did all the obligatory monuments and museums and things like that. And then we went to the Kennedy Center.
Hal Luftig:
I remember walking in the entrance and looking down the hall and seeing that great bust of John F. Kennedy, and then all the flags of all the different nations. The thrill of that and the little secret is to this very day when I walk into that building, I still get that feeling as if I were walking in there for my first time.
Jeffrey Finn:
I love it, absolutely. It's such a special place. I share that exact same kind of feeling when I walk in the building. It makes me feel like a more important producer. There's something so important about the Kennedy Center and so many people tell me, I hear again and again what a special place it really is, and how many people have special memories of it. For me, it's been such a great experience because it's really a full circle opportunity to be overseeing theater here now, because I actually started out my career at the Kennedy Center.
Jeffrey Finn:
When I was 22 years old or 23 years old, I was hired to deliver some shows for them. I was a new producer to New York City and it was an opportunity that I got to be a producer working at the Kennedy Center. I created a series called Broadway song books of shows that were composer song books of the classics of Cole Porter, Irvin Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein with Broadway performers. We did this for several weeks. Every time I walked into that building, I just had that exact same emotion that you were talking about. You feel like you're in a special kind of temple of theater, and it was just a great place. I still feel that each day as I go in there now.
Hal Luftig:
That is great. That is great. Color me jealous. Jeffrey, can you tell us a little bit about how the journey... You said you started there at 22, but then you at some point left because you were producing on Broadway in New York. Can you tell us what the journey was back to, can I say, where you are now?
Jeffrey Finn:
Absolutely. I was actually never living in DC. I grew up in Boston. I went to college in Connecticut and then I was living in New York. So I moved right from college and I went to New York City, and I started producing shows there. I wanted to figure out how do I become a producer because at that time, and I still believe that ignorance is bliss, when you're a young kid, you think you can do anything. And that doesn't necessarily illuminate the path forward in terms of how hard it's going to be later on especially in our industry.
Jeffrey Finn:
But I started producing shows first in New York City at Rainbow and Stars, which was the cabaret room next to the Rainbow Room, Rockefeller Center there. Again, it was those kind of composer songbooks, small cabaret shows. But I had to be paid for doing what I did because I was not somebody that had a trust fund or family money or anything of that nature. So I was a real working producer and kind of had to get in the mud.
Jeffrey Finn:
At that time, I also had to be a producer, and a general manager, and a press agent. I'm loading the set for whatever that was. And all small stuff, but it grew and grew and what happened as I was able to do more of these shows, I maintained the relationship with the Kennedy Center in my 20s and 30s, and I was engaged to deliver about one show per season for their audiences and subscribers.
Jeffrey Finn:
At that time, there wasn't a lot of touring product as much as there is now. So to that end, I was so fortunate to do one play per season for them and have that relationship being on the outside as a producer who they would be presenting what I did. As I said, it's very full circle now to be on the inside there. But I was in New York for all those years until I finally did come down here full time and that was four years ago, now 2016-2017. So that's when I moved down to DC to really be here full-time. But before that, I was exclusively working on Broadway.
Hal Luftig:
You said something interesting. I just want to backtrack for a second. You said that at some point the Kennedy Center started producing plays. Was it self-produced or was it just like a tour of something that you organized to play the Kennedy Center?
Jeffrey Finn:
They would often say, "We're looking to have a play in our season, and we have an open slot in March. Can you deliver a play to us? So it was truly the producer presenter relationship as we formally now know it in terms of a producer would tour stuff around or produce something on Broadway first. What I would do was I would only be producing for them. So to that end, it was to make the economics work? It was really always a challenge obviously because I didn't have the length of a tour to amortize all the costs.
Hal Luftig:
There's so many questions here now that I wanted you to talk about because you're touching on so many topics that was actually the genesis for the Broadway Biz podcast and specifically about the different aspects of Broadway and how those different aspects the producer, director, set designer marries their artistic vision with the financial. Thank you. You've opened up like the Pandora's box of questions.
Hal Luftig:
I just want to backtrack a second and talk about that and have you explain a little bit more to our listeners of when the difference between producing something just for the Kennedy Center and how those economics would work and bringing something into a Kennedy Center as a tourist bar or as we don't call them anymore roadhouses.
Jeffrey Finn:
Right. Yeah. It's interesting because it's always a challenge with the finances of theater. Theater is just expensive to produce to begin with and I think that some of our smartest general managers and general managers in the business who are those people who really help us run our budgets and run the numbers and figure out the profit margin or the loss, or whatever it's going to be and how we spend the money that we need to spend, I personally don't know how to not think like a general manager when I produce. I feel very connected in those worlds because having an eye on the economics of it is I think as important as being able to make sure that you have an eye on the artistic success of it.
Jeffrey Finn:
When I look back at some of the shows that I've produced, my greatest successes in my opinion have been the worlds where you've got a perfect harmony balance of an artistic success and a commercial success, because we can always be proud of the artistic successes that are not commercially viable, that unfortunately lose a lot of money for investors and other people, but that to me doesn't necessarily deliver what we're striving for in a commercial business in terms of Broadway as a commercial business. We're out to sell tickets to be able to make money and deliver great entertainment.
Jeffrey Finn:
It's fascinating now because living in that world and then now also being at a not-for-profit. I've been lucky enough to do some shows at the Kennedy Center that I've been asked to produce that aren't about making money. It's funny. I'm like I'll be looking at the budgets and the numbers and I'll see a huge loss, and I'm like, "How am I going to produce this and not lose this much money?" Because I can't think in those terms of doing something strictly for art, which often not-for-profit world is able to do.
Jeffrey Finn:
Then we generate income in different ways from commercial tours or other ways that we bring in money with donors, et cetera. But it's a really interesting world to live between two different kind of a commercial world of Broadway and the not-for-profit world where an artistic success can be 100% artistically successful.
Hal Luftig:
What you just explained as a producer myself is almost like counter-intuitive to everything we've learned like being able to produce something. The goal is to produce something that doesn't necessarily have to make money or even break even. I don't know that I could actually wrap my head around that. So at some point Kennedy Center stopped being just as I said, we don't call it anymore, a roadhouse, for lack of a better word, and started producing, what I'm going to term as in-house projects.
Hal Luftig:
Some of them have been in the past few years have been fantastic like when they did the Sondheim Retrospective in 2002 or maim with Christine Baranski. They're amazing productions. When did the Kennedy Center start doing that?
Jeffrey Finn:
That was definitely well before my time. I mean, I remember like I'm sure you do all of New York racing down for the Sondheim Festival for that entire summer. We're all on the Acela or the Amtrak, and all of us race to see all the shows and bumping into each other in the hallways there. It was so special and such a magical moment. I wish I had been involved with that obviously. I was just a fan.
Jeffrey Finn:
There have been shows that have been in the past hugely produced there with the goal of moving to Broadway or sometimes just for the center. There have also been commercial producers who have started shows there that have wanted to bring them to Broadway. And that's part of what I want to continue to build in the future with opportunities because I do believe that starting a show at the Kennedy Center is a prestigious opportunity for somebody and for the show.
Jeffrey Finn:
So to that end, it's always exciting to explore that and then see how we can make that happen. Part of what I wanted to do as I started there was to launch much more of an active producing division in addition to presenting. I love the presenting because I get to work with all my friends and colleagues in ways that I never could when I was just sitting in my own office in New York City working on my own projects.
Jeffrey Finn:
So now I get to interface with everyone on their shows. And it's really interesting in terms of how every show is so unique in its own world, being able to curate the season is about being able to figure out how I can bring in the very best shows. We don't do non-equity. We only do the equity shows and tours and we figure out what's available. Certainly I can't take credit for this because it is about the building itself, the institution, but people want their shows to play at the Kennedy Center. It's one of the anchor markets. So it's lucky in terms of being able to have the producers and booking agents call up and say, "We want to launch our tour at the Kennedy Center," which is always a welcome thing.
Hal Luftig:
I totally agree. In fact, I'm proud to say that every one of my shows that have toured has played the Kennedy Center. I'm very proud to say that. I always make sure that when the show is in DC, that I make my way down there.
Jeffrey Finn:
And we have posters in the green room of the Eisenhower Theater of every show that's played at the Eisenhower. I'm looking at those walls with the history of the stars and the productions that have been through that theater alone is just incredible.
Hal Luftig:
Can you tell about the three different spaces? Because when I ask you the next question, it might help if you can talk about the different spaces you make available.
Jeffrey Finn:
Most people when they come to the Kennedy Center know of the three main theaters. We have the Eisenhower Theater which is 1,100 seats. We have the opera house which is 2,300 seats just over and we have the concert hall, which is just slightly larger. The concert hall is mostly where the NSO, the National Symphony Orchestra plays and more of the classical or the... Some comedians will play in there. There'll be some one-offs for hip-hop, but the majority of the theaters that I work in would be the opera house for the bigger musicals and the Eisenhower.
Jeffrey Finn:
What's interesting though is that the Kennedy Center, actually the building itself has nine theaters in it. So there are different theaters that I'm sure most people haven't even been into or heard of before. We've got a beautiful theater upstairs in the terrace level called the Terrace Theater that was renovated last year. That's about 500 seats. There's a space called the Family Theater, which used to be the American Film Institute originally.
Jeffrey Finn:
It was a kind of a movie theater and that's just under 300 seats. So there are actually many different spaces where we can create the right show and the right venue, which is really a unique thing because I can really program up to nine different spaces in the building. And then last September, in 2019, we opened an expansion campus called The Reach, and there are nine new spaces there as well. They're mostly raw spaces in terms of rehearsal rooms and kind of an open pavilion area, and a lot of outdoor area space that's been developed there. But officially if you were to count it, there are actually 18 different spaces at the Kennedy Center where we could do an event with an audience.
Hal Luftig:
You'll be sorry you said that because next time I'm in DC, I'm going to ask you to take me around and show me all of those.
Jeffrey Finn:
I'm going to give you the four-hour tour, exactly.
Hal Luftig:
Oh my god. I feel like a kid again. I'm in heaven
Jeffrey Finn:
One of the most fun facts about the Kennedy Center in the grand foyer as you were talking about where the three main theaters are, this is a true fact. You could lay down the Washington monument. It is that long.
Hal Luftig:
Wow. See? I'm like a little kid. That is a cool fact.
Jeffrey Finn:
There you go.
Hal Luftig:
Oh my god. I'm so glad you told me. I'm going to actually do that and imagine that I'm laying down the Washington monument. That is fantastic. So Jeffrey, with so many spaces as you described, how do you go about curating a season at the Kennedy Center? What are some of the things you look at fiscally and artistically? How do you go about doing that with all these different kind of spaces and sizes that you have?
Jeffrey Finn:
I always look at a season in two different ways and dissect it differently because one, there's the presented shows and those are the Broadway tours or relationships if I have a commission with another theater, a not-for-profit or something like that in terms of how we put that part of the season together and balance that out. And then I also look to the other side of what I want to produce and what I want to create.
Jeffrey Finn:
So in terms of curating it, it's about the balance overall and then the programming. I would never for example want to deliver to our audiences a season of only revivals. Obviously, everybody wants to see the blockbuster shows, and bringing in one or two blockbusters a season is really important because everybody looks for that. But making sure that the best musical from last season or from this season, or a return of the show that's sold out and everybody just loved and got great reviews, and bring that back for a second opportunity, that type of way is how I go about putting together the presenting of it all.
Jeffrey Finn:
Luckily, theater is the financial driver at the Kennedy Center. So I get a lot of the stage time because as you can imagine being the nation's cultural arts center, which is what the Kennedy Center is, there are many, many other genres that use the stages for dance, for opera, for ballet. As I mentioned the National Symphony Orchestra, the Washington National Opera, jazz, the hip-hop department that we have. So it's a building that's presenting about 2,000 shows a year, which is just a lot as you can imagine.
Hal Luftig:
Yeah, I'll say. Does the Kennedy Center strive to have a certain identity? And if it does, how would you describe what the identity of the Kennedy Center is?
Jeffrey Finn:
I mean, as I mentioned, it's being the nation's cultural arts center I think that we have a responsibility. I think we have a responsibility to deliver a level of quality for the audiences that really can't be compromised. I've always subscribed to that philosophy and the work that I've wanted to deliver for audiences because whether it's a comedy, whether it's a drama, whether it's any other type of play, I just wanted to be the best production on stage that we could possibly deliver. And that I think is really what the Kennedy Center represents and stands for, which that's one of the reasons I'm so proud to be a part of it.
Jeffrey Finn:
To that end, that's really been quite easy to be able to kind of fall in line with that, and be able to deal with the things I produce there, bring only the best artists, only the best talent. And that's always where we want to start. So when I arrived there, I created a new series called Broadway Center Stage, which was initially to do shows that would be done kind of in concert is what we imagined. In the first season, either we do three musicals a season under the banner of Broadway Center Stage, which we produce, which I produce there.
Jeffrey Finn:
In the first season, we did chess, and then the heights, and how to succeed in business. It's so fun for me because we only do these shows for eight performances. These are shows that you could never do on Broadway for just eight performances. I get to handpick the director, and the design team, and the stars. It's in a way been hugely rewarding. It's been artistically and commercially successful in terms of being able to deliver great audiences and shows and all that, but I also have to admit it's completely selfish on my part because I get to pick the shows that I want to go see myself.
Jeffrey Finn:
It's a joke, but that's actually how I've always measured a show in terms of how I want to produce something. Would I want to buy a ticket to go to that show? And that's always been my barometer.
Hal Luftig:
I have to say me too. When people ask me, how is it, why is it that I chose to produce a certain show, I always say the first question I ask myself is would I want to see this show? Would I buy a ticket to see what this show is going to be. And if the answer is yes, you move on to the next tier of questions. And if the answer is no, you probably shouldn't be producing that, right?
Jeffrey Finn:
A famous producer in the business said to me on the commercial side of it all, if you've got the right product and you're raising money from your investors, that money will come in. And if you got the wrong product and it's so hard to raise that money, you might not want to look at that show in terms of saying, "This is going to be an uphill battle."
Hal Luftig:
Whoever said that, very wise and very true. It's one of the road signs, I think that we as producers don't always want to see, but they're there. I've been asked many times, how did that show come to be because it's so bad. Of course, it's not successful. It can't be. It's so big or whatever the instances. I always say, the answer is because whoever is producing it, didn't want to see the road signs and you're so right. One of those road signs, or early road signs, you do a backers audition and nobody is interested. That's a sign.
Jeffrey Finn:
It's not good when the phone's not ringing the next day. Exactly.
Hal Luftig:
But I wanted, if we could just go back to the eight performances thing. So you have, obviously, a certain budget because you're only going to run for eight performances. But now you have a director who wants something else or needs something else as they all do, and you have to decide somehow how this would work? How does that work at the Kennedy Center?
Jeffrey Finn:
So luckily, unlike Broadway where just like you, I'll have a director saying, "I need this to be a four level set with three elevators." Then you're seeing the numbers just go up, up, up. Unlike that, when I started Broadway Center Stage, I went to each of the unions. I negotiated an independent contract just for these shows and they are produced on a shoestring budget, very specific. I'm very upfront with everybody with regards to the directors and what their budget is for the set, what their budget is for costumes.
Jeffrey Finn:
What I'm able to be able to spend because if I was to do these shows and continually lose so much money, that obviously would not be something that would be smart to do. I want to make sure that we can at least have an opportunity to break even. The parameters for Broadway Center Stage shows are very, very specific. But the on the flip side, the best part of it for me is to be able to go to a top A-level Broadway director and say, "What's your favorite show that you've never gotten to do?"
Jeffrey Finn:
All of a sudden, there's some heat, and excitement, and passion around it which is why I think we do what we do anyway. That's why we're all here in the theater business because it's so hard to make it all happen. Many years ago, I was doing, I think 2017, I was doing a Leonard Bernstein celebration. And Norm Lewis was one of the stars who was in the show. I was telling him about the Broadway Center Stage shows and I said, "Listen, if you ever have a dream role that you want to do, that you don't think you'll be able to do on Broadway, let me know and let's do it."
Jeffrey Finn:
And within three seconds he said, "I really want to play Harold Hill in the Music Man. It's a dream." I said, "Great. Monday morning, I'm going to call. I'm going to get the rights and we're going to do it next season." That happened and Norm Lewis and Jessie Mueller signed on board, and we made this incredible show happen with this incredibly talented cast. Mark Bruni directed it and it's just fun for everybody. I want to make sure that we're all having the best time, and doing what we're doing, because as I said, there's so much work. On those shows, we only have a two week rehearsal process as well.
Hal Luftig:
I could see that how that would be tough.
Jeffrey Finn:
Yeah. It's two weeks rehearsal. It's three days tech and it's a shot out of a canon. I mean, we really do have it down to a science at this point, but it really was about making sure that any creative person or director knew what their resources were going into it. I mean, I also should say at the Kennedy Center, I'm super lucky and grateful that we have an incredible inventory of being able to build our sets in-house and being able to have so many different great options in lighting and sound and all that type of stuff, and video projection, et cetera.
Hal Luftig:
Jeffrey, when you are putting together a season for the Kennedy Center and all the different facets you spoke about earlier, do you communicate with your audience and sort of get a sense of what they want to see?
Jeffrey Finn:
Yes. So in many different ways actually. So what will happen is that for any show that I produce, I'm actually in the theater each night and I love talking with patrons and I now know so many of the regular subscribers who are there. I mean everybody loves to tell me what they want their next Broadway Center Stage production to be. I've got a list that goes on for days because people are always recommending what their favorite show is.
Jeffrey Finn:
But I love talking with the audience. I'm not looking for praise. I don't want to hear good things. I want to hear the stuff that people could say like, "I didn't like this, I did like that. That show wasn't for me. That show was for me." So whether it's producing or presenting, no show is meant to please everybody. I mean, all shows are appealing to a specific group or you've got shows that are just so popular that everybody wants to get in and see it and it's sold out event, and then you bring the show back.
Jeffrey Finn:
I love talking to subscribers being an institution with a huge development department. I also talk to our donors all of the time and I'm working with the theater donors and people who are always supporting us. And then in addition to that, we have a huge marketing team that's always doing surveys and asking in terms of what people want to see, and what product, and what they're most looking forward to, and all of that kind of stuff so that we really feel as though we keep our finger on the pulse of it all.
Jeffrey Finn:
But again, I go back to saying, "I'm very lucky and grateful that with two huge theaters right there with the opera house and the Eisenhower," I can often have a season where I'm producing well over 52 weeks of theater. So to that end, with the Broadway shows and the Broadway tours all coming through the Kennedy Center sooner or later, it's a great pathway with regards to being able to continually have hopefully a pipeline from Broadway of being able to bring those shows in.
Hal Luftig:
Could you just briefly give me an example or two of the differences of producing for Broadway and for the Kennedy Center?
Jeffrey Finn:
I probably approach both of them very much the same. I think that at the end of the day, it would go back to Broadway is that commercial world where if I'm going to do a star play on Broadway for example I need to make sure that that star will sign a contract and want to do that play for, what, 16, 18, 20 weeks to be able to show to my investors that this can be a successful financial venture for them, and we're going to launch something hopefully that will be done in many theaters, around the country afterwards.
Jeffrey Finn:
So it's just a different type of a scale because then just everything is more expensive on Broadway because you're talking about advertising costs, and all the other things. There's your theater rent and all of that. Those aren't things that I need to worry about producing at the Kennedy Center. Our advertising could often be one e-blast that goes out to all of our subscribers and our theater patrons, and we can often sell out a show with one e-blast. I mean, that's unheard of.
Jeffrey Finn:
In terms of like when I'm talking about the Broadway Center Stage shows or something like that, where we only have eight performances. I mean, on Broadway we're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising either weekly or much more so for capitalizing a show.
Hal Luftig:
It's true. It's fascinating. We sometimes on Broadway spend up to a million dollars in pre-opening advertising, and you guys, because of who and what you are, could sell out something in an email blast, which-
Jeffrey Finn:
It's free actually. We just hit the button and it goes out.
Hal Luftig:
Yeah. It's a machine. I never thought of the Kennedy Center as sort of producing machine, if you will. I mean that, in the most complementary of terms.
Jeffrey Finn:
It can be a machine. I mean, it's a massive institution with hundreds and hundreds of employees and obviously a press department, a marketing department, develop department, education department. As I said, my goal in the theater world of it all is to really continue to expand and grow our producing efforts. The presenting will always be there, will always be bringing in the best shows from Broadway and people love seeing that, and I think one of the most special things going back to the very first thing you mentioned is that people enjoy being in the building.
Jeffrey Finn:
So luckily, we've got people who are locals, who are regular patrons and then as you were saying when you were younger and came to the Kennedy Center, we have a lot of visitors. So it's a very active place and it's a place where people enjoy coming to see a show. It's funny because I haven't actually noticed a huge difference. In going to a Broadway show, I don't think people dress up like they used to, but if you were to come to the Kennedy Center to see a show, I feel like people dress up still, and it's a very interesting difference in some ways because they still feel like it's a unique experience to go to the Kennedy Center.
Hal Luftig:
I never thought about it, but it's true. Every time I have been there, you're right, I never see anybody in shorts or anybody sitting in the audience eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. I mean, it's gotten ridiculous on Broadway or some people, how relaxed they are. Which is good, I guess, right, because you don't want people being uncomfortable.
Jeffrey Finn:
Exactly. You want them to enjoy the experience, but I do feel people feel responsible to dress up when they come to the Kennedy Center.
Hal Luftig:
They do. And I'm one of those people, guilty as charged. Because I notice I do. I take it very seriously and I feel like I'm going somewhere special. Because we are recording this during the pandemic, I wanted to ask you a few things about how that has impacted, this pandemic, the operations at the Kennedy Center. What has changed in your operations? And can you give an institute where you've had to adapt.
Jeffrey Finn:
Yeah. I mean, the world has changed in terms of... We are on hold. Everybody's on hold and it's just a horrific moment for all of us when we can't be going to the theater and seeing shows. I mean, technically, the Kennedy Center for our regular presentations is shut down. We have gotten permission to be doing some special shows. Over the summer, I produced a few concerts that were outdoors where we could have about 50 people seated socially distant and then other people would sit further away on the grass and listen to an outdoor concert with Broadway singers.
Jeffrey Finn:
I actually have a Broadway performer coming down to do a solo concert in a couple weeks in the opera house. So what we've done is we've created a series called on stage, the opera house and we built a stage on top of the chairs in the orchestra level where the performer will be, whether it's a Broadway performer or the National Symphony Orchestra quintet or something like that or jazz group, and then the audience themselves sits on the stage looking into the opera house watching the performer show.
Jeffrey Finn:
So it's really unique experience. We launched it with a show that was with Renee Fleming and Vanessa Williams, and it was really a special moment. We've all been denied hearing live theater for so long and I miss sitting in a theater. I miss watching a Broadway show that I would go to you know once or twice a week or anywhere here in DC. Hearing live performance for those of us who love theater, there's just something so connecting and wonderful about that. So to be doing these shows even for small audiences has been really, really fun and rewarding during this time.
Hal Luftig:
Wow. I'm glad you're able to provide not only that experience for you, because I'm with you. I so miss that experience of being in a live theater. But for your audience too because one of the things I'm concerned about and I'm going to ask you is when we do come back, what sort of things do you think you'll need to do at the Kennedy Center, to get your subscribers back, your donors back, making people feel like you know it's okay to come into the center.
Jeffrey Finn:
It's a great question. It's a complicated question because I don't know if any of us know how safe we feel doing different things. And everybody's got different thresholds of their own comfort level. So as we were talking about earlier, we've done a lot of marketing surveys about how comfortable are you to return to the theater? Would you be comfortable sitting watching a show wearing a mask for two and a half hours? And questions like that. As you know, we're not going to be able to return Broadway with socially distanced audiences necessarily.
Jeffrey Finn:
So long that's going to be is a questionable moment right now. But we at the Kennedy Center are working with the Cleveland Clinic as our scientific and medical advisors. So we go by their protocols and guidelines. It's really strict. I would normally, when I have a performer or a show happen, provide catering. We'd be hanging out in the green room together and we'd be chatting and laughing and talking. These are things we just can't at the moment do in the way that we have done them before.
Jeffrey Finn:
From my casts, when I'm producing shows, I love to do an opening night party. I love to do a bagel brunch on Sundays. That's the way people connect and feel like they're being treated really well and it's part of the fun of being in a show. But I think there's going to be a period of time where we're not going to be able to be providing that just for health purposes and for everybody's safety. So we'll follow. As everybody's saying, we'll follow the science and we'll do what we're told to make sure that everybody stays as healthy as possible.
Hal Luftig:
Yeah. I think that's terrific that you guys are working with a health official to make sure that everything is up to stuff. But I wonder, and you don't want to go overboard and make a person feel like maybe I shouldn't be in this space, yet you want them to feel safe. How do you think you guys will marry those two objectives?
Jeffrey Finn:
I think that's an answer that will be determined in the coming months. We're going to get through the winter and figure out are we taking everybody's temperatures as they come in. Are we actually, I guess providing masks. There'll be many different questions that still need to be addressed because over the past several months, the most active part of my job has been throwing an entire calendar up in the air like everybody else on the road and everybody else who's presenting shows and kind of figuring out how we're going to rebook the shows and when we can reopen.
Jeffrey Finn:
So a lot of the shows... We were supposed to have Hamilton this past summer unfortunately. I mean, Hamilton is still going to come back, but it's a world where we right now can't do it safely. So coming back for everybody's safety because we just don't have either a vaccine or the right answers yet. We want to make sure everybody who comes in the building is comfortable. We want to go to every level and measure to make sure that people feel safe and secure there. And there are some people that say that they're ready to come back now and there are some people that say that they want to wait a little bit longer.
Jeffrey Finn:
I think that's going to be a big question mark of how we all rebuild not just where I am here in DC and all the other DC theaters, but Broadway itself. It's a huge worry because this is rubbing elbows next to somebody sitting in a seat who you don't know possibly, which is a different fear in many ways. So it's a really complicated question, which I wish none of us ever had to deal with obviously because none of us have had a pandemic in our lifetime. It's just a crazy new world.
Hal Luftig:
I totally agree, Jeffrey. It is a new world. My concern is how do we make people feel safe? I think you're right. We just have to wait and see and just be adaptable.
Jeffrey Finn:
I think they're going to be also so many other questions and I think so much about how does Broadway come back? Are ticket prices going to be different? Because we were talking earlier about the economics of Broadway and how expensive it is to make Broadway shows work because we've gotten to a place, in my opinion where the hits are bigger, the flops are bigger and there's less that's in the middle. There's just not much in the middle on Broadway. You're either a success or you're not.
Jeffrey Finn:
I worry about ticket prices because we were in some fairly thin margins to be able to be getting shows to get by, and it'll be interesting to see what audiences... if there is price resistance or not, and a host of different issues that come along with getting people back to Broadway.
Hal Luftig:
Jeffrey, I wonder if you have any sense. I'm sure the Kennedy Center is an economic driver for DC. When people go to the Kennedy Center, they're likely to have dinner or as you were talking about, the Sondheim Retrospective. We all stayed over in a hotel, parking, things like that, babysitters, all of that stuff. With the closures because of the pandemic of the Kennedy Center, what are your thoughts about some of the financial impact that has had on the economy of DC?
Jeffrey Finn:
Yeah. I don't know if there's any part of that that's uniquely special or specific to DC, because I think the financial impact feels like it's everywhere. Strictly for the Kennedy Center, we are lucky to have some unbelievably supportive donors and many of them from the world of Broadway who you know very well. But that said, we run by being a business that sells tickets to events. When you're talking to a client for a year and a half and you talk about for us or for any theater, what that structural deficit is going to be. And still having people like myself and many others working on staff, and the bills need to be paid, it's a real challenge.
Jeffrey Finn:
As I said, I don't think that's unique to the Kennedy Center in any way, but I hugely worry about the theater industry with the either not-for-profit theaters or some of the other theaters that just may not be able to afford to stay open. And again, the job losses and the artistic loss is just saddening in so many ways because when you think about what could have been created during this time if people have been creating more theater, the only silver lining there is that we're going to have to come out on the other side with new talent, with new people, playwrights, composers, lyricists, new stories to be told. And that's one of my hopes on the other side of enduring all of this now.
Hal Luftig:
Bravo to you, Jeffrey. I'm with you. I stand right next to you side by side. Jeffrey, we're about to wind this interview up and I just wanted to thank you again so much for taking your time and explaining all the things you have today about the Kennedy Center and its operations.
Jeffrey Finn:
Thank you. This has been so much fun talking. I love it. Let's go another two or three hours.
Hal Luftig:
We could. We could absolutely have another... We could be another whole episode.
Jeffrey Finn:
Exactly. I look forward to it.
Hal Luftig:
Me too. But before you go, you're not done yet, I have three what I call rapid fire questions. All I ask is that you don't overthink. I ask a question and you tell me the first thing that comes into your mind, okay?
Jeffrey Finn:
Okay. Wish me luck.
Hal Luftig:
Yeah, good luck. So the first one is this is an easy one. What is your favorite musical?
Jeffrey Finn:
Easy. For me it's Les Mis. It's the reason I'm a producer. It was my first job in theater. So when Les Mis opened on Broadway, they opened the first national tour in Boston at the Shubert Theater. This was 1987. I was a senior in high school and I sold T-shirts just so I could get to watch the show every night. So I sold a bunch of T-shirts and all of the merchandise that they had for Les Mis, and I would pack up my booth really quickly, turn in the receipts and run to watch the show. So I probably saw Les Mis, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times.
Hal Luftig:
Oh, I love it. I love it. I was going to say if ever there was a reason to love a show it's because you were selling the T-shirts.
Jeffrey Finn:
Exactly.
Hal Luftig:
That's fantastic.
Jeffrey Finn:
Love it.
Hal Luftig:
Okay, here's the second one. What is the wackiest moment you've experienced in the theater?
Jeffrey Finn:
Oh my gosh. I have two things that have happened one at the Kennedy Center, one on Broadway that are forever imprinted on my mind that will take years of therapy to erase probably.
Hal Luftig:
Oh my god. [crosstalk 00:43:32] You got to tell us what these are.
Jeffrey Finn:
The second one was a little bit worse. The first one was wacky when you asked wacky. So the first Broadway show that I ever produced was a revival of On Golden Pond. That was with an all-black cast. It was James Earl Jones and Leslie Uggams. It was an amazing group of actors and I was honored to work with them. It was in fact a show I started at the Kennedy Center and then brought to Broadway. But to get to the point of your question, there was a guy who used to come to the theater probably once a week, buy a ticket in the front row, and because it was James Earl Jones who was the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars he would wear a Darth Vader mask while he watched the show. So if that's not wacky, I don't know what is.
Hal Luftig:
That is very wacky. Did James ever complain to you like who-
Jeffrey Finn:
He didn't pay attention. He didn't [inaudible 00:44:32]. It's funny, because he spent so much of his life being surrounded by all the rabid Star Wars fans that he was used to it, but as long as we had determined that he was not a threat to the show going on, then we were fine and we let him wear his mask and sit and watch the show whenever he wanted.
Hal Luftig:
That is great. Well, that's one wacky. What's the other wacky moment?
Jeffrey Finn:
The other wacky one happened a couple years ago at the Kennedy Center. I guess, I shouldn't name the show because they probably wouldn't appreciate being named, but there was a family-friendly blockbuster musical playing at the Kennedy Center. There was a guy there who was sitting at probably row F or G or H on the aisle, in the orchestra, in the opera house. Probably had gone up to dinner before the show, probably had a few too many drinks. And for some reason, we watched this guy get up out of the seat, walk to the front of the stage, hop up on the stage during the opening number of the musical and literally walk across the stage during the opening number, and nobody knew what was going on.
Jeffrey Finn:
But I have to applaud this cast because they were doing this huge opening number. They all did exactly what they were supposed to do. He walked right across the stage. He was looking for a bathroom essentially is what he was doing. But by the time he got across the stage, off stage they had the Kennedy Center security there to take him right out of the building.
Hal Luftig:
Gee, I wonder why. I guess you should be... That is hilarious. That's right up there were some of the wackiest things I've ever heard. I guess you should be grateful that he didn't turn to the cast in the middle of the number and say, "Can one of you please tell me where the restrooms are?"
Jeffrey Finn:
Exactly or start dancing or something.
Hal Luftig:
That's right. Oh my god, that is wacky.
Jeffrey Finn:
And just to not even realize he was walking right across the stage in the middle of the show. It was hilarious.
Hal Luftig:
Thank you for sharing. That is a great, great story. Okay, the last question is what is something you hope to see change about the theater in your lifetime?
Jeffrey Finn:
Wow, what a great question. Well, I guess I'd go back to the beginning of the conversation that we're talking about for the silver lining of what happens when we come out of this pandemic on the other side of it. I hope we have a lot of new voices in the theater. I think that everybody who's either in our business or knows of our business knows how truly small it is. I mean, we can name a couple of hands how many specific directors or playwrights or who are the go-to's for example.
Jeffrey Finn:
But if we could have a much broader more diverse group of people and really be supporting that talent. I would be elated to see that happen. And I guess the other part of that is that it's so hard. I think to do what we do, but not for us specifically and in creating a musical. Just creating a show, to be able to have the right book that has the right tone, that has the right lyrics to the songs, that has the right feeling. All of that, it's magic when it comes together, and when it doesn't, and we've all had this happen including myself, you look at something on stage and you're like, "Why doesn't this feel right?" So I hope that we can get into a renaissance of sorts with regards to new voices, creating new shows because that will just be how we can be developing so much more with great success.
Hal Luftig:
Beautifully said. I stand arm-in-arm with you. Beautifully said. So why don't we make that happen as producers, as we come out of this? Let's make a promise to each other we're going to make that happen.
Jeffrey Finn:
I'm on board and can't wait to see you more at the Kennedy Center.
Hal Luftig:
Jeffrey, thank you again for taking the time for us today and I look forward to the day when I can meet you side by side under the bust of John F. Kennedy at the wonderful Kennedy Center. Thank you for your time.
Jeffrey Finn:
Thank you. I look forward as well. It's so much fun. Thanks, Hal.
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 Dori Berinstein, Alan Seales and Brittany Bigelow.
Hal Luftig:
This has been produced by Dylan Murray [Parent 00:49:32] and Kevin Connor and edited by Derek Gunther. Our fabulous theme music is by Nell Benjamin and Laurence O'Keefe. To learn more about Broadway Biz visit bpn.fm/broadwaybiz.