EPISODE SEVEN - “How Do You Market a Broadway Show?”
Sandy Block is Communications Strategist at New York’s Roundabout Theatre Company. In addition, in recent seasons, he served as associate producer and marketing director for Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish at Stage 42 and the 2018 Broadway revival of Children of a Lesser God and as a consultant on Groundhog Day, The Musical.
From 2012–16, Sandy served as Producer & Vice President/Theater at Scott Sanders Productions, whose projects included the development of such new musicals as Houdini, Tootsie, Up Here, as well as the Broadway production of After Midnight and the revival of The Color Purple, for which he won the 2016 Tony Award. Prior to that, he served as Chief Creative Officer at the ad agency Serino Coyne; in his 25 years there, he developed campaigns for hundreds of Broadway shows, including Jersey Boys, The Producers, The Lion King, Aida, Les Misérables, The Addams Family, Hairspray, and two productions each of How To Succeed, Into the Woods, and 42nd Street.
Before Serino Coyne, Sandy created marketing programs for Tinactin athlete's foot powder, Afrin nasal spray, and Melitta coffeemakers, all at Ketchum Public Relations. He holds a degree in journalism and theater from Lehigh University.
To learn more about the Roundabout Theatre Company, visit roundabouttheatre.org or follow them on Instagram @roundaboutnyc.
transcript below!
Hal Luftig - Host:
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 - Host:
Sandy Block currently serves as communication strategist at the Roundabout Theater Company here in New York. Sandy also served as associate producer and marketing director for Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish and the Broadway revival of Children of a Lesser God, both of which I had the honor of producing. I think Sandy has one of the best marketing minds in the business so it's a true pleasure for me to welcome Sandy Block to Broadway Biz.
Sandy Block - Guest:
Hey.
Hal Luftig - Host:
Hi Sandy.
Sandy Block - Guest:
Hey Hal. How's it going? What's up?
Hal Luftig - Host:
Good. I'm great. How are you?
Sandy Block - Guest:
Great.
Hal Luftig - Host:
So Sandy, what is marketing? And how does marketing actually differ from advertisement?
Sandy Block - Guest:
What's funny about that is the word marketing means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. In the theater business, I think... sometimes by necessity and sometimes just over the years of the nomenclature we've developed... we tend to refer to marketing as two things and I don't think... Quite honestly, the limitations of our business and our industry, I think we actually only get to tackle a small fraction of what out in the world is actually marketing. Marketing, to me, encompasses everything you might do to adjust and finesse how you put your product or your show in front of the public. However, in our business, there's some fundamental things like supply and demand, which is an inherent principle of marketing, that we are practically incapable of adjusting. We make eight a week for the most part. We make eight a week in February. We make eight a week in December. We make eight a week in July. A family show still doesn't have an 11:00 AM curtain and a show with absolutely no appeal to students and families still has to do a couple of matinees a week.
Sandy Block - Guest:
Advertising is purely the direct promotional communications you put out. Advertising is a small slice of marketing, and marketing live entertainment is a small slice of everything that marketing can actually comprise. Does that make sense? Was that a way longer answer than you were expecting?
Hal Luftig - Host:
No, there's no long answer.
Sandy Block - Guest:
You knew you were talking to me, so you were expecting long answers.
Hal Luftig - Host:
I just want to break that down for our listeners a bit because I think most people would think of advertising as the things you put in the New York Times ads or the thing that goes on your website or the graphic that may be in Times Square on a billboard. Marketing is that other catch basin that they don't really know what it is, or even when they're being targeted by marketing they're not aware of it. Do you think that theater could adjust its marketing seasonally?
Sandy Block - Guest:
Yes, and we do. The mountain that we had to move to establish 7:00 performances on Tuesday was massive. The pushback, the fear, the anger, the competition, for just saying, at the time... and I remember this well... but that was marketing and we just don't tend to think of it as broadly as we should. Tuesday nights were the worst night of the week for many shows, but it was a way to address not just what we say but what we do. Everybody finally got on board to launch something called Tuesdays at 7:00 when the public had said, "We would like to go early," and let's give Tuesday night an actual distinction. Make it actually something else that is available, which is if you want that choice, if you want to get home early, if you don't want a big dinner, you can go 7:00 and get out at 9:30 if you like that sort of thing. It turned out the public loved that sort of thing and very quickly Wednesday became our worst night.
Hal Luftig - Host:
Yeah. We added it on Thursdays too.
Sandy Block - Guest:
There's also... god, again, it's going to be a long answer. If you look at the movie business, they decide when they are launching a film based on its appeal, the competition. "Something else huge is opening that Friday, so we're bumping a week." Broadway doesn't get to do that. There's a theater available and you're in rehearsal? You jump. You don't get to choose. I want to launch... This is a family show. I want to launch in the spring. Your actors' ready, your director's ready, and there's a building available. You don't get to choose that based on what the public wants. You get to choose that based on the 90 things you as a producer hope to align and get to land at any one moment. There are things we can do, but when you're talking about live actors and live everybody it's really hard.
Hal Luftig - Host:
Yeah, it is. The way you choose a date to open is prior to your opening. You have to register that date with the Broadway League, which we've talked about in earlier episodes. If that particular date is taken, you can't open your show on that date. If something, heaven forbid, happens to you the second show that's wanting to come in on that date... If something happens and the reason why they need a new date is because the show has something technically wrong or whatever the glitch may be... the star is sick... and you're getting down to the Tony cutoff date, you have to open. There have been instances where a show has opened on a Wednesday matinee or a Sunday afternoon. It does happen. But Sandy is right. It is predicated on a whole bunch of different factors.
Sandy Block - Guest:
But for example, if there are two... If two producers have had two very family friendly musicals on track, there is nobody looking at the overall marketing picture to say, "For the public's concern and for the benefit of each show, let's delay one of them six months." Disney would not launch... Disney the movie studio... two giant tent pole animated features within four or five weeks of each other. Broadway would in a minute because they were each on their own path. Suddenly you realize... I don't mean these specific shows... Cinderella and Anastasia are opening the same day or the same week. That's not good marketing. That's flooding the public with two competitive things and they're going to divide the business somehow. Marketing would tell you, "Hold one of them for six months and they'll both do better."
Sandy Block - Guest:
We end up, with our limited tool kit, trying to make up for that through the marketing and advertising that is at our disposal but it's an existential... We are able to operate with a very small slice of the spectrum of everything that other industries have at their command.
Hal Luftig - Host:
What a wonderful segue into my next question. What are some of the things that you might consider in how to break away from the pack? Does that always imply just throwing more money at it?
Sandy Block - Guest:
No, absolutely not. I think the hardest thing to do in our business... because it takes so long to get a show up. It is so difficult to maintain perspective. You know your show. You love your show. You have been living, breathing, revising, and discussing your show. I mean, Hal, here's a question for you. In the last two decades, what's the quickest you've put up a show from initial impulse to having it be on stage, on Broadway?
Hal Luftig - Host:
The quickest? I agree with you. I'm going to four, five, maybe six years.
Sandy Block - Guest:
The ability to maintain perspective in talking to somebody who has not been in the soup is... That's an almost impossible assignment to ask a producer to do.
Hal Luftig - Host:
It is, but then again it makes me ask, in your opinion... So I know I'm doing a show. I know I'm doing Becoming Nancy, which has been in development or chopping and all of that four years now, and we have at least another year before we can... certainly, we're on hiatus now... before that can every have some realization of a commercial production. But from the beginning, we always talked about what that look... quote unquote, the look of the show, the feel of the show... would do. How far in advance do you think it's advantageous to have that person on as part of the creative process?
Sandy Block - Guest:
I would say I don't think there's a flat answer to that. I don't think there's a number. But having worked... which makes me particularly weird answering this question. Having worked on both sides of that equation, both on the producing side and on the advertising/marketing side, I would put forth to you a thought. Having somebody on the advertising slash marketing side really early to get a sense of the real inner heartbeat of your show, the real human pulse of it... I think if you are working with an advertising or marketing consultant, agency, whomever's on that team, you will get to a place of trust. And how much you think to be allocating in the early stages of an ad budget, a marketing budget... I think a trusted consultant or a trusted partner can start to inform that. I think it's more important to think big picture and I think producers very often want to know how fast are they going to have artwork or how fast are they going to have a logo.
Sandy Block - Guest:
Honest to god, I think you should to delay that as much as you can, especially in the current world that's not based on your New York Times print data and your billboard. I think to a degree, your visual identity is not as important as your personality and a sense of how much you're going to spend. Knowing that sooner, I don't think it's the first step. I think it's something producers ask for first. I don't believe that the people you are working with can even do a really good job of coming up with that, because the show you intend to produce may not be the show you actually have up on its feet. I don't think shows should advertise their intentions. I think shows should advertise their feeling, and I don't think you know the feeling of a show that early. Does that make sense?
Hal Luftig - Host:
Totally. I just want to mention to our listeners... because I've said this before... that every show that I produce, win, lose, or draw, I try to walk away from it having a tangible lesson that I've learned or a knowledge about something that I previously didn't have. It so happens that my guest... and you've taught me two very important things, which is, one, in the early days when we were still lighting theaters with candles...
Sandy Block - Guest:
I remember those too.
Hal Luftig - Host:
A producer would walk into an ad agency and say, "Show me some artwork." Then we would spend weeks of "I like the color of this one but the lettering of that one. And I like her dress in this..." It was tedious. I never knew, or never thought about to the point that you pointed out to me, that that process is not only extremely time consuming and sometimes tedious for the agency and for the people who are doing this, but it's expensive. You are dedicating a lot of resources within your company to create these things. I never knew that. So I think we might be moving towards an era where, as you say, we walk into an agency and say, "Forget the artwork. Don't show me any artwork. We'll get there. But I'd rather hear how you feel about the show. And what are some of your ideas about how you will..." I guess this is marketing... "sell the show? What is our message to the public?" Because you also taught me, very wisely, that a piece of artwork is not going to sell the show. That's not its job: to look at it and go, "I get what that is."
Hal Luftig - Host:
I know a lot of people, myself included, have adapted to that new way of thinking. With that in mind, Sandy...
Sandy Block - Guest:
Wait, can I jump in for a sec?
Hal Luftig - Host:
Sure.
Sandy Block - Guest:
Before you jump to your question, if Les Mis had flopped back in 1987 a woodcut of a sad little girl would've gone down in history of one of the worst art images ever. There is no meeting, there is no focus group, that that art would have survived. In today's world we are addicted to data and data is great for informing choices but not making them. There is no focus group and there's probably no committee produces that would have not said... You've been enough meetings and you've been in enough meetings with me where if I had come out with a woodcut of a very sad, big eyed girl you would've said, "Show me something else that doesn't make me feel like crap. The show is already called Les Miserables. Show me something else quickly or you are fired." Don't you think?
Hal Luftig - Host:
You know, I'm going to rebuff that by saying I never said that, but I'm sure there are producers who have. They certainly were not me. But yes, I know what you mean.
Sandy Block - Guest:
The assignment sometimes is branding or establishing something that may not be right but that is ownable and distinctive and has legs for the future but maybe is not... doesn't do everything you think it needs to do, because what it needs to do is be yours.
Hal Luftig - Host:
That's very true. I'm wondering, in your opinion... given that we agree that the whole feel of the show should be the focus until we know what the show really is and what the look should be... when you come on to a show as a marketing supervisor or consultant, what is your first step in that process? What is the first thing you think of? What is your first consideration to get that ball rolling down the hill?
Sandy Block - Guest:
I'm going to say it's probably two things and then I may end up saying more than two, but I think it's going to be two, which is not what... trying to have enough conversations and spend enough time talking both with the people with whom I'm working as well as the people involved with the show itself, to think about it from the audience's, or the potential ticket buyer's, point of view. Not what do we want to say, but what do they want to hear. Meaning, what is the visceral theatrical experience you are offering? Not what is the content of your show. Are you promising me... What is the promise of these actors doing this material, telling this story? What's it going to feel like? Because while we have to suggest something about what it's, quote unquote, about, the reason people go is because it is the right event at the right time and it's a feeling they want to have. How do we find a niche? How do we find a feeling? How do we find something... a color, a graphic, a feel, an emotion... that somehow is distinct, even by a bit, from everything else that's playing right now?
Sandy Block - Guest:
"How soon do you want your artwork?" If I don't know what environment we are opening in, that choice have been correct or incorrect because I know what's coming down the pike. But if something unexpected lands big, and it does every year: something we expect to succeed fails and something we expect to fail succeeds. What we are asking the public to choose among is very hard to predict. What else is in the marketplace and how is this going to stand out?
Hal Luftig - Host:
You know, Sandy, I remember when we started working on Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish and we were trying to figure out what that particular artwork would look like. I remember we came into the ad agency one day and you said something that at first I laughed at and then it's very true. You said, "We shouldn't focus on what we like but rather what we thought would work." The question is how do you balance your personal taste when you're evaluating artwork or marketing ideas or anything like that?
Sandy Block - Guest:
When we were just talking about the time spent prior to an artwork presentation about talking about the show and how it feels and how it might feel to an audience and what the experience is... If you've boiled it down to a handful of goals, you can establish some criteria and say, "We have decided. We have been talking back and forth for weeks. Maybe longer. We can talk about a handful of things." Then when you're looking at artwork you're measuring it against criteria, not just because artwork is so subjective, not just what is visually appealing or aesthetically satisfying because that can always get fixed. It's so difficult to look at stuff and check your subjectivity first and put it away.
Sandy Block - Guest:
I remember that meeting very distinctively. There was a variety of stuff. Actually, I'm thinking that was Children of a Lesser God, not Fiddler, because we honed in on this on Fiddler quickly. Children of a Lesser God was a bigger thing to try and solve. I remember saying, "Before you react to colors and feelings and choices, this one is playing up love story and it lands love story. This one is playing up the divide between these two people. This one is playing up a powerhouse performance. Let's choose which of those feels like a better choice to make and which of these is not ticking any of the boxes of the criteria we assigned to ourselves."
Sandy Block - Guest:
One of the favorite things a producer ever said to me was... They were leaning toward one piece of art and they saw my face kind of get sad. It was somebody I'd worked with a long time and he said, "What?" I'm like, "No, it's fine." A couple of my coworkers kicked me under the table because it's like, "Oh my god, they're about to buy something. Why are you screwing this up?" I was like, "Yes. That is the better looking poster. That one over there says and does the things we said we wanted to accomplish in this marketplace for this play. That does it better. It's just not as pretty." Damned if the producer didn't say to me, "I see your point. I think you're right. Can I have this one for my house and let's use that one?" It wasn't ugly, but it wasn't as beautiful as the wrong one. I was like, "Wow. That's a producer I admire and that's a produce who's willing to check his subjectivity and make this be a marketing choice, not a subjective taste choice."
Hal Luftig - Host:
How do you know if the artwork is doing what you want it to do, which is evoking the feeling or the spirit or the flavor of the show that you'll get?
Sandy Block - Guest:
We don't.
Hal Luftig - Host:
Okay.
Sandy Block - Guest:
There's a famous quote. I want to say it's from the guy who ran the old... way before both our times... Wanamaker's Department Store, where he said, "I am positive..." somebody can look this up... "that 30% of my advertising is working. I just don't know which 30%." It has forever been thus. That sort of goes back to the Les Mis joke from before because if you had shown in a focus group, like we were saying, "Here's hot soldiers at the barricade," because you know somebody in a focus group would say, "But all those young men, they're so attractive. I would go see that," and then you put up this sad little girl with big eyes they all would've said, "That doesn't tell me anything about the play. It's not about a girl, it's about Jean Valjean. It's about a guy fighting a sergeant who's chasing him." It says the right thing at its core and it's distinctive.
Sandy Block - Guest:
How many times do you say... you and I have this conversation... "But why are people not buying tickets?" Or, "Why aren't more people buying tickets?" I always kid with you and say the same thing: "Because most of the time people are not buying tickets. That's their default behavior. Look, just now, I didn't buy a ticket. Oh look, I just didn't buy a ticket again." We got to compel a bunch of... I want to find out why the people who did, do, because not buying a ticket is not an action. That's a lack of action.
Hal Luftig - Host:
Let me ask you. What catches your eye as a ticket buyer? What do you respond to?
Sandy Block - Guest:
I think I respond most of all... that's a good question and it's hard sometimes and I think it's hard for all of us as consumers because we wouldn't be in this business, for the most part, if we were also not avid voracious theater lovers and theater goers. So can you look at something and take off your producing side hat, whether that's actively producing or being on the marketing side or whatever, and put on your theater fan hat? How quickly can something that looks honestly, first of all, distinctive... something that doesn't look like... that looks unexpected, that strikes me viscerally, not intellectually. It could be a color. It could be a type treatment. It could be just a feeling or an impact where I'm like... and we'll throw around jargon words like cut through the clutter or that's just wallpaper, but that's sort of the world.
Sandy Block - Guest:
I think we tend to look too deep. "Is this communicating everything we want?" That's why I keep going back to, "Does it feel and look like its own thing? How quickly can it... Will I recognize it when I see it the second time?" Does that make sense?
Hal Luftig - Host:
That makes sense. Yes, completely. Everything you have said has been so intriguing and interesting that I've had now more questions than we possibly have time to, so I think one of the only solutions that I can think of is you're just going to have to come back and we can finish all the other questions I didn't get to. But I still have a few minutes and I want to ask you one more question. Then we have a wrap up set of questions. Before we have to leave, I would love your opinion on... Having been on both sides of the table, as it were, what do you think makes an effective producer?
Sandy Block - Guest:
What do I think makes an effective producer? In all areas, I think the magic... I think the super power is almost always perspective. It's whether the thing you're looking at at this moment is a hill you're going to die on or not. How many times have we seen a show out of town that wasn't very good and when it finally gets to New York... and you and I have talked about a bunch of these and let's not name names because it's safer... you look and you go, "They went out of town. For the life of me, yes, there's a new song in act two, sure, and they replaced the choreographer or somebody and for the life of me I can't tell you what's different." Then you see the producers afterward and they're like, "Well, what'd you think? Did you see her dress in act two? It's belted." You're like, "What? Eureka!"
Sandy Block - Guest:
That can apply to your marketing because everybody gets in the weeds. It's everybody's job to get in the weeds. I want the lighting designer to be obsessed on every vera light and every gel and I want the choreographer to be obsessed on everybody's toe placement and I want the art director from the ad agency to be obsessed about the typography. But I want the producer to say, "I thought we said we were looking to convey more pain: that this was going to be something that was really going to move you. You lost me there. We're not doing the thing we said we were going to do. Are we saying the thing that... Are we serving a bigger purpose? Or are we serving everybody's little thing for the day?" I think the producer's job is always to pull the lens out wider.
Hal Luftig - Host:
Wow. Great answer, I must say. Well, Sandy, as all good things... This has been so much fun, but as all good things it must come to an end. But I do ask to [inaudible 00:33:36] saying I'm just going to have you back. That's it. But before we finish... you're not done yet... I am going to ask you three rapid fire wrap up questions. I ask these to every guest. All I ask is that you give me the first thing that pops into your mind. Don't overthink it, okay?
Sandy Block - Guest:
Okay.
Hal Luftig - Host:
Here's the first one. What is your favorite musical?
Sandy Block - Guest:
Sweeney Todd.
Hal Luftig - Host:
What is the wackiest moment you've ever experienced in the theater?
Sandy Block - Guest:
Wackiest moment... Honestly, sure. Linda Ronstadt in Pirates of Penzance. Rex Smith hugged her right before an exit, right before a solo of his. He got he got his hand stuck on his sword or something and she burst out laughing and suddenly she was playing this early 1900s damsel and she is suddenly like country girl and she's slapping her thighs with laughter. He came back out, hugged her again to try to get her in the mood, and the whole audience cheered with such happiness over a real live moment. But however many decades ago that was, the good will and the joy of a mistake taught me something about theater that was also a unique, one-of-a-kind, delight.
Hal Luftig - Host:
Because I think you've just answered the next question, which was, "And the lesson learned from this wacky moment was..."
Sandy Block - Guest:
That everybody in the building, even if they're not aware of it, there is a risk, there is a precariousness, to the theater that is in some ways its most precious commodity because it is almost one of the only things in our world that still has that. Even if you're not aware of it, 900 things have to go right every minute and that's amazing.
Hal Luftig - Host:
And the audience does love it when it doesn't.
Sandy Block - Guest:
Or when it does. It's not about the mistake. It's about we all knew. There's that duality of we all know we're pretending: that collective suspension of disbelief.
Hal Luftig - Host:
Very well said. Sandy Block, I cannot thank you enough. This has been terrific. I'm so grateful you joined us today. And like I said, expect another phone call from me.
Sandy Block - Guest:
Excellent. I will answer the phone. Perhaps [crosstalk 00:36:42].
Hal Luftig - Host:
Good. All right, thank you very much.
Sandy Block - Guest:
Thank you. Be well.
Hal Luftig - Host:
Thank you for tuning into 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 at Broadway Biz Podcast or via email at broadwaybiz@halluftig.com. Be sure to follow me at Broadway Biz Podcast 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 [Seals 00:37:26], and [Briton Bigalow 00:37:27]. This has been produced by [Dylon Marie Parent 00:37:31] and Kevin Connor and edited by [Darek Gunther 00:37:34]. Our fabulous theme music is by [Annelle 00:37:37] Benjamin and Lawrence [O'Keith 00:37:39]. To learn about Broadway Biz visit bpn.fm/broadwaybiz.