Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Broadway's 50 Most Powerful People
BroadwaySpace: "Who are Broadway’s most powerful people? We put the question to a handful of industry insiders who, on condition of anonymity, ranked Broadway’s movers and shakers for a final and decidedly unscientific list of 50. Is power the ability to get a show up with the scratch of a pen? Is it the person at the very top of the game, or the person you wouldn’t dare put on hold? We let everyone define 'power' for themselves and let the chips fall as they may."
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5 comments:
This is a very interesting list. We always talk about who is holds the most power in television and the movies, but we never think about Broadway. It seemed that a lot people on the list still had influence because they were apart of one big show - The Lion King and Wicked. There were also a lot of people on the list that you never would of the street. There are lawyers, ad agents, and company managers that have more power than the big name actors.
Many of the people on this list, in their descriptions, it talks about how "this one show may have flopped", but that "they still are very powerful". It appears that the most powerful people in broadway can make mistakes. If you have the ability to make one successful broadway show, then you're still more powerful than a lot of other people.
As Paula Wagner would say- memorize these people, and when you go for a meeting on Broadway, make sure you know what they each do and where to find them. I will be getting my flashcards out and working on all these people. Its interesting to see how many different aspects of the theater and how many different organizations are mentioned on this list. It just reinforces that the theater is not just for the actors and musicians- the rest of us have our places (yes, the lawyers too....)
While I was impressed that the head of Local One made it inside the top 5 I was somewhat disconcerted by the description following his name. Thinking of the union as what would shut broadway down is hardly showing the work they do in the best light. I would much rather see people thinking that, yes show cannot function without the union, but the union is there to make the show, not that the show wouldn't exist if they weren't there
It's intriguing to put faces to names and to see just how different departments or areas of theatre bow down to one another because of their balancing act. It's especially interesting to see two actors billed as bigwigs in the business. Normally the star sells the show and you want to make them happily, but Nathan and Hugh apparently so big that they have more than just stage managers on their toes. I wish the article went into more detail about just why some of these people are important. I fell information was skimmed over, as if the reader already understood the gravity of their station and what they do. I want to know more on why so many advertising agency have such power. My favorite bio of the whole article is the head of Local One. He's respected because he's the only man who can shut down Broadway. I wonder if that respect came only after that strike during the holidays and when is it fear and when is it respect?
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