THE INTERVAL: This past spring, during the usual post-Tony nomination period of shows posting closing notices, there was a surprise twist. The producer of the Broadway play Indecent, Daryl Roth, announced that the show was closing, and then, rather than close the show, decided to keep it open for six more weeks. Reportedly, it was the first time anything like that had ever happened on Broadway. Daryl Roth, now nearing the end of her third decade of producing, has become a staple of Broadway and Off-Broadway, and has produced seven Pulitzer Prize winning plays (a record for a producer), including her first collaboration with Paula Vogel, How I Learned to Drive. She’s also the owner of The Daryl Roth Theater in Union Square, is currently represented on Broadway with Kinky Boots, and will be speaking about her career with the League of Professional Theatre Women on November 6th. We recently talked with her about her outlook on producing, the story behind Indecent staying open, producing work by women, and more.
2 comments:
Roth's point, about audiences at previews expressing their thoughts responsibly, I had realized, but not on the scale of a commercial show. Yes, audiences unused to the process of putting up a show can be quick to judge, but the stakes are so much higher when you're trying to get a major commercial show off the ground. Roth's exploration of responsible ad campaigns in the digital era I also found really interesting. It would have been easy and required little brain power to resort to click-bait-like ads and ad campaigns, but producers, at least Roth's team, still try to stick to intelligent (or at least punny) ad campaigns.
Roth's rejection of the label "feminist" is something we rarely see in this era of new feminist movements. I think Roth could have at least conceded that overcoming the gender barrier and breaking through the glass ceiling was something that other female producers have had to deal with, even if Roth herself does not feel that being a woman had in any way impacted her career.
I really enjoyed this article. It is so refreshing to read an interview from an incredible producer. The interviewer had some really interesting clarifying questions about the role that producers play in the industry. However, I did find some of the questions somewhat repetitive, she spoke about loving the hands-on aspects of being a producer and he asked if she liked being hands on with her public relations team. That was somewhat frustrating. And even if she didn’t enjoy working with her PR team, which she does enjoy very much, it is her job to make sure that all sections of a Broadway production are operating on the same page. I really enjoyed her perspective of our modern version of “word of mouth” and her ability to recognize that technology has taken over is one of the reasons why she is so successful as a producer.
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