The Producer's Perspective: More than any other function, a GM’s primary responsibility is that of financial overview – the quantification, management, and forecasting of the show’s finances. During the production period, this involves keeping track of estimated budget expenses as they become actualized, and determining the net effect of all those variances on the budget’s reserve fund, which needs to be available not only by the first preview but also as of Opening Night. A cash flow chart is most useful for tracking these expenses.
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I see that this part two is bigger and more primary responsibility than the ones in part one. Analyzing ticket sales and predicting future demand in weekly basis must be a critical role in the longer runs that Broadway shows typically have. The article shines light into many other interesting subjects like the ongoing affairs of a show after Broadway, a company manager being the representative of the producer and the general manager, general manager setting tones and the intimate 24/7 relationship of the general manager and the producer. What was particularly interesting to me was that the GM decides when to close the show. I always struggle with understanding the complicated relationship of arts/performance and money. But in the end money seems to have a bigger power over arts. I am curious about how the role of a general manager might differ for a regional theater or not-for-profit theaters.
Oh yay! A part 2! “This is what it’s going to cost; now it’s time to close” is a fascinating line that I think bears exploring in the GM’s world. Understanding those diminishing returns is a very hard skill to develop, especially when you’re in an industry where so many emotions can start to get wrapped up in the work. Being able to have the fortitude to go “ok, we’re done now” can be a difficult thing to manage. The relationship between the GM and the producer is also a fascinating thing to explore. The ideas of the close proximity and the roles the GM can play—again those emotions being wrapped up. Convincing someone that it’s time to end something that’s making them a lot of money because you can see the end of that lot of money is hard, as they are going to tend to the hopeful “no! ticket sales will go up!” space, and also might have a “this work is very important to me for non-monetary reasons” excuse that you have to navigate. The idea of 24/7/365 sucks, quite frankly. And I think some of that is not just a theater problem but a bigger society and cell phone problem. Finding balance in this kind of work is important. You can’t live to work! There has to be something else for when work isn’t going so well.
I hate to admit that I have never really looked into what the job of a general manager actually is. I assumed they were more on the business and facilities side of a company, but I didn't realize how much their job revolves around the financial flow of the organization. When we learned about tracking expenses in Production Resource Management we talked about how the reports and shadow book would be reported to someone but i didn't realize that that someone was the general management office. I think that the general management office sounds like a great resource to the production and even the production manager when predicting costs and comparing budgets from past projects. Overall, it's important to remember that everyone has an important role to play in our industry.
I found this article super interesting as there are not a lot of material to read about it. General management is something I have a lot of interest in when I graduate college. The past two summers I worked for a producer and worked on some general management projects. I found it to be extremely fun and something I could see myself doing as a career. What excites me about general management is that it has a part of working with the creative team, it has an office comment and also a part of working on the show itself. All three things are something I really enjoy. This upcoming summer I will be applying to general management offices, as I want to get more experience in general management. I think an interesting point made in the article about the daily wrap is very important. The daily wrap is sent to a bunch of the creative and producing team and without the info the show will not know how they are doing in ticket sales which is very important
Though I am not the biggest fan of the way this article was composed in terms of structure and writing, I still think there is a lot of information that s lot of people never think about when it comes to managing a show. I always thought there had to be someone that was in charge of most of what was mentioned int he article, but I had not considered that there was one unified title that oversaw all of those areas. I had heard the term general manager before, but always thought that he or she was more of a supervisor, as opposed to all of the responsibilities outlined in the article. I also always wondered how the producers interface with the rest of the team, and it seems like the general manager might be the link I had been missing whenever I thought about the structure and inter-workings of commercial theatre.
I'm excited that they decided to publish the part two of this blog post! General management is something that over the past year I've become very interested in, so it's been great to get a basic overview of it from the perspective of someone who has worked in this position on Broadway. I really liked that they talked more about the financial side of tracking a show with the cash flow and projections for ticket sales. As someone who has always loved statistics this is definitely something that I see myself enjoying if I were to pursue this career path. I also thought that the way that the writer described himself as a confidante to the producer was very different than how I had heard this job described before, and that this reminds me a lot of the director/SM relationship. Although we don't study general management at CMU I do think that stepping into a position like this would be a very natural move for someone who had been a part of the SM/PM program.
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