What Is Development?

After four weeks of working at the office, I feel that I have a comfortable understanding of how the development department operates. While I can’t get into the specifics here, I will try to explain the different pieces. The office is split into three basic sections. The first part is institutional giving. This is the department in charge of corporate gifts, like those from Bloomberg L.P., The Walt Disney Company, and Time Warner Inc. The second part is individual giving. As the name suggests, this is the department in charge of donations from individual people. This spans people who donate $25 all the way up to a donation at the “Producers Club” level ($10,000) and beyond. The third part of the development team is special events. They are in charge of planning events that help bring in more donors and money. These events include anything from dinners with the cast and opening night receptions to the February corporate bowling night. All three sections work together to create a very effective development office that keeps the theatre running even through times of economic hardship.

            So far I’ve had the opportunity to work with each section. I’ve been working with the institutional giving department on creating a list of corporations that have pledged to be philanthropic, to see if there are any potential grants we could apply for. I have spent most of my time in individual giving stuffing envelopes for the end of fiscal year mailing. We are sending mailings out to many different strategically chosen demographics that have either given previously or have bought tickets to many shows at the theater. This is an important job because it has the potential to form relationships with new donors. I will be working with special events more in the upcoming weeks, but I have been able to help them out with some catch-up work from the events they had for “By The Way, Meet Vera Stark,” which closed last Sunday.

            Because the department has so many relationships with people and institutions in so many industries, I have had the opportunity to meet many interesting people. In one week, I had lunch with the director of sales and marketing at Planet Hollywood and met the set and sound designers for our current uptown show. This internship is allowing me to broaden my connections within the theatre community and at the same time expand my network to other industries (like the restaurant business). This is an amazing opportunity because it is opening the doors to potentially working in an industry I previously had no access to. Everyone I meet loves Second Stage and what it does, so just by my being an intern there, they already like me. It is great to feel so welcomed in a big city like New York.

            Over the next three weeks I will be interviewing the heads of each department within development. I plan to share what I learn here to give you a more in depth look into what goes into a successful development office. They never fail to keep the theatre afloat and that is a magnificent feat, especially with the way the economy has been the past couple of years. I leave you today with a quote from Neil Patrick Harris’s closing monologue at the 2011 Tony Awards. I feel that it sends a powerful message about how truly dedicated everyone in this industry is and how remarkable it is that a business that is the first to be threatened in bad economic times can continue to put on show after show without a hitch.

“And in the final analysis, what survives tonight?

Theater, because it’s what we live, we’re changing some lives tonight.

And theater thrives because we live to give it, so to speak.

This ain’t reality TV, this is eight shows a week.

Every chorus member that you saw tonight tappin’

Had to make miracles happen

For a chance to see you clappin’

And applauding in the audience. What’s next? Who knows?

                                          Anything goes. Now go see a… Broadway show.”

Some Words of Wisdom

After our weekly staff meeting on Wednesday, we had our first intern meeting. After discussing the nuts and bolts of the internship, we got the opportunity to hear from and interview Michael Mitnick, the playwright who wrote “Sex Lives of Our Parents,” the current production at Second Stage’s theater on 76^th street. He provided us interns with words of wisdom that can be applied not only to everyone involved in theatre, but also to anyone trying to excel in any business.

            Mr. Mitnick shared with us his recipe for success: luck, perseverance, and talent. While perseverance and talent are pretty straightforward, his definition of luck was quite different. Luck refers to being in the right place at the right time.  He named quite a few examples where he has gotten a job simply by striking up a conversation with someone. Contrary to popular belief, luck is not something that is completely out of our hands. A person can’t be in the right place if they don’t put themselves out there. The running belief in the theatre is that you should go out six nights a week. It is not enough to simply go see the shows and remark that you enjoyed them in an interview or cover letter. Personal relationships are very important and give you an automatic leg up. The specific example given in the meeting was to go to the bars the people involved in the production frequent. Strike up a conversation with someone and do not just talk about the show. Although many of these people are household names, they are still real people who enjoy talking about things besides their careers. If you are looking to break into the theatre business, chances are that these people have many similar interests as you.

Although I, being under 21, cannot connect with people at bars, I have already put this advice to good use. I recently saw a production called “H4” in a tiny off-off-Broadway theater. As I was reading through the playbill, I noticed that one of the supporting actors had also been in the on- and off-Broadway production of “Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson.” I happen to have a friend obsessed with that show. I was never able to see it, but I love the soundtrack, so I figured I would find this guy after the show to get his autograph. When he exited the theater, there was no one around him, as not many people care about supporting roles in off-off Broadway performances. I had no problem getting to him to ask him to sign my playbill. He also agreed to give me his autograph for my friend. He even took the time to write her a note. That is when we got to talking about what she and I do. I explained how she and I both attend Dickinson College and she is a theatre major interested in directing and design. I also explained my interest in lighting design and how I’m currently interning in development at Second Stage. He said that was interesting because he has a theatre company that it is always looking for new people. Without even realizing it, I had just made a new relationship with someone in the business. He gave me his card and invited me to come see their next show. If you look at the “luck” ingredient from a statistical point of view, the more places you go, the more likely it is that you will wind up in the “right place.” 

The other interesting subject that Mr. Mitnick discussed with us was how the theatre business is not as cutthroat as some people think. He said that we will “rise with our friends” and that we don’t have to compete with them. He gave us the example of a guy applying to write a score for a musical who enlisted his friends to help. Although the theater did not think his score would work for the show, they were extremely interested in the voice on the track. This allowed the friend who helped him to get a leg up. As she rose in the business, she could then enlist his help on a project, bringing him up with her. This was an interesting way to look at theatre because we often believe that we need to beat out our friends for the good positions. Mitnick proposed that we should instead focus on forming good relationships to help each other out down the road.

            I will leave you today with a quote from actress Helen Hayes that reflects the message shared by Mr. Mitnick: “If you rest, you rust.”  

An Introduction

          Since ninth grade I have been very involved in all of the technical aspects of putting a play on stage. The majority of the discussions that take place among the technical team have some mention of the financial restrictions that the plan faces. Throughout high school I just took the amount of money allotted to us as a given and never questioned where the budget came from. I was simply told that we could only buy the cheapest wood or that we would have to find a specific prop at home because we could not afford to buy one. This continued into college, where we often have to make different artistic decisions because the original option would be too expensive. But once I became an economics major at Dickinson College, I grew much more interested in the business side of theatre and what has to happen to allow any art to be presented on stage.

So I decided to dedicate this summer to finding out how professional theaters make their money. This blog is designed to take the reader on a detailed journey of the lesser-known business side of theater; to go behind the bright lights, complicated sets, and big name actors and look at what has to happen before any actor can step foot on stage, any lights can be hung, or a play can even be selected. The people I work with in the development office at Second Stage Theatre are the backbone of the organization. Second Stage is a non-profit theater and ticket sales alone cannot sustain the program. Fundraising is needed to make up the difference, which is why the development office is so crucial. They receive very little credit for what they achieve, except for the very small administrative listing in the bottom right-hand corner on one page of the playbill. Yet without them, there would be no Second Stage.

            I was drawn to Second Stage because of its unique mission in the off-Broadway community. Not only is it not-for-profit, but it also puts the majority of its resources into the creative process as opposed to the finished product. This makes my internship even more rewarding because the staff makes sure that I experience more facets of the business than just development. I am not running to get coffee for people or doing menial jobs no one else wants to do. Instead I feel that I am actually contributing to the development team. For example, I have been working on the fiscal year-end mailing campaign and compiling a database of corporations known for philanthropy. This database has been very beneficial to development because it is a list of corporations that might be a good resource for the theatre to reach out to for financial support.

            I have also had the opportunity to take part in events outside of development. I have attended two new play readings, a meet and greet for the upcoming shows, an invited dress rehearsal, and a walk-through of a potential event space. One of the most exciting experiences was the first read-through of our upcoming play, “All New People,” by Zach Braff. Not only did I get to meet Braff (“Scrubs”) and Justin Bartha (“The Hangover”), but it will also allow me to continue to see this play all the way through to the final product. I had already read one of the earlier versions of the script. At the event, I also introduced myself to the lighting designer, who invited me to a tech rehearsal. All together, I will get to go from raising money for the theatre through script revisions and tech to the invited dress at the end of June. Seeing the whole process will really help me to understand how all of the different departments come together to make a production happen.

I invite you to join me on my ten-week summer journey into New York City’s off-Broadway scene and learn about the lesser known, but equally as important, side of the business.