Lesson Plan 3 "Hey, Mr. Producer!"
Procedures for Teachers
Introductory Activity:
1) Bring in an advertisement, program, or brochure for a nonprofit theater in your community (it can be either an amateur "community" theater or a professional regional theater). Show the publicity materials to your students and ask them if this theater company is "professional," and what that term means. (Answers will vary.)
2) Explain to your students that there are two dominant business models for theater in the United States: nonprofit and commercial. Ask them if they can define what the terms "nonprofit" and "commercial" mean; where they might see nonprofit and commercial theater, and whether a nonprofit theater can also be professional. (Accept all answers; do not provide any additional information at this time.)
3) Explain to your students that they will be examining the differences between nonprofit and commercial theater, as well as the business model used in bringing commercial theater -- in particular, Broadway musicals -- to the stage. First, it will be essential to understand what makes theater either "nonprofit" or "commercial."
4) Divide your class into two groups. Tell the first group they will become experts on nonprofit theater, and the second group they will become experts on commercial theater. Distribute the "Can Nonprofits Make Money?" handout to the nonprofit group; distribute the "I Want to Be a Producer" handout to the commercial group. Provide your students with a FOCUS FOR MEDIA INTERACTION, asking them to log on to the Web sites listed on the handouts and to answer the accompanying questions. Give them 15 to 20 minutes to complete this task.
5) After your students have completed their Web research, and depending on their reading comprehension skills, you may want to check for comprehension by going over the answers to the questions on each group's handouts (see the Answer Keys). On the chalkboard or whiteboard, write the words "NONPROFIT" and "COMMERCIAL" on either side of a vertical line. Ask the students from the nonprofit group to describe what they feel are the most important facts to know about nonprofit theater organizations. Write their responses on the board under the "NONPROFIT" heading. Ask the students from the commercial group to describe what they feel are the most important facts about commercial theater. Write their responses on the board under the "COMMERCIAL" heading.
6) Ask the students in the nonprofit group what the overall goal of nonprofit theater is, based on their research. (Answers will vary, but guide students to realize the goal of nonprofit theater is to do public good by providing an artistic and educational service to the community.) Ask the students in the commercial group what the overall goal of commercial theater is, based on their research. (Answers will vary, but guide students to realize the goal of commercial theater is to create profits for investors based on the sales of an artistic product.)
7) To clarify and reinforce your points, tell the students that you have a few thousand dollars and you'd like to use it to support the theater. If you give your money to a nonprofit theater production, what will happen? (Answers: You will be able to make a tax deduction, support the theater's artistic and/or educational mission, and also feel pretty darn good about yourself.) Ask your students if you will get any of the money back -- or a return on your investment -- if the nonprofit theater has a smash hit, sellout show. (Answer: No. You will never make any financial profits from your donation.) Ask your students what the incentive would be to donate money to a nonprofit theater (or any other nonprofit organization, for that matter). (Answers will vary; guide students to realize that the "profits" of donating will include tax deductions, deepening the artistic and educational goals of the theater/organization, and supporting the theater/organization's mission and commitment to art.)
8) Again, tell your students that you have a few thousand dollars and you'd like to use it to support the theater. If you decide to invest in a commercial theater production, what will happen? (Students should respond that you will be making an investment, a bet, or a gamble on the success of a theatrical production.) Ask your students if you will get any of your money back -- or a return on your investment -- if the production is a smash hit, sellout show. (Answer: It's a possibility, but the odds are stacked against you. Most shows don't recoup their initial investment.) Ask your students what the incentive would be to invest in commercial theater. (Answers will vary; guide students to realize that investors may get involved because they believe in the artistic merit of the production, they like to gamble, they think they are going to make money, or they like the fun and glamour of theatrical investing.)
9) Ask your students if they can give you some examples of nonprofit theaters or other arts organizations in your community. (These may include: regional professional theater, community amateur theater, children's theater, orchestras, art museums, and dance companies.) Ask if they can give you some examples of where or when they might see commercial theater. (Commercial theater encompasses: shows on Broadway, touring versions of these shows that play in theaters across the country, and touring "arena" shows -- like "Blues Clues Live!" or "Dora the Explorer Live!".) Explain that often, when a Broadway production's commercial run is over (and the investors have stopped making money), nonprofit theaters will put on these same productions.
10) Ask your students to describe how a nonprofit theater organization and a commercial theater organization are similar. (Answers will vary; guide students to realize that both organizations work with a variety of theater artists to create productions, both organizations can charge for their performances, and both organizations want to get audiences into their theaters.) Ask how nonprofit theater and commercial theater are different. (Answers will vary; guide students to realize that the biggest difference is that commercial theater is a business where individuals have the possibility of making financial profits from a production.)
11) Explain to your students that you will now be taking a more in-depth look at the business model used in commercial theater. You may collect the "Can Nonprofits Make Money?" and the "I Want to Be a Producer" handouts from your students for assessment purposes.
Learning Activity:
1) Remind your students that investing in commercial theater is a very risky business venture. One producer compared it to "going to the track" or gambling in Las Vegas.
2) Insert BROADWAY: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL: Episode 6: Putting It Together into your VCR. FAST-FORWARD the tape until you see Nathan Lane dancing across the stage with a lineup of "little old ladies" and you hear a woman say, "Max Bialystock is really someone who wants to be a great impresario." PAUSE the video. Provide your students with a FOCUS FOR MEDIA INTERACTION, asking them to determine why producing a Broadway musical is different now than it was years ago. PLAY the tape. STOP the tape when you see a large group of people going onstage at the Tony Awards, and you hear the narrator say, "and more and more, Hollywood and media moguls are getting into the act." Check for student comprehension and ask why producing a Broadway musical is different now than it was years ago. (Answer: It's such an economic gamble that it takes many, many people to produce a Broadway show. It's too risky for one individual to be the sole backer.) Ask your students what Max Bialystock's (Nathan Lane's) advice about producing Broadway theater is. (Answer: Never put your own money in the show.) Based on the information that your students gathered in the Introductory Activity, why is this sound advice? (Most Broadway shows never recoup their initial investment. It's a total gamble.) Ask them why there were so many producers for "The Producers." (Answer: It's now too expensive for just one person to produce a show.)
3) Explain to your students that throughout the next portion of the lesson, you would like them to imagine a scenario in which your class is producing a Broadway show. Tell them that you will be producing a musical based on a novel (it can be a novel of your choice, a novel that is popular with your students, or a novel that they have recently read for their coursework). Tell your students that you will be acting as the producer of the show, and they will be playing the role of investors. This musical is going to be the biggest, most expensive, most spectacular production in Broadway history, and it is going to require an enormous amount of money to produce. Tell your students that since you are such a good salesperson, you have gotten each of them to invest $500,000 of their own money in the show. Ask them how big the budget for your hypothetical Broadway production is, and write that number on the board. (The budget for your show will be $500,000 multiplied by the number of students in your class. Your budget should be several million dollars.) Remind your students that, based on their reading in the Introductory Activity, a budget of between $10 and $15 million is not uncommon for a large Broadway musical these days. Tell them that you will be following Nathan Lane's advice and not putting any of your OWN money into the show -- you'll just be using theirs.
4) Explain to your students that it wasn't always this expensive to produce a Broadway show. FAST-FORWARD the tape until you see director Harold Prince onscreen and you hear him say, "I would not know where to come by $10 million for a musical today." PAUSE the tape. Provide your students with a FOCUS FOR MEDIA INTERACTION, asking them to determine how the cost of producing a Broadway musical changed over the course of Harold Prince's career. PLAY the tape. PAUSE the tape when you see Harold Prince onscreen and you hear him say, "You can't get much for $800,000 today." Check for student comprehension, and ask your students how the cost of producing a Broadway musical changed over the course of Harold Prince's career. (Answer: The production cost rose steadily. When he produced "The Pajama Game" in 1954, the cost was $250,000. When he produced "Follies" in 1971, the cost was $800,000.)
5) Provide your students with a FOCUS FOR MEDIA INTERACTION, asking them to determine why producing on Broadway is so expensive, who the backers of "Wicked" are, and why producing on Broadway is referred to as a gamble. PLAY the tape. PAUSE the tape when you see Stephen Schwartz onscreen and you hear him say, "For better or worse, we had to do a production." Check for student comprehension, and ask them why producing on Broadway is so expensive. (It's a handmade enterprise . . . sets and costumes are custom-designed for each production, and it's very labor-intensive.) Ask who the backers of "Wicked" are. (Answer: A film producer and Universal Studios.) Why might it be appealing to have an established film studio as one of your backers? (Answer: Film studios have a lot of money, more than individuals.) Why is producing the show a gamble? (Answer: Unlike a movie, which can make a lot of money in a short period of time, a musical can open and close almost immediately, losing all of the investors' money.)
6) Remind your students of your hypothetical musical's budget (you should have the number written on the board). Ask them to brainstorm, based on what they have seen in the video and their prior knowledge of musical theater, how all of that money will be used. (Answers will vary; guide your students to realize that the investors' money will be used to finance all aspects of the production, including hiring actors, directors, stage managers, technicians, crew, and designers; the design and construction of sets and costumes; the rental of theater and rehearsal space; marketing and publicity; box office staff and ticketing; basically anything that will appear onstage or bring audiences into the theater.) Ask your students why they think it might be important to have a "pre-Broadway tryout" for their musical. (Answers will vary; guide your students to realize that during a tryout, you can polish your show, rehearse technical elements, and fix things with the benefit of an audience's reactions.)
7) Provide your students with a FOCUS FOR MEDIA INTERACTION, asking them to determine how "Wicked" was received by critics and by the public, and what conditions will enable producers to recoup their initial investment. PLAY the tape. PAUSE the tape when you see the inside of the Gershwin Theater and you hear the narrator say, "If they can sell over 1,300 seats to each and every performance." Check for student comprehension, and ask them how "Wicked" was received by the critics. (Answer: Critics were divided about the show.) Ask how the show was received by the public. (Answer: The public was enthusiastic; holiday ticket sales broke records.) Ask your students what conditions will enable producers to recoup their initial investment of $14 million. (Answer: They will have to sell more than 1,300 tickets to each and every performance for the next year and a half.)
8) Ask your students to compute how many performances of "Wicked" there will be in the first year and a half it runs on Broadway, if there are eight shows per week. (Answer: A year and a half is 78 weeks. 78 weeks multiplied by 8 shows a week is 624 performances. Write this information on the board.) Ask your students to compute how much revenue each performance must generate to pay back an investor. How would they go about figuring that out? (Answer: Divide $14 million dollars -- the initial investment -- by 624 performances: $22,435.90. Write this information on the board.) Remind your students that there are approximately 1,300 seats in the theater where "Wicked" is being performed. How much should the producers charge for each ticket if their goal is to make back the initial investment in the first year and a half? How would they go about figuring this out? (Answer: Divide $22,435.90 -- the revenue from each performance -- by 1,300 seats: $17.25). Ask your students if they think a Broadway ticket costs $17.25. (Answers will vary.)
9) Ask your students to log on to the ticket information page on the official "Wicked" Web site (http://www.wickedthemusical.com/tickets.htm). Provide them with a FOCUS FOR MEDIA INTERACTION, asking them to determine what the show's ticket prices are. Give your students a minute or so to get this information, and then check for comprehension. How much do tickets to "Wicked" cost? (Answer: From $50 to $100.) Ask why it will take the producers a year and a half to make back their initial investment if they are charging so much for tickets. Where is all of the money going? (Answer: Guide your students to realize that as long as the show runs, everyone involved in it has to get paid: the actors, the orchestra, the technicians, the crew, the designers. The rent has to be paid on the theater, and marketing and publicity have to continue. A lot of the money that comes in is being spent on keeping the show up and running.) Finally, ask your students to hypothesize about how a theatrical investor can make a profit from a show. (Answer: Once the initial investment has been made back, and after the production costs have been paid each week, there is a profit, or dividend. This profit is then divided among the investors based on the amount of their initial investment.) Ask your students if commercial theater sounds like a risky investment. Why? (Answer: If the show doesn't run long enough, investors can lose their initial investment as well as any potential profits.)
10) Remind your students of your hypothetical production. Tell them that the production is going into a 1,000-seat theater, and the top ticket price will be $100. There will be eight shows a week. Ask your students to compute how long your production would have to run to make back their initial investment if there were no production costs to be paid. (Answers will vary based on the budget.) Ask them to compute how long your production would have to run to make back their initial investment if the weekly production costs were $400,000. (Answers will vary based on the budget.)
11) Now ask your students how easy they think it would be to make back their initial investment. Remind them that they will have to sell out every performance for the entire amount of time you determined in Step 10, above. Only then will they have a chance to make a profit. Ask your students what obstacles there would be to making a fortune off of their Broadway show. (Answers will vary; guide students to realize that there are scores of problems that could sink their investment: every performance of the show might not sell out; it might get bad reviews so no one comes to see it; the star might get sick or injured and cause ticket sales to drop; there might be a blizzard or a blackout or another calamity that will force performances to be canceled.) Ask your students if they think it is EVER possible for someone to make a profit from producing a Broadway musical. (Answers will vary.) Tell them that they will be watching one last video segment to find the answer to that question.
12) Rewind the video until you see the cast of "Les Misérables" on a darkened stage and see a red flag waving behind them. You will hear the cast singing, "Do you hear the people sing?" Provide your students with a FOCUS FOR MEDIA INTERACTION, asking them to determine whether or not it is possible to make a lot of money from commercial theater ventures. PLAY the tape until you see the cast of "Les Misérables" marching in place and you hear them sing, "One more dawn, one more day, one day more!" STOP the tape. Check for student comprehension. Is it possible to make a lot of money from commercial theater? (Answer: Absolutely. Productions such as "Les Misérables," "The Phantom of the Opera," and "Miss Saigon" -- which were all produced by the same producer, Cameron Mackintosh -- have grossed more than $8 BILLION ... more than the revenue from the movies STAR WARS, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, JURASSIC PARK, and TITANIC combined.)
Culminating Activity/Assessment:
1) Explain to your students that they have recently received an e-mail from their dear, long-lost (and purely imaginary) Aunt Tootsie. Explain to them that Aunt Tootsie is a supporter of the performing arts, and an enormous fan of musical theater. She collects Broadway cast albums, attends touring Broadway productions when they come to her town, and goes to New York City every spring to see a few shows. Tell your students that Aunt Tootsie has recently inherited a large sum of money, and that she is very interested in using it to support the creation of great musical theater. She likes both big-budget Broadway musicals and those produced in her smaller, nonprofit regional theater. The problem is that Aunt Tootsie has no idea how she should use her money, and doesn't understand the differences between nonprofit and commercial theater.
2) Ask your students to write a letter to Aunt Tootsie and give her the information she will need to make an informed decision. Letters should include:
- The differences between nonprofit and commercial theater;
- The economic pitfalls of investing in commercial theater;
- The possible economic benefits of investing in commercial theater;
- The economic realities of producing a Broadway musical today;
- Advice on where Aunt Tootsie should put her money, and why.
Cross-Curricular Extensions:
Social Studies
Research the lives and careers of famous producers such as Cameron Mackintosh, Harold Prince, Florenz Ziegfeld, David Merrick, and David Belasco. How did they achieve their success? What strategies did they employ to promote and profit from their Broadway productions? How did their productions reflect the times in which they were created?
Economics
Compare and contrast the business model used in nonprofit and commercial theater to the business model used by large corporations. How is a commercial theater production similar to a large-scale, multinational corporation?
Language Arts/Literature
Research the titles of the highest-grossing Broadway musicals in history. Track down the script or the original cast recording of the show, and investigate why the production was such a success. What are the themes of the piece? See if you can find original reviews. What did the critics have to say at the time the show premiered?
Community Connections:
- Invite the managing director or development director of a local nonprofit arts agency to your classroom to discuss fund-raising efforts and production costs in your community.
- Invite a financial planner into your classroom to discuss different approaches to investing, including high- and low-risk options.
- Interview employees from a variety of nonprofit organizations and determine their incentives for working in the nonprofit sector.
- Attend a production at a local nonprofit theater and meet with key staff after the performance to discuss budgetary and financial concerns associated with the production.
The Community Theater Green Room: Articles: "Why a Non-Profit Theater?"
http://www.communitytheater.org/articles/nonprofit.asp
This article details the steps an organization must take to gain nonprofit, 501(c)(3), status from the Internal Revenue Service.
BALTIMORE SUN: Business: "So, You Want a Piece of the Action?"
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-hairside061603,0,7505507.story
This article details the ups and downs of investing in commercial theater, with pointed advice from Broadway producers.
Prospects.ac.uk: Theatre: "Theatre Producer in Close-Up"
http://www.prospects.ac.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/
Explore_types_of_jobs/Types_of_Job/p!eipaL?idno=550&state=showocc
This British Web site details the job responsibilities of a commercial theater producer.
Live Broadway.com: About the League
http://www.livebroadway.com/about_league.html
This Web site, by the League of American Theatres and Producers, describes the mission and activities of the national trade association for the commercial theater industry.
Wicked A New Musical: Wicked Tickets
http://www.wickedthemusical.com/tickets.htm
This page on the official Web site of the musical "Wicked" provides information about tickets and performance times.
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