2,068 stories by "Ken Davenport"
First there was last year’s NY Times article about the rising cost of the Tony Award (and I’m not talking about how expensive it is to produce a show that wins a Tony Award or th…
Ok, so . . . I had a feeling the Ghostlight Awards would be popular (a job of a producer is to do things that they think are going to be popular, of course), but I had no flippin’ idea…
Yesterday, I talked about how I was inspired by a comment from a social media panel that discussed the importance of speed in modern marketing, especially in terms of social media. And wh…
One of Tuesday more fascinating panels at the Broadway League Conference was one entitled, Equip Your Army; Why Content is King, and featured a troop of social media experts from YouTube,…
Yesterday was the very first day of the annual Broadway League Spring Road Conference, when all the members of the Broadway League are invited to NYC to share in three days of seminars and s…
The original 1957 Broadway production of West Side Story was a big hit.  It ran 732 performances. Music Man, which bested it for the Tony Award, ran 1,375 performances. The original…
Recent research reports indicate that a whopping 37 million people in the US speak Spanish in the home, making this Latino-language the most spoken non-English language in this country, by m…
Sometimes I think choosing what to put in your bio for a new show can be more stressful than the opening itself!  Do you include that Off Off Broadway show?  Do you thank your paren…
One of my readers is a Medium. No, I’m not talking about his t-shirt size. Â I mean, he hears the voices of Dead People. Â And after last week’s blog about Adaptations (which…
Everyone knows that January/February and back-to-school September are tough times for Broadway box offices.  When I’m producing a show, I call these traditional sales slump perio…
Ok, it’s time to get past the talk of who was nominated and who wasn’t nominated and how there really should have been five nominees for Best Musical (couldn’t resist, sorr…
Business Rule #679: Â If your competition does something successfully, do something similar. It’s not the most original business axiom in the book, (I’d rather be a business le…
This blog is all about trying to crack the Broadway code. Â What can we do to increase our odds of success? Â Research? Â New economic models? Â Stars? All of that analysis is essent…
One of my more popular blogs over the years was this ol’ chestnut from back in 2008 (!) about adaptations on Broadway, and specifically the number of movies being turned into musicals.…
Time for that monthly summary of what got your attention last month here at The Producer's Perspective: The most read post of the month:Â Announcing the first ever Ghostlight Awards " for …
There’s a point in almost every entrepreneur and artist’s life when they feel stuck. Â You know what I’m taking about, don’t you? Â You’re at a point in you…
Three things you can count on:  death, taxes, and the Tony Award Nominations being all over the map. As usual, this morning’s noms caused the usual amount of jumping up and down,…
Here are this year's Tony Award nominations: Best Play Act One All The Way Casa Valentina Mothers and Sons Outside Mullingar Best Musical After Midnight Aladdin Beautiful – The C…
I’ve been around for some nervous awards seasons, but nothing tops this one. Â The sheer volume of competition this year has made the nomination announcements seem like the actual aw…
In a new advertisement, uh I mean article, in the Hollywood Reporter, the legendary music producer Clive Davis took the new Broadway musicals of the last couple of decades to task in an effo…
Here are this year's Drama Desk Award nominations: Outstanding Play Nell Benjamin, The Explorers Club Steven Levenson, Core Values Conor McPherson, The Night Alive Richard Nelson…
A few years ago, around Halloween, pop-up costume stores starting appearing in empty street-level shops, doing a ton of biz in a short period of time. Â The retailer was happy. Â The lan…
I’m jealous of the West End. They’ve got lower costs for labor, crowdfunding, and they let you eat ice cream in your seats. And they have also gotten their hands on some very pop…
Some of you out there probably read the subject of this blog and thought, “Only 3?” And you’re right, I could probably write another 4,000 posts on my issues with the st…
Here are this year’s Outer Critics Circle Award nominations: OUTSTANDING NEW BROADWAY PLAY Act One Casa Valentina All The Way Outside Mullingar The Realistic Joneses OUTSTANDING NEW BR…
