A Year in the Life of a Producer: Strategies and Timelines
Wednesday, January 25th, 7:30pm
The Playroom Theater, 151 W. 46th Street, 8th floor
Panelists to include Broadway producer Sue Frost (Come from Away, Memphis, First Date, Vanities, Dr. Zhivago; former Associate Producer at Goodspeed Musicals); Jessica McCoy, not-for-profit consultant; Broadway producer Jeffrey Richards, producer (Fiddler on the Roof revival, China Doll, American Psycho The Musical, Wolf Hall Parts 1 & 2, The Heidi Chronicles, You Can’t Take It With You, Glengarry Glen Ross, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess); and Donna Trinkoff, Artistic Producer of Amas Musical Theatre (The Red Eye of Love, The Other Josh Cohen, Triassic Parq!, Wanda’s World, Shout! The Mod Musical, Lone Star Love).
This panel will feature a detailed discussion of timelines and strategic planning for both commercial and not-for-profit productions, and the differences between the two worlds as well as how they intersect. This is a strictly business look at how you run your business, how long things take and how you put the pieces together in bringing a show from page to stage. . The discussion will stress the importance of thinking ahead, and being prepared for the long haul in any development or production process. Make it your TRU Year Resolution to plan ahead.
Doors open at 7:00pm for networking and refreshments, roundtable introductions of everyone in the room will start at 7:30pm - come prepared with your best one-minute summary of who you are, and what you need. Free for TRU members;
$15 for non-members at the door ($12.50 if you register in advance above), free for TRU members. Please register above, or call at least a day in advance (or much sooner) for reservations: 212/714-7628, or e-mail
TRUStaff1@gmail.com
Panelists
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SUE FROST
is a founding member of Junkyard Dog Productions (with Randy Adams and Kenny and Marleen Alhadeff) which is dedicated to developing and producing new musicals. Come from Away is currently opening on Broadway after record-breaking engagements in La Jolla, Seattle, and Washington D.C. Previous Broadway: First Date at The Longacre Theatre, and the 2010 Tony®, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award-winning Best Musical Memphis, which completed a successful tour in the United States, as well as an Olivier Award winning run on the West End. Upcoming new musicals include Chasing the Song and Fly High. Since its inception in 2006 Junkyard Dog has also produced Vanities, A New Musical, Make Me A Song, The Music of William Finn (Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk noms.) and Party Come Here as well as served as Executive Producer for Doctor Zhivago on Broadway. Sue was Associate Producer at Goodspeed Musicals for 20 years, where she produced more than 50 new musicals at both the Goodspeed Opera House and the Norma Terris Theatre. A graduate of Smith College, Sue is past president of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, and is currently on the Board of Governors of the Broadway League where she is a member of the Executive, Tony Administration, and Intra-Industry Committees, and co-chair of the Audience Engagement Committee.
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JESSICA MCCOY (Trailing)
currently works at NY Writers Coalition as their Director of Development & Communications, after several years of working as an Associate Director for capital and endowment campaigns, feasibility studies and development assessments at CCS Fundraising and as an independent fundraising/non-profit management consultant. Prior to working as a consultant, she worked with United for Peace and Justice and other grassroots arts/community organizing non-profits in development and program management. She studied at NYU in arts administration and fundraising, and her undergraduate work at the University of Iowa, where she studied vocal music, language arts education and literacy. When she is not immersed in fundraising, she enjoys writing plays, doing improv, and producing, designing and seeing live theater and music. She is a current member of the TRU PDMP program and is in the process of developing a writing group for playwrights and a new works reading series.
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JEFFREY RICHARDS
has produced more than 50 Broadway, off-Broadway and London productions as a lead producer. His Tony Award winning productions include Glengarry Glen Ross, The Pajama Game, Spring Awakening, August: Osage County, Hair, The Gershwins Porgy & Bess, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and All The Way. Other nominated shows include the recent revival of Fiddler on the Roof, Wolf Hall, revivals of The Heidi Chronicles, You Can't Take It with You and Gore Vidal's The Best Man.
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DONNA TRINKOFF
is the artistic producer of Amas Musical Theatre, New York City’s award-winning pioneer in equity and multi-ethnic casting in the performing arts since 1968. Amas (“you love” in Latin) is devoted to the creation, development and professional production of new American musicals through the celebration of diversity and minority perspectives, the emergence of new artistic talent, and the training and encouragement of underserved young people in the New York area. Since 1994, Donna has produced the original musicals Romeo & Bernadette: A Tale of Verona and Brooklyn, Broadway and the Bard, starring Len Cariou, The Red Eye of Love, The Other Josh Cohen, Triassic Parq! Wanda’s World, Shout! The Mod Musical, Lone Star Love, Magpie, Stormy Weather: The Lena Horne Story, Zanna, Don’t!, Latin Heat, From My Hometown, Langston Hughes’ Little Ham, 4 Guys Named José, Rollin’ on the T.O.B.A., among others, and she has presented over 90 original musicals in the Amas Musical Theatre Lab. As Starry Night Productions, Donna presented the Off-Broadway premiere of SILENCE! The Musical (Christopher Gattelli, Hunter Bell, Jon & Al Kaplan), the unauthorized parody of the iconic film “The Silence of the Lambs” to critical acclaim, sold-out houses and a two-year run. SILENCE! won the Off Broadway Alliance Award and the Obie Award for Best Musical and was named as one of the 'Top 10 Plays of the Year' by TIME Magazine. Donna was an associate artistic director at the Cabaret and Performance Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Center in CT. She holds a BA in English and Theatre from SUNY Binghamton, is a graduate of the National Theatre Institute, and she received a Certificate of Merit from the Drama Studio in London.
