298: Networking in a New Niche and Becoming Broadway Investors with Dorie Clark and Alisa Cohn

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It's also wonderful just to have people in your mind's eye from all industries who are interesting and can kind of round out your circle. And I know that I'm preaching to the converted here, but like, it's so helpful to have a broad network because who knows how they can be helpful? Who knows how serendipity sparks and who knows kind of where that all comes to also as part of a rich and rewarding life. So keeping in touch with this branch of our network is just another element of ways to keep in touch with people.

What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of the only move that matters is your next one. For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast. If change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello.

Hello Pivoters. I am so overjoyed to be here in person at Gotham Production Studios in New York City with my two dear friends, Dori Clark, who is a four time now five time guest of the Pivot in Freetime podcast and Alyssa Cohn who returns after having been on free time for her book from startup to grown up. Alyssa's big exciting win. One of them of the launch was being on Tim Ferriss show. So I'll put that in the show notes. They're both incredible people, executive coaches, authors, keynote speakers. Today though, I wanted to really dig into this. Can't even call it a Pivot because it's really an expansion of both of your Pivot portfolios of becoming Broadway investors knowing probably almost nothing about the space, at least when you first moved to New York, Dori, and eventually forming a company together. So without further ado, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Jenny. It's great to be here.

Hey Jenny, great to be here. Thanks.

I want to start at the moment, Dorie, that you met someone who Was active in Broadway at a party with a mutual friend, and he took you to a show the next day, and you had some kind of visceral aha moment as you were sitting in the audience that you want to be a part of this scene. I think those revelations, those downloads are so interesting. So can you take us to that moment? What was it in you? What sparked? How did you know that this was a whim worth pursuing and not just a passing fancy?

Yeah, absolutely. The context is that I had been really thinking a lot about how I wanted to spend my time. It was late 2015, and that was the year that I launched my book Standout. And I frankly went kind of nuts with promoting it. I gave 74 talks that year. I know because I counted, which means it's an average of about 1.5 talks per week. So I was on the road almost all the time. I was sick almost all the time because I was just traveling so much and was so run down. And toward the end of that year, in December, I attended a conference organized by a mutual friend of ours named Michael Roderick called Connectorcon. And it was a really cool concept. He invited all these people that he felt like were connectors in different fields and just wanted to make connections among the connectors, basically. And so while I was there, I met a guy named Bruce Lazarus, who at the time was the head of Samuel French, which is a theatrical publishing company. They basically publish the manuscripts of plays and musicals. And he attended a workshop that I gave, and we kind of hit it off. He's like, you seem cool. I want to get to know you. And one of the plays that Samuel French had or musicals that Samuel French was representing was Fun Home. And so Bruce, a few weeks later, had tickets. He had an extra ticket to Fun Home. It was very funny and madcap. He was bringing his 10 year old son and he was like, do you want to come? I had just been going through a thought process about what am I doing? Why am I bothering to live in New York if all I'm doing is just being on the road and being away and racing around. And so I made a commitment to myself for 2016 that I was going to do what I called one uniquely New York activity per week. And it had to be something that you really couldn't do somewhere else. So going to a movie, for instance, or watching a movie on Netflix, that would not count. But going to a Broadway show would definitely count.

You took me on a Subway Mosaic tour. I was such a lucky beneficiary of this Year and all your activities, because every time you reached out, it'd be this new and different, totally wild, interesting thing. In New York, I'll never forget that subway mosaic tour. Now I notice them at every station.

That's amazing.

And that the art is unique to that neighborhood.

Absolutely, yes. So every week, I strove for something like this. So when Bruce offered, you know, in the past, I might have just turned it down, like, oh, I'm too busy. But I was like, no, this is my activity for the week. I'm gonna do it. So. So I went with him to see Fun Home, and it was great. Of course, it was the Tony winner for that year. But I literally just woke up the next morning. It had really sort of burrowed itself into me. And I woke up the next morning, just completely seized with this feeling, this certainty of, like, I need to write musical theater. And this is not something that I had ever thought about before. This is not something I'd ever considered before. But I really felt a sense of clarity and certainty around it that this was something that I needed to learn how to do. And so it's rare that you get sort of a message as clear as that. And so I was like, all right, apparently, I need to go for this.

I was so curious about this. Because a career in journalism, you then pivoted to being an author, speaker, coach, executive coach extraordinaire. Were you scratching your head that next morning when you have that deep sense that I need to write musical theater?

Why?

You know, what do you think it connected to? Or were there unique interests that coalesced in that moment to give you that feeling and make you so sure? Or was it just a visceral knowing and that's it? There was no intellectual explanation?

Well, when I was a teenager, I was really interested in songwriting. I had a guitar. I played the guitar. You know, not super well, but, you know, I took lessons for a couple of years. I went to a guitar summer camp. But what I was interested in was, like, kind of pop music, folk music, that sort of genre. I was never interested in musical theater. I guess partly I hadn't been exposed to a lot of it, but it just was not a genre that particularly spoke to me. So I didn't have much background with it. Songwriting was a latent interest. Musical theater was very new, but I didn't have much context for it. I mean, mostly I wasn't into it, so it was a little weird. But I feel like probably this happens to. I don't know if it's most people but at least some people, sometimes you have a sense of certainty about something. Like, maybe it's like you meet someone and it's like, this is the man I'm gonna marry. Clearly, I've never had that one.

This is the kitties I'm gonna adopt.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, actually, it's true. When I was at the cat shelter, I met my little cat, Heath, and I'm like, this is the cat? That's right. But it's very rare that that happens. When I went to an information session about going to divinity school, for instance, at the end of the session, I'm just like, this is what I'm gonna do. And it's not that I'm saying that, like, you know, God planted, you know, you must go to divinity school and be my servant or whatever.

That would be very apropos, though.

That would be super apropos. Although I don't actually really have that kind of theology. But I just realized that it was like, okay, this is like a message about a thing that I should do. And so actually, it's the discordance of it. I mean, actually, if we want to go back to biblical prophets, frankly, the weirder the message, sort of the more you need to listen to the message, because it's like, well, why would I be thinking that? I don't even believe that. I don't even hardly like musical theater. Why is it that I need to write musical theater? And so it actually struck me as like, oh, this is not something that has been, like, sort of brewing. And like, oh, gosh, maybe I should try this. No, I really did feel like it was sort of a message from the universe about, like, sorry, you're going to do this. You're going to need to do this. And I'm like, all right, well, man up now. I'm going to do it.

Man up. Woman up.

That's right. Six years later, I'm doing it.

I don't want to derail this, but I am so interested in, like, that inner knowing. I mean, I guess I'm curious for both of you. Like, where do you guys think that comes from?

Yeah. Well, okay. Yes. And I see you and raise you. Have you experienced that, Alyssa? Yes. And about what?

Yeah, I've experienced that. When I became a coach, I met a coach. And as I tell the story on the Tim Ferriss show and other places, but how I experienced it as violins played, I just knew, what's that? I want to do that. And I didn't even know, of course, what a coach was because nobody in those days knew what a coach was. It was just something that came at me. And there are times, and I know we'll talk about this later, but there are times when I'll meet a founder and I just have this inner instinct, like, this is the one. Recently I took a trip to Milan. The plane landed, I woke up and I just thought of this one particular company. That is the company I'm going to invest in. But at your point, it's very rare. And I am always curious, like, what is going on there and how do you know if it's a real instinct or if it's just additional noise in the world.

I'm excited to talk more about your angel investing. And we can come back too Dory to bmi, because you actually applied, got rejected year one, persevered, hired a coach, got into bmi, this flagship, really renowned program in New York City for writing musical theater. And by the way, Dory has since written a lesbian James Bond musical thriller, which is incredible. So we'll come back to that. That's going to be one of our open loops.

That's right. And if you're Barbara Broccoli and you're listening to this, it's not literally about James Bond. There is no copyright infringement.

FYI, that's Alyssa. I know you were friends with Dory at this time. One were you scratching your head like, what, become a Broadway? You know, write musical theater that will make it to Broadway. And I want to know how you got roped in to co investing with Dory, which is the other side of this coin, which I find fascinating as well.

Thanks, Jenny. Exactly right. Because she said, I'm gonna write musical theater. And I'm like, uh huh. Good luck with that. Because here's why. I had asked Doria to go to shows with me multiple times. I just want to give a little history of me. Okay. I have super theater cred. I grew up in Boston. My parents took us to shows all the time. I saw Annie, I memorized the Annie soundtrack. One of the first in a long line of memorizing theater soundtracks.

When I met you, you'd been to Hamilton how many times?

I don't know how many times. But in total, I've been to Hamilton eight times. And yes, I can sing the entire soundtrack all by myself, including the chorus and duet and all the parts. Right. So. And I mean, I could go on, right?

My way out is. I love that song.

Which one?

Write My Way Out.

All the songs.

Yeah.

I wish I could play clip.

I cannot distract Myself by talking about Hamilton. Cause that's all we'll talk about. But it's not the only soundtrack I've memorized. Just to say. And we saw the King and I. I mean, my parents took us all the time to Broadway shows, and they brought us to New York to see Broadway shows. And that's.

I was always falling asleep as a kid. I'm so sad to admit that I'm like, a terribly uncultured person. I couldn't stand musical theater.

Well, that stuff threw me.

Why don't you enjoy it every time?

Do you still not enjoy it?

Eh, musicals, they're okay. Dory took Michael and I to Moulin Rouge. And that's probably so uncouth to say that I enjoyed it because it's this big, like, Hollywood blowout production.

It did win a Tony.

We had the best time.

That's great.

I loved that one. But sometimes I'm bored. I got it. I'm so sorry to say it.

Well, it depends on the show, right? I mean, the very first show that I ever went to, I mean, appropriately enough for my demographic, was my mom took me and a friend to a traveling production in Raleigh, North Carolina, of Cats. And I was just confused because I was looking for the plot. You know, surprise. There's not a plot. And the whole time I was like, I don't get it. Like, I was looking for the thing that wasn't there. And so I was just like, yeah, I don't think this is, like, for me, this, like, I'm missing something. I didn't sort of realize that it was like, okay, it was not there to be missed. But I think a lot depends on your early exposure and what you're expecting and things like that.

Well, I want to talk about that. So I think exposure is important and maybe what you're expecting, But I think it's just that point of exposure. And then, you know, Jenny, there's no shame in not liking it, right? You don't like it. It's not like, oh, I'm more or less cultured. And I think it's just helpful to be exposure so that you can begin to learn what you like. So when I came to New York, of course, first of all, I started experiencing opera. I exposed my all sorts of cultural activities because I wanted to be cultured and because I had this, you know, sort of baseline of experience. So I would ask Dori if she wanted to go to shows. She wasn't into it. Like, she's like, yeah, maybe, maybe not. She wasn't into It. And so I was like, huh, you wanna write a Broadway show? That's rich. Right? First, why don't you sing along with Annie with me and then we can talk.

That is so funny.

Yeah.

And was it in parallel dory, that you were enrolling in bmi? At what point did you discuss also becoming investors? So Dory notches being on the creative side of writing a musical theater. Writing a play, writing a show. How do you say it? What's the nomenclature?

Yeah, so it would be writing a show or writing a musical.

Okay.

A play. Writing. No, music.

Write a musical.

Right.

Writing a musical. At what point did you decide to concurrently become investors?

So it was the beginning of 2016 that I decided I wanted to write a musical. And I really had no idea how to proceed. I mean, I was googling how to write a musical. I was, like, looking for books on Amazon, and I was just not finding what I was looking for. And so I was just fumbling around trying to figure it out and reverse engineer it, but I was spinning my tail a little bit. And then about four months later, I went to my first TED conference, which both of you have been to now. And I ended up, through sheer happenstance, but again, I felt like this was good intervention from the universe. I ended up having dinner on the very last night of TED with Jeff Marx, who is the lyricist for Avenue Q. And so I asked him, I said, I am interested in writing musical theater. What do you suggest? And he said, oh, his first thing, he said, you must do the BMI program. And so bmi, the music publishing company, has a training program. It is a pretty prestigious, hard to get into program for musical theater composers and lyricists and essentially what they do, which was exactly what I was looking for. A, it's training, and B, it's like a matchmaking kind of thing. It helps you find a collaborator. And I thought, oh, that's perfect. So I set my sights on that. So I applied later that year. And basically, because I did not know what I was doing, you know, not surprisingly, I did not get in. I did not even get called for an interview.

And for even a moment, did that deter you from the path? Did you think, oh, it must not be meant to be? I know you're not really this way. You're a very persistent person. Or did you just take it as I'm going to show you?

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I was just like, sorry, people, you will let me in. And so I just waited until the next year. I'm like, all right, this will Take longer than I want, but whatever. But my big revelation, my big revelation, which I should have done it right away, it actually sort of surprisingly took me longer than it should have given all of our professions. But I was like, I should hire a coach. It had not occurred to me that I could have a musical theater coach, because that's not, like, a common thing. But I was like, I must be able to pay someone who knows more than I do. And so, sure enough, through networking, I found somebody who was fantastic, and she evaluated my application. She gave me pointers. She was like, change this, do this. Oh, you need to do this differently. And she really helped me shape it into a great application, which was able to get me in, which was so exciting. The only asterisk there is. I was launching a book in 2017, and the way the BMI program was structured, they accepted you. And then the program started two weeks later, and they're like, oh, and you have to come every. Every single week. And I had this complete book launch schedule. It was just no way. So I asked them if I could push it back and defer my admittance by a year. So I ended up starting the program in the fall of 2018. And so it was sometime, I think, late 2017 or early 2018, that I reached out to Alyssa, and I'm like, I have an idea.

I want to talk about that. So when Dori says, I have an idea, it's like, okay, what are we doing this time? And also, what I like to say is that, like, many of my best ideas, this idea came from Dory. Right. She was like, oh, I know what I think. The way I frame it is that Dory said, I'm gonna write a musical. I'm like, oh, that's great. Good luck with that. I'm gonna go into this training program to write a musical. Fantastic. I'm gonna learn all about the business of Broadway. You should totally do that, Dorie. I'm gonna invest in Broadway shows, and you're gonna do it with me. Okay. That's a good idea.

Well, now that we're sitting here talking about it, knowing that you were already an angel investor at that time, so you have this investing knowledge. You coach startups.

Yeah.

So you're in on that level of building something. And I don't think I quite knew. I had forgotten what a fanatic you are of great shows.

Yeah.

And how many times you had been to see Hamilton. So in a way, it makes sense, Dori, that you thought to reach out to Alyssa, someone who's so passionate, genuinely passionate about the space, backed by business savvy.

Yeah.

Were you nervous to start a company named Westville Capital after the restaurant that you often meet at? Were you nervous to start a company together, to form an LLC together, knowing that you were friends?

For me, it felt super natural. I mean, Dori and I are very close friends. And also, there is, in terms of, like, the level of trust. High. High trust for Dorie. I wasn't gonna say there's nobody, but, like, Dory is in my very top echelon of trust. And also, like business savvy, common sense, and just sort of the. I think the way we've interacted over the years, it just is like we can deal with the things that come up. So I have to tell you, I didn't even think about it or hesitate. We'll talk later about the name, how we kind of came up with the name. But, like, for me, it's actually very nice to know that you have some people in your life that you could have such a strong relationship with that you can extend the relationship to having a business relationship, too. How did you feel, Doris?

Yeah, I didn't have any concerns. And also, I think the other aspect is kind of the frame of Broadway investing, which it's not dissimilar to angel investing. They basically say, assume you're going to lose all your money, and then if you don't, it'll be great. It felt very low risk. First, from the perspective that, yes, Alyssa and I have a very trusting relationship. And I mean, I trust her judgment, I trust her integrity, so that's fine. And also, we were going to be making investments that you put in a certain amount of money, and you feel like, all right, I mean, worst case scenario, we will not see this money again. But we're reconciled to that. And of course, we want it to make money. But we understand that the investing kind of serves another purpose. It serves a knowledge purpose. It serves a networking purpose as well.

To give listeners an idea. What's the table stakes? Typical minimum investment for a show.

Typically, what happens is just to give even more context, right? You have these producers, and you have these co producers, and they're responsible for raising a large amount of money. The way they do that is to engage with investors. So Dorie and I are investors. Maybe one day we'll be producers. And in general, one share of a show will cost approximately $25,000. There are differences on that, but you can get in for $25,000.

This is for a Broadway show, for a Broadway show for a Broadway is less.

Less. And total shares, 100.

Can't even say it's not. They don't count it as shares in terms of equity in the same way. It's almost like a proportion. Okay, yeah.

But if you're looking for estimates to mount a Broadway play, $5 million is a reasonable estimate. For a Broadway musical, which you know, is more elaborate, with costumes and musicians and things like that, staging, $15 million is a reasonable estimate. Some things cost a lot more. Moulin Rouge, for instance, which you like, I believe was $30 million.

That's right.

And Spider Man, Turn off the Dark, which is sort of notorious now for being the most expensive show and a little bit of a catastrophe on certain levels in terms of both its critical reception and it's just overall level of dangerousness and cast injury was $100 million. So it can go much higher. But for an average musical, let's say it's $15 million, maybe $20 million.

Yeah.

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So you form this company. I would imagine that although you had a sprinkling of contacts in the biz, a large part of your success would depend on generating deal flow and finding out about things in production where you can actually get kind of swing some of those doors open.

Yeah.

What I find so fascinating about watching the two of you work over the last few years around this. And we'll talk about even through the pandemic when so much of Broadway shut down is building a network from scratch, essentially. I mean, Dori, you've mentioned a couple contacts. Maybe Alyssa, you had some too. And I also have to say, I love the kind of two pronged Attack of Dory's gonna write a musical while you become investors and therefore have two hats you can wear and a little bit of cachet as investors. Because when you're the creative, you're the one knocking on all the doors, begging like, please accept my play, or not the play, but please accept my musical. And then when you're an investor, that relationship is totally flipped.

Yeah.

So take us to the game plan. When you Realized, okay, now we gotta get to know people in this space. Where did you start? How did you start becoming known and knowing others in this arena?

You want to talk deal flow, Alyssa?

Sure. So I'll start by saying that, first of all, it was like, we have this fun new project. Amazing. Okay, good. So now what are we going to do? And, Dorian, I both enjoy this notion of, like, okay, what's the playing field? How are we going to attack it? And then also, of course, building a network. We both enjoy that. Now, I'd been in New York for, I don't know, seven years, something like that already, and I actually had a lot of contacts. I didn't have contacts like, as in, I'm an investor, but because I spent a lot of time with theater people. I was dating a producer for a little while. I knew a lot of people in the biz, and I began to sort of change my mindset from interesting person to, aha, I want to learn about investing. So, for example, I went to a party. There were a lot of producers there, and normally I wouldn't have made this effort, but I did make this effort to go make sure. I had a conversation with every producer. There were probably about five there. And I talked about becoming a Broadway investor. And I asked them their advice and their thoughts and, you know, sort of got some information. And it was at that event that I met Jamie Deroy, who turned out to be a co producer of a number of shows, who actually got us our first deal. She sent. We had Doria, and I had been screening already videos and possibilities of different shows which I will not name. And our experience was like, no, no, no. She sent us this video of Tootsie the Musical, and for me, it was a yes. Like, yes, this is the show I want to be involved with. And I realized there was going to be a possibility, both in terms of availability and timing and also in terms of, like, just the kind of show we were looking for.

And Tootsie ended up winning a Tony, didn't it?

Tootsie won a Tony Award for Best Actor, Santino Fontina, and also for Best book. It did not win the Tony for Best musical, but it won some very impressive awards. Yes.

So in that case, when you have a Tony Award winning, not so the musical itself, but it's won awards, do you see the ROI on that investment? Do you get to cash in at any point, or is it still about how they're keeping the books? And that's not even guaranteed. Just because it gets acclaimed doesn't really mean anything so much to say.

Jenny Dora, you want to start?

Well, Tutsi is something that one of our criteria. We have multiple criteria, and Alyssa can go into this in more depth, but one of our criteria is we certainly don't want to invest in something that we know will lose money. And ironically, I mean, it actually seems super bizarre from an investing perspective. And this is where theater is a little different than other things. Sometimes producers really will give you documents that outline it's almost guaranteed to lose money. And people, you know, super rich people basically want to be a patron of the arts, and they'll be like, well, it deserves to be seen. And so they'll fund it anyway. That's not our mentality or, you know, we're not yet at the point where we have such a level of noblesse oblige. And so if we know it's going to lose money, I mean, we recognize it might, but if we know it's going to lose money, we take it off the table. The second criterion is we want something we're genuinely proud of, something that we feel like is artistically good. We don't want to invest in crap if you're going to bother doing it. We want it to be great. And Tootsie was something that we really were proud of. The book by Robert Horne, which, you know, as I said, did win the Tony, is excellent. It's funny. It's so well crafted. And we were both really impressed with how they did it. And so we thought it was a fantastic show. And unfortunately, it did not do well, despite its quality. There's a million reasons you can pinpoint. The advertising, I think, didn't really properly convey it. Partly people might say, well, you know, the newer demographic, like people who are under 40, maybe haven't seen the movie with Dustin Hoffman, they haven't heard of it. You know, the brand equity was maybe not as good as they thought it was. Also, Mrs. Doubtfire was coming out shortly thereafter. They're like two things with a man and a dress. Like, that's confusing. You know, it's like eating its lunch. There were some protests, which I find extremely incorrect, frankly. Just, I feel like incorrect is the right word by the transgender community that were saying that it was somehow discriminatory. It absolutely was not and was very sensitively rendered. I think folks did not actually see it or look at it. It was something that, as a gay person, I was proud to back. But for all of those reasons, there was a swirl around it, and it just didn't get the traction. We Wanted, which was disappointing, but I think we both felt good about making the investment.

Yeah. And it was quite disappointing. But just to talk about our journey with that, that was, again, the first show we invested in. So we were off and running in terms of, like, learning about the agreements and learning about budgets, like, what's in the budget. We didn't understand. Understanding break even schedules, understanding cap tables, and then getting to know the people in the community that were sort of surrounding it. So, for example, they were having an opening in Chicago. So Dori and I looked at each other. We're going to Chicago. We went to the. It was our first opening night. It was so exciting to go to Chicago and be at opening night and then go to the party after. And then to realize, whoa, this party is like a big thing. Figuring out how to navigate in that kind of environment.

And Alyssa's so good at that. She's much better than I am at navigating a big party.

It turned out to be my strength.

What's your secret?

I have spent the last, you know, my entire adult life learning how to navigate large crowds where I don't know anybody. I'm gonna tell everybody my secret right now. You find a single person or maybe two or three people standing together, and then you go up and here's my opener. It always works. Here's the opener. Hi, my name's Alyssa. What's your name?

Right. Wow.

I know. And by the way, some environments it may not work in, but actually, this is kind of a party and kind of a networking party, and everyone wants to meet you. So it's really your mindset. You have to decide. It really doesn't matter what they say. It only matters what you say, which is simply to go up to somebody and. And introduce yourself and to do that repeatedly. We met some great people we met that night.

David Yazbeck, he was the composer for Tootsie.

Right. We met him that night, by the way. I then saw him. Dory came a little late. I saw him on the red carpet an opening night in New York. I was like, david, remember me from Chicago? He's like, absolutely. We took a selfie together. You know, it's like, that's how you meet people, just by being willing to go and talk to them and to navigate. And then we introduced a few people in that. We turned out we did know a few people already in that event. So I go on and on about that because I think it's so important that if you're going to. To use this kind of thing to Launch yourself into a new network that you have the skills that it takes to do that. And so in part, it's about navigating that kind of environment. We then went back to New York. Of course, we went to opening night in New York, went to the party in New York. And I would just say that for us, that began to make us realize we're legit. And also from there people knew that we had our checkbooks out. And so then we began to get a lot more opportunity. And by the way, even though Tootsie did not commercially do that well, it was because of our relationship with Jamie. She was involved with Lifespan of a Fact, which starred three great stars, Daniel Radcliffe, Cherry Jones and Bobby Cannavale. Also known as my boyfriend Bobby.

Oh yeah, he's so hot.

Also known as my boyfriend, Bobby Cannavale. Exactly. It was full, there was no way to get in. So I happened to say to Jamie one time on the phone, by the way, if you get an opening Lifespan of a Fact, call me, let me know. Oh yeah, I will. But I don't think it's gonna happen. Cause it's a very popular show. Well, I get a call from Jamie, I have an investor who's not responding to me. Are you still interested? So I said yes, but then Dori and I like to try to see the show beforehand. The show is already in previews, so I got to go and see it in previews. I took a date that night and we saw it in previews and we saw both the show, which was fantastic, and also the reception, standing ovations. So what I loved about that is that we really had a lot of more assurity that we would really ever have. And the show really well commercially and it did recoup. It recouped and gave us some money. So I only say that because in general you can't judge how something's going by one data point. You have to have a cluster of data points. And it was our relationship with Jamie that helped us get into that show, which actually was closed out already.

So interesting. And I love hearing this about data points because you also both have an entire career of building your intuition muscles. I mean, intuition is fed with so many data points, attending shows, like you said, seeing the reception. I want to come back to your investing thesis because you mentioned two of the points. Dory, I want to hear the rest. But quick thing on networking. When you go to these events, do you also have a strategy for follow up? So you work the room and then do you have certain commitments you make to yourself of how you're going to follow up with people when, at what cadence do either of you have a CRM? I always get that question. So I have to ask even an informal one.

We have a Google spreadsheet, actually, we do. And we keep a list of key people that we've met. I mean, that's about as sophisticated as it is. I mean, it's not any kind of a CRM with like, oh, we'll do automated follow up at three months and six months. Not at all. It is just a spreadsheet to remind us of who we know. And so we type their names in and how we met them.

Yeah. And then it's an intention, as in we should keep in touch with these people. Yeah, yeah, let's look at the list. Or, oh, you know, Dori and I like to do these dinners or brunches or whatnot. It was about a year, maybe a year and a half after we started investing that we did a producer's brunch and we invited, we got 12 people. We started from almost zero in terms of seriousness of our contacts to about 12 producers on a Christmas time brunch. And that was very validating. But it's like we wouldn't have done that if we sort of didn't have this intention of staying in touch with folks and also connecting them with each other.

That's how Dory and I met one of her author dinners. It seems like such a good strategy where people are then so grateful that you're bringing them together, you're doing just a little extra legwork to set the date, pick a location and herd the cats. Have you done more of them since that brunch?

We haven't done one specifically for producers, but certainly we have had a lot of general gatherings to which we have invited people who are producers.

And I just want to say that, like, part of being in New York is being able to meet amazing people and to bring together eclectic people so they can all meet each other. So on the one hand, it's like wonderful to have a producer's lunch or brunch or whatever it was, but it's also wonderful just to have people in your mind's eye from all industries to bring to the table, both literally and metaphorically, who are interesting and can kind of round out your circle. And I know that I'm preaching to the converted here, but like, it's so helpful to have a broad network because who knows how they can be helpful? Who knows how serendipity sparks and who knows Kind of where that all comes to also as part of a rich and rewarding life. So keeping in touch with this branch of our network is just another element of ways to keep in touch with people.

Let's talk about your investing thesis. I'm curious when you put your heads together, when you form this and you've shared two of the criteria, so the show can't be obviously about to lose money on paper. You have to really believe in it and be proud of it. Are there other components to your thesis or your lens for filtering opportunities?

I feel like there was a third component, but I can't remember what it is.

Yeah, I really can't either.

I think those are.

Those are two good things.

I think we said it was three, but actually it's actually two.

I know a third that you both have to agree, which isn't always the case.

Yeah. Thank you, Jenny. Oh, my God.

Well done. Well done, Jenny.

What do you do when one feels passionately and the other does not?

I will take that. We were offered an opportunity by a really kind of, I will say, significant contact who was co producing the show. Who again, I was having coffee with her and he was like, oh, by the by, if you want a piece of this show, let me know. It's been, you know, really well regarded and here's all the information. So I listened to the music and I fell in love. I was like, oh, this show. I couldn't get out of my head. It was like an ear where I could not get out of my head. I was so just taken by this show. So I think I called you late at night. I was like, dory, we have to talk about this show. I want you to listen to all these songs.

It was very intense. It was like I met a boy.

Yeah, it was very intense. It was very intense. It was not unlike Hamilton, actually, my first experience with Hamilton. And so I do get this way. I can be very hearty, right? And this is not even intuition. This is just like, oh, my heart goes out to this. And I almost couldn't get it out of my mind. And I almost began to get obsessed the way I do get a little obsessed in this kind of thing. Dori had to say to me, first of all, you very gently, like, yes, yes, yes, I know you like it. Yes, yes, yes. And then Dori was like, the show is not that good.

Interesting. Well, what made you feel that way?

Alyssa was not wrong. The songs were very catchy, but unfortunately, the book, the plot was dumb.

It was a mess.

It was like really Embarrassingly dumb. And going back to our investing thesis, I'm like, really? If we look at this, I'm not sure we're gonna be proud to be associated with it because it's just so freaking ridiculous.

Also, importantly, the audience didn't feel broad enough. And so you can debate whether or not you'd feel proud of it. But it turned out that if you think rationally, this did not feel like it was gonna be a thing that could rationally would think would make money. And so, you know, I think that's the value of our friendship, of our relationship. It's that, like, you know, when you're in a relationship with someone in this way, a business partnership and also a friendship, you have to learn to give in. You have to learn that it can't just. And I think this is really a powerful journey that I've gone on in my life. Like, you can't just be. This is what we're gonna do. I wanna do this. You have to, like, have this. Give and take. And. And thank you for reminding us of our third investment thesis criterion. The notion of we both have to say yes is powerful because if I'm a big yes and Dory's a big no, then guess what? We're not going to do it. We've already pre decided that. And it's so important to be able to be malleable in that way.

I would say when Michael and I were looking at houses where to move out of the studio into something bigger in New York, either one of us had veto power with no explanation needed. So if somebody walked out of an open house and said, I hate it, we were not even going to debate it, because that was their intuitive hit, that they hated it. There was nothing to talk about. It would have been an intellectual exercise. But. And there were some times where I was so frustrated. I loved something, I was ready that this is our place, and he hated it. Or it was a clear no. Or in one case, Michael and I loved a place and our friend said, don't you dare move there. And I'm so glad we did.

Wow. Your friend had a veto.

She hated it. Shout out to my friend Anne, because in her New Jersey accent, horrible, horrible, horrible.

What did Ann know? Now we're curious.

Horrible. Everything about it, it was horrible. It was horrible. It was too small. The layout was terrible. The worst of all, it was right off the Williamsburg Bridge. We would have had a lot of traffic, pollution. Like, it would have been terrible for our health, like smoking a pack of cigarettes.

Thank you, Ann.

And it was a bad neighborhood and just unimpressive. She was completely unimpressed.

I know how you two were taken by it. But, Jenny, did you exercise your veto power at all? Yeah. Oh, you did.

We would exercise veto power if the broker flashed a psychopathic micro expression at the end. Even if they were friendly the whole way through, we could tell at the very end that there would be some micro expression of like, get the F out of here.

And you went Paul Ekman on that.

Oh, yeah. Michael and I are very, well, you know us, we're very operate very much off intuition, both of us. And it did not matter if they were laying on the charm, the broker. Even if we liked the house, if the broker had some sort of like, again, evil flash, even in half a split second, we would say veto.

Wow.

And I'm so glad we did because every single thing that we turned down across almost two years of open houses, what we found was so much better.

That's great.

What does Broadway investing have in common with angel investing and where do they diverge?

So, you know, I think about this a lot because I think about, you know, this asset class as my discretionary asset class. And they're both high risk. So when you invest as an angel, first of all, I would say here's what I have in common. When you invest in something early, it's an idea. It is going to evolve, it is going to change. In startups, we call that a pivot, like a specific turn, or it could be an evolution. I think shows don't make that kind of sharp turn, but they still evolve quite a bit from when they start. So the truth is, you have to trust, in the case of startups, the founder, that they're going to tinker their way to where they need to be by listening to the market and in shows, you have to trust the team that they're creatively and also financially going to get you to where you need to be. And these things can take a long time. Again, that is a similarity between startups and between shows. I think the difference is I think there's a lot more rigor and business acumen that goes into all the things that are related to startup investing. You have to do a business plan. It has to be accurate. There have to be people who are kind of like, quickly minding the money. VCs won't invest unless you can really prove it's going to be a massive hit. So even though there's a lot of plenty of noise in that system, it's kind of that's the orientation initially. Also, there's a number of moments in angel investing where you can get your money out. There's a number of moments where as they continue raising rounds, again, this is unlike Broadway shows, they continue raising rounds. So you as an investor have moments where you can sell your shares to new investors. Coming in with Broadway, it's kind of not like that. It's a little bit like. It's almost like binary. You don't get your money back, you get a little bit of money back or it's a big hit. Whereas there's more of a gradation, I would say, in angel investing. And I guess I would also say, like, there's two different kinds of creativity, you know, and if you think about Broadway shows, it's kind of this traditional creativity in terms of, like, what the show and what the work of art can be. I think of entrepreneurs as creative in the sense that they're constantly facing near death moments and how they can resourcefully get around that.

You even wrote a book about how to navigate all that.

Yes, I did. Thank you, Jenny. It's called From Startup to Grownup. I also have a podcast myself called From Startup to Grownup. Thank you, Jenny.

Yes, thank you for mentioning it. It will be in the show notes. How did you both react when the pandemic hits? And lo and behold, Broadway is hit incredibly hard during this time. Did you have a moment of freaking out that you may have been investing in shows and then all of a sudden, all of Broadway goes dark for the first time ever? Right.

Well, we did have a show that was open during the pandemic or attempted to be open. It was briefly open and then not. Obviously, Broadway itself was shut down for a long time, but we had invested for the very first time in touring production, and it was the Australia, New Zealand tour of Magic Mike Live.

So good.

Yes.

Let's get Bobby in that. No, he can do the New York one.

Yes. You speak truth. Yes.

Yes. And I mean, this is not a. I will say in air quotes, a super serious show, but it was one that we were proud of. You know, when we say we want to be proud of it, it doesn't mean that it has to be the greatest, most lyrical writing in the world. It means it needs to succeed on its own terms and really be something that accomplishes its mission for Magic Mike Live. They are not trying to win the Tony. They were trying to be extremely fun and pleasing to a bunch of drunk Australian bachelorette parties. And we thought this was. That's absolutely right. And absolutely perfect for it. We were so excited. Magic, the movie on a per capita basis, I believe this is correct, actually did better in Australia than anywhere else in the world. I mean, it was going to be great. But as keen observers may note, Australia reopened and then closed and then reopened and then closed. Broadway just kept it closed. But Australia had so many stops and starts that. But unfortunately, it really just destroyed the chances of the production as well as, I think, a lot of other productions, because they would sell tickets and then they'd have to refund them all, and everything was changing, and it was just such an unpredictable environment. So it's an investment that, again, we lost all our money. We felt good about the premise of how we made the decision. I mean, I think were it not for Covid, it would have been really successful, and we would have been really excited to be part of it. We were even excited to go over for the premiere.

And is there no chance of them bringing it back?

It's just it was a finite touring production, so they might try again, but that would be a different raise.

Right. And what was interesting during that period. So, by the way, I think we made the decision to invest in that one in February 2020. And. I know, I know. Well, you know, so many things happened, right?

Yeah. And there was a question. You know, we hadn't sent in the money.

Right.

And the question is, like, george, are we back out? And this was one where I was like, we committed. We said we would. We're going to do it. And, you know, it was maybe a little bit of a suicide mission, but I think it's really important to establish yourself as the people who keep your word.

Who keep your word 100%. Also to. And this is something we think about a lot. Did we make a good decision? Not was it a good outcome? Did we make a good decision? And I think that's really significant. And it was also so interesting. Listen, everything is learning. Everything is learning. So we got regular notes from Vincent, you know, the general manager over there, and he would try to buck us up. And then he would write these very dramatic, long, heartfelt notes about how difficult it was. It did feel to me like General George Washington in the show 1776. I kept thinking, every time he wrote us a note, be like, does anybody care? Is anybody there? And, like, does anybody see what I see? And it felt like he was, like, riding into the void of, like, the masses of those of us trying to, like, find camaraderie and 30,000 men in New York Harbor. Yes, exactly. I Don't know, like, even just reading his notes and understanding what was going on over there and to Dory's point, that selling tickets and shutting down and, you know, coming back up, this is not knowledge we'll probably need necessarily in the future, but it's very helpful to be steeped inside of, like, what it actually takes to put on a Broadway production.

What have you learned these last few years now? You know, pseudo emerging. Whoever knows what the new state is going to be like? Has it shifted anything in terms of how or when you'll invest?

Alyssa, tackle some of this. I will say that something that I. I'm not sure this is a learning per se, but something that I was really impressed with during the pandemic, when all the theater stuff was shut down, a show that I actually went to once, you were at least allowed to be indoors, masked. In New York, there was a show that was done at the Daryl Roth Theater called Blindness, and I was incredibly impressed with it. It was, I guess you could say, pandemic friendly theater. And it was so creative. It was so amazing. I really felt like they were expanding the bounds of the art form. The way that it worked was it was socially distanced, and so it was this kind of. Of open area, and they had you seated in groups of two, so you would just be with a partner that you came with, and everybody was six feet away or however much so you could be socially distanced. Everyone was wearing a mask. And it was an audio show. It took place completely in the dark and thus called Blindness. And you wore headphones, and it was an audio play, and there were no live actors. It was a recording, but with the manipulation of the lights and also the sound engineering. I have to confess, I was not really so up on sound engineering. I mean, mostly I was just like, okay, well, it's important to sound good. Yeah, that's nice. What these folks did, where they were manipulating the sound in the headphones and they were just literally having effects. Like, it made it sound like someone was whispering just to you, or, you know, just the expansion and contraction of sound was so amazing. With this powerful play about a kind of apocalypse. It was really amazing to see what could be done under the constraints of COVID really effectively. For me, it felt like that kind of first moment where people like, oh, television, maybe we shouldn't just film people doing a radio show. Maybe it could be something different. It was really expanding the bounds of the medium. But, Alyssa, do you want to talk about how we've been thinking about investing during and Post Covid.

Well, yes. I wanna just also mention that when we were in Florida, this is before even the vaccine. So, you know, Florida was a whole different thing. But Florida was open air. And what we came across were these various windows where productions were going on inside of as if like a store window kind of thing.

Seven deadly sins.

Yeah. And that there were chairs outside and you would sit down and you have headphones. So the same kind of thing. And I'm so impressed with the adaptation. People have really used this to fuel creativity and I'm so delighted about that. And it's been really interesting to see what's going on. And mixed media is now a thing and VR is now a thing. And it's coming out in a way that wasn't being fueled by the pandemic. Right now we're evolving our view on this. I think one of the things that we decided early on was we did not need to be the first investors back onto Broadway, that we wanted to support Broadway, we wanted to attend Broadway, we wanted to stay in the loop with everybody. But that we're not interested in losing all our money, actually. Right. Just to say, and it's not just rich people who sort of support the arts, is what you were saying before. It's just people who have this drive to like, I would even just say invest in shows as if they are nonprofits. They're not nonprofits. Just to say that. And so this is kind of a good stall. We have a business mindset and we are continuing to try to assess, you know, the situation and what are now shows which are commercially gonna still be commercially viable during this period.

I think that's a great point. Also just as sort of the factual asterisk for people who are wondering, it may not be super rich people, but you have to be, I'll say in air quotes, rich enough. One of the elements of investing in Broadway, similar to angel investing, is that you are required to be a so called accredited investor. So that means that I think I have this right, that you have to earn more than $200,000 a year or have a liquid net worth of over a million dollars in order to. To qualify for that. Because they assume, you know, rightly or wrongly, that you're in a position that you can afford to lose all your money if in fact that happens.

Liquid would not include real estate.

Correct, Right.

So you have to have a mil. Cash.

Not necessarily cash, but securities. Something that could be liquidated. Yes.

Okay. Okay. So it could be invested.

This is not financial advice.

Yeah, exactly.

Check with your own accountants.

That's right.

Let's talk about the other side of these pursuits. You're a lesbian. James Bond. Not James Bond. Musical, Thriller. How did you land on this as the subject matter for the musical you wanted to write? And I know you just had a full showing just last week. So tell us where you're at with the process. Tell us a little bit about Absolute Zero and what angles you're trying now to eventually, as you're playing the long game here, make your way to Broadway.

Yeah. Thank you, Jenny, so much. So the show is called Absolute Zero, and it is indeed, as you say. I describe it as a sexy lesbian story, spy thriller musical. And it's basically taking the premise, what if James Bond were a woman? And also, what if our hero was a little more three dimensional? I mean, James Bond is fantastic as an avatar. I mean, drinking and ladies and whatever, but there's actually sort of emotional consequences sometimes to all of these things. And so what if we fleshed it out and played it out like a real person? And so my collaborator, Maria Ann Contrera, who is a composer, she got her start as a jazz and opera composer and a big band leader. I recruited her and we started working on this in the summer of 2020. And the original impetus actually was there was a competition for, like, a lesbian musical. It's like, oh, we're calling all, like, submissions for lesbian musicals. I'm like, oh, we should write one together. That's great.

Joy's like, I'm a lesbian.

The subject matter or the authors or.

I think the subject mattered. It was sort of this little nonprofit wanted to incubate something. And so we were trying to come up with a topic. And because I do like to come at it from a business mindset, I was like, what should we do? And so I decided that my starting point would be I would look at the top 10 highest grossing films of all time. And I figured there's gotta be popular themes in there. So I was like, star. Star wars lesbians. Maybe not. Jaws lesbians. No, maybe not. But then we see James Bond, which the James Bond properties have earned together over a billion dollars. I mean, it's just incredible. And I'm like, oh, lesbian James Bond. Yes, that sounds like a topic. And then we just began to ideate and say, well, where can we go from there? And so it became a really exciting project. We've now been working on it for about two years. And we just had our first staged reading of the full length production in Dallas, which was wonderful. And really well received. The next step is that we were going to be doing a bunch of revisions because every time you do a reading, you discover things like, okay, this part's working great. This part they didn't really get, oh, we need more of this, less of that. So we're going to be doing another round of tweaks, but then we are going to continue submitting it to different fellowships, to different accelerators, to different competitions, so that hopefully we can continue it on its path. The next step, hopefully, would be a full workshop production, which is reading is like, they've still got the music stand. It's a little rough around the edges. The guns are like cardboard. So it was effective in terms of getting a flavor of it. But a workshop is like, oh, this is actually a fairly legitimate rendering of what it would be like. So we're hoping for a full length workshop production. So that means getting a commercial producer interested in that, or possibly a regional theater or both, and continuing down that path. But my goal from the beginning, the goal that I set for myself in 2016, was a 10 year plan. I wrote a book called the Long Game, so I'm big on 10 year plans. And so my 10 year plan was by 2026, I would have a show on Broadway. So as it stands now, we have four years, which I think is a reasonable timeframe with I think, pretty good completed musical in hand. Marie, My composer and I have already been through multiple fellowships from different organizations, so we've been recognized and have been getting momentum. But we just need to continue to move the ball forward. It takes an average of seven to eight years for a show to reach Broadway, if in fact it does. I knew from the outset it was gonna be a long journey. And so we've just been putting one foot in front of the other.

Can we play a clip on the podcast?

Oh, that's nice.

Or is it copyrighted?

That's a great clip question. It's not that it's copyrighted per se, but because of union rules with Actors Equity, there are issues related to using it. We have plenty of video, we have plenty of audio, but there's rights issues related to the actors and showcasing things. So we have the video as things that we can use as a tool to interest producers, theater owners, investors, you know, things like that. But they actually are not able to be publicly displayed at this point.

So there's four years or fewer to this long game goal of reaching Broadway. Is there any amount of rejection that would stop you, or is it gonna be just like getting into bmi. It's like you will keep persevering and knocking on doors and talking to producers one way or another. Like, is there anything that would even stop from trying to make this happen?

No, there's literally nothing. Although the caveat is that in Broadway and, you know, all kinds of theater, it is really useful to be working on multiple projects because certain things advance at different paces. And so Marie and I are actually working on another show as well, which is at an earlier stage of development. It is a. I like to call it a paternity comedy called 23 and you'd. And you and me.

Oh, good, I love that title.

Yes. So we did a showcase. The Prospect Theater Company had a fellowship last fall which we were part of, and we did a 10 minute musical showcase of that. So we're working to expand that now. So we're hoping to advance that. So it's possible. I mean, God willing, if that gets a positive reception, I mean, maybe in some ways that might move faster, we don't know. But we're going to continue to move forward with absolute zero. I mean, here's what I know for a fact. I have seen shows, and you probably have as well, that are literally on Broadway and we all think they're terrible. I mean, it's not that everything on Broadway is great. Certainly there are some things that are. Are fantastic. You watch them and you're like, oh man, that's so much better than I could ever do.

Right.

But you also see things and you're like, wow, I 100% know that I could do better than that. And so I know that I have a sufficient quality right this minute to be a Broadway writer. Now, will I be the greatest writer on Broadway ever? Who knows? Probably not. I'm getting better every day, but I know I wouldn't be the worst. I know that my work will fit in there. And so I need to be persistent enough and network my way there. And it will fit in. It will find an audience.

When we say getting to Broadway, does it actually mean a theater that is on the street, that is Broadway here in New York? Because I know off Broadway is kind of some theaters a little farther out on the fringes in the city. What does it actually mean? So what would count as on Broadway?

That's a really excellent question. It is not literally on the street Broadway. It is in fact more of a metaphor, but I guess technically the term would be a metonym. Good to know.

I think of it as a state of mind.

Yeah.

Like Silicon Valley is a State of mind.

But it is a geographically discreet area. I don't know the exact boundaries, but it's roughly, let's call it 40th to 50th in Midtown. But specifically, there's 41 theaters.

And.

And they have to be above a certain size.

That's what I was wondering if there's some list. It's almost like getting into the Ivy Leagues. There's some list of the theaters that are considered on Broadway. And then Off Broadway is the smaller.

That's correct.

And that's part of the gatekeeping aspect of this. It's finite. There are 41 theaters. That's it. And so if other shows are in that theater that you want or just if they're all full at a certain time, you're not gonna get that spot. It's also being part of networking is to know the right people who are gonna get you into one of those 41 theaters sooner. RA part of the process as well. So many things to take into account.

When it comes to finding a producer. Will you tap your current network for this? And will Westville Capital be an investor, if not producer, of one or both of these?

I'm already a yes story.

Thank you, Alyssa. So it's an interesting question. Alyssa and I have made friends with a small number of so called lead producers, but the majority of people that we know are so called co producers. So the lead producer is like the person who is in charge. They are responsible for raising all the money. They're the person who's like, I'm bringing this show to Broadway.

Are they usually finance people, the lead producers, or are they like billionaires that love the arts?

Mostly they're people who professionally assemble other investors. Yeah, but. So we know a limited number of those folks. The majority of people that we've connected with are so called co pros, co producers, and they are responsible for raising tranches of usually $250 to $500,000. Now. So certainly if absolute zero were to come to Broadway, we would want those people to be co producers for sure because they have great connections with investors. Also, interestingly, some co producers are interested themselves in becoming lead producers. And so it's possible that somebody might decide, this is the project, this is the one where I want to take the leap and I'm going to lead the charge. But. But what is a quote unquote, safer bet? Although who knows, who you can get interested is for an established lead producer who already has the connections, who has the track record, who to. Melissa's excellent point. Has the relationships with the Shuberts or the Nederlanders or Drew Jamson, which are the three major commercial houses, to be able to. If you've got somebody who's a known quantity and they're like, I've got a show, we're definitely going to raise enough money. Hey, we do business all the time. Can we get into this theater? That's sort of the slam dunk that one might hope for.

I want to ask you, Alyssa, about mistakes in just a moment. But last thing real quick, Dory. What's the minimum duration that a show would be on Broadway? So let's say you get to Broadway. Does it run at least one season? How long is that? What's the shortest amount of time?

Typically the shortest would be one night. Yeah.

Would they shut it down after one night?

Sure.

There are legendary examples. I mean, obviously this is not common, but if a show. Typically what would happen in the old days is if a show had weak ticket sales, that's kind of a bad sign. But they would wait until the reviews came out on opening night and they'd wait up till 11 o' clock or midnight when the reviews came out. And if the reviews were good, they're like, oh, thank God. And they could hope that that would catch fire and that audiences would see the review and want to buy tickets. So it'd give it a little bit more life. But if the reviews were bad, sometimes in order to stanch the bleeding, there actually are numerous examples historically of places where they had one showing, that was it.

Yeah. And even in recent days, I mean, I can't remember exactly, but there's like shows that were out for like 40 days or like 60 days, you know, that kind of thing. Super, super short.

Okay.

Yeah, but they made it calculation.

The hope obviously is they would have run much longer. I mean, Chicago, the Lion King, they've been running 25 years.

Yeah, wicked.

Yeah, absolutely. Phantom, Phantom of the Opera, you know, those become mainstays. But typically in order to recoup, let's say it depends on the budgeting of the show. But there could be like a limited run with a star, let's say. And typically that might be intended as a 16 week show and then hopefully during that time that would recoup for a lot of musicals. It might take somewhere between like 30 and 40 weeks, let's say. More typically in terms of the planned recoupment. Now we have to recognize that producers are always a little awkward, but that's sort of the goal is they're planning out, they're like, well, it would run at least a year in their planning.

Do you have a dream actress in mind or actor?

Oh, man.

For the lead role?

Well, there's so many great people, but certainly for our spy, we Marie, my collaborator and I have a soft spot for Jenn Colella, who was really wonderful and famous for her role in Come From Away. She would be a super sexy spy.

So already a musical theater actor. You're not gonna pull anyone in from Hollywood?

Well, where we might pull people in from Hollywood actually is we have the role of Chief, you know, Sam's boss. And that is a role that requires very little singing, specifically for the purpose that we could get a well known actor who isn't necessarily known as a singer, and then, you know, they could sort of be the sort of star. So for Chief, if we're pulling from the theater world, I think Cherry Jones would be amazing for something like that. If we really looking for a celebrity star turn, you could have like a Melissa etheridge or a K.D. lang. I mean, we know she actually can sing wonderfully, but like a Queen Latifah, you know, that would be pretty awesome to have them as the CIA station chief.

Fun. We'll be right back, just after this. Rince knows that greatness takes time. But so does laundry. So Rince will take your laundry and hand deliver it to your door, expertly cleaned. And you can take the time pursuing your passions. Time once spent sorting and waiting, folding and queuing, now spent challenging and innovating and pushing your way to greatness. So pick up the Irish flute or those calligraphy pens or that daunting beef Wellington recipe card, and leave the laundry to us.

Rinse.

It's time to be great. All right, Alyssa, I know none of us really believe in capital F failure because it's always, always so ripe with learning. Have there been missteps, mistakes?

Well, I do want to echo that. I truly don't see anything as capital failure. And specifically because, as Dori said earlier, whatever we invest in Broadway shows, we know we could lose all our money. So we, like, take that into account.

And you're also. There's this almost intangible benefit of the network that you can't really put a price on. So even if your shows lose all their money, which here's hoping they don't, you're still building really interesting relationships.

Relationships, background, context, skills, expertise. Just information. Right. Industry, knowledge. All of that is super valuable. But I can't. I mean, I have to acknowledge that, you know, Magic Mike Live did not Go well in Australia, the traveling tour. We also invested in the inheritance. And honestly, Dorie, to be fair, I think that we thought that the inheritance would be commercially successful, but we knew that there was a risk it wouldn't be. It was two shows, a total of five hours, two part play. Two part play. And it was super long. And, you know, you could say it was a niche community really, you know, really focused on gay men and the gay experience. We loved the show. We thought it was beautiful. It won the Olivier Award in London and it ultimately won the Tony Award here.

So artistically it was definitely a success.

Yeah. And so did I ever rethink that according to our criteria. Yeah, I'm glad that we invested and were part of that show. I thought it was like, great to be in solidarity with, like, all the other co producers, many of whom, I mean, there was a lot of folks involved with that show. It was nice to be in solidarity. It was nice to be involved with the show that won a Tony. But if I had to do it again, would I bring up the concern around commercial viability? Maybe more strongly? Yes, I would definitely.

Thank you for sharing. Anything to add, Dory?

The fundamental weakness of the inheritance. I mean, I read the Inheritance. I was sort of the first scout, I guess. I read and I said to Alyssa, this is literally one of the most beautiful things I've ever read. I mean, I thought it was incredibly powerful and it was. But she is correct. I think in general, a kind of useful rule of thumb is two part plays are really hard to convince people to go to now. You know, it worked for Tony Kushner, obviously, but we look at Harry Potter, for instance, which was a two part play, which after the pandemic, they retooled into a one part play because that was more commercially viable. It's hard and it's also confusing for people. They're like, you know, because you know that there's a drop off. Like there's going to be a significant percentage of people who are willing to go to part one, but they don't have the time or the organization or whatever to commit to part two. And obviously you're not going to see part two if you haven't seen part one. So that's a problem. And it made the production extremely expensive for a play. I think it was somewhere between 7 and 8 million dollars, which is a lot for a play, and created already a much higher hurdle for being able to recoup. I mean, ultimately it didn't even come close, but it would have had A much better chance, let's say, if it had somehow been slimmed down into a one part play that cost $4 million. That would have been a much more appealing investment.

If you could leave listeners with one experiment. I've stopped saying homework because who wants homework? One experiment. For building a new network, there's an area that they wake up one day and they feel passionately about becoming a part of. What would be your advice and or an experiment? You first, Alyssa.

Because it's so important to do this and to have your muscle ready to build new networks, it is helpful to have an area of focus, to find an area of passion, an area of focus, and then use your existing network and ask yourself the question, who might have an inroad to the folks who might know about this? By the way, it gives you something interesting and new to talk about with your existing network. It gives you a reason to reach out to people who you're not in touch with on a regular basis to explain your new passion, your new interest. And through the sort of do you know someone who knows someone, who knows someone you will meet? Sort of the baseline of a few new folks. And from them you should get information. You should of course get information by the usual ways of doing that, by, you know, googling and doing your own research. Combine that with the information from the early folks that you meet because you're just scouting something out and use that as a scaffolding on which to build additional information and more importantly, a more sophisticated roadmap of your network.

Quick follow up. When you're new to a space, how do you go into those interactions? I would feel a little bit self conscious that I was just taking information that I really had nothing to give. On some level in that arena, you both bring so much to the table in your broader career space. So maybe that wasn't a concern for you. What about someone who feels self conscious? Like, why would this person say yes to just feed me information?

Yeah, you bring a lot to the table too. Jenny Blake.

Thank you.

If I were trying to learn about music, I am not sure that I would go straight to Paul McCartney, who's my icon of like, you know, both fame and you know, expertise. So I wouldn't go to my plum, plum, plum people initially. I would go to people who are a little bit advanced, who don't themselves recognize how recognized they are, who don't understand what experts they are, and they would be delighted. And in and of itself, them being able to share their information and their knowledge and their expertise and being looked up to as a expert that is already very gratifying for them. That's number one. The second thing is always and forever, you actually probably have something to give that you're not aware of. Maybe you're from Cincinnati, Ohio, and this person lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, and. Or just moved and needs to know where to go to brunch in Cincinnati, Ohio. Maybe your level of expertise, including being a Starbucks barista, maybe you know something about coffee and this person cares about coffee. You always have a lot to give in terms of enthusiasm, in terms of appreciation and listening to somebody else, and also in terms of whatever quirky background you create to make up the person and the human being that you are.

I also want to second one thing you said that gives you something new to talk about. About. Whenever I'm at events with both of you, people are so curious about this Broadway investing thing.

It's true.

It's what's bringing us here to do this podcast. But it's something like our author network or speakers or whatever. They're always like, this is the one thing that they get completely magnetized to know more about. And I think they're really impressed by it. And so it's been fun to see you both have this area that you're learning more and more about and that people seem to really be into.

I love that point, Jenny. And I think. I think to that point, one of the reasons why I was interested in going to Alyssa to suggest investing, in addition to the fact that I knew she loved musical theater, in addition to the fact that we had a really good, trusting relationship, in addition to the fact that I knew she knew about investing in general from her angel investing, which she's been doing for a number of years. But also at the time. We're going back now, let's say four plus years ago. And you can tell me, Alyssa, if I'm characterizing this properly, but you were in a place where you were working yourself extraordinarily hard, as per normal. Well, I think something has changed because at the time, I mean, for a while, you had been expressing concerns. You had been sort of saying, like, my God, all I'm doing is working. Like, I wish I had time to sing, or I wish I had time to. But it really felt like from the way that you were talking about things, that that was a period of time where it was so busy and so rushed that your life felt very unidimensional. And I think that this was something that I thought, oh, this could actually be a different thing. This could be something that could open up a new possibility or a new hobby that could sort of be an antidote to the feeling that all I do is this one thing. And I think we all need that. And it can be really hard to find it sometimes. I mean, do you agree with that, or do you feel like I characterize that properly?

I do think that's kind of my normal way of being. But, yes, I think having this new project that we were doing together was, yeah, a new thing. I think that I can be to a fault, you know, like, I only want to do things which are productive in a certain way. And so for me, being able to do this and feeling like, well, we're gonna build a new network, and also, one of my values, one of my priorities is to steep myself inside of New York and New York culture and be an insider in New York. And so I also thought, oh, this is a good way to be an insider. So it felt productive, like, I'll be an insider in New York, and we'll meet a whole bunch of new people, and it'll give my life more richness. So I was able to kind of marry those thoughts together.

Yeah, that's nice.

Dorie, if you could leave listeners with one experiment, what would it be?

I like what Alyssa said, and I want to build on it. For me, a crucial person in my journey, learning about Broadway in general, learning about investing and writing. He was actually the person who helped me find my musical theater coach as well was our mutual pal Michael Roderick, who I want to give a shout out to. And Michael is somebody who I like to think of him. And I think if we're expanding it to a general principle, he is a really good Venn Diagram person. Because I got to know him, he had sort of migrated into, quote, unquote, my world of business and entrepreneurship. And he hasn't written a book, but he's sort of in the world of business authors and things like that. And so I got to know him through that. He was the founder of Connectorcon, where I got to meet Bruce and go to Fun Home and things like that, which was fantastic. But Michael was really the first person that I knew. I mean, Alyssa had her own sort of chain of Broadway people, but Michael was the first person that I knew who had been a Broadway producer. That was one of the hats that he had previously worn, and he hasn't done it for a while, but he was very steeped in the community and had educated himself a lot about that community. And so, because he kind of had that crossover potential. He was somebody that I knew and had built a positive relationship with on my own terms. You know, to your point, Jenny, I knew I had something to offer in the relationship. You know, we he had a good basis in the business and entrepreneurship space, but he knew a lot about something that I didn't. So I was able to ask him a lot of questions, I was able to get a lot of advice and he was and is someone who's very generous with introductions and so he was willing to connect me to a lot of people. Michael and I also in the past have co hosted some dinners together where we'd each invite half the people. So that was a way that I got to meet some cool folks through him and I think vice versa. So looking for the people who straddle multiple worlds is very valuable.

I love that. I'll put the link to Michael's podcast in the show notes. He and I are neighbors so sometimes I run into him, which is really fun. And I'll add one final little homework action building on what you just said twice, it's jumped out of co hosting a dinner, a brunch, a gathering of some kind. But I love what you just said about you and Michael that when you co hosted and you each were responsible for bringing half, it takes a little bit of the pressure off anyone and then you really mix and match. So listeners think about hosting one event, let's say in the next few months. This was so fun. Speaking of making the most in New York, thank you for recording with me in person. I'll put everything in the show notes but let's just give a quick shout out. Where can people find you? Alyssa?

People can find me at alyssacon.com, a l I s a c o h n dot com youm can also download my five scripts to help you navigate delicate conversations, difficult conversations and one to many make your life better. Alyssacon.com scripts find my podcast wherever podcasts are found from startup to grown up.

Amazing. Thank you.

How about you D.C. thank you Jenny. It's so great to get to do this with you guys. Folks, my most recent book is called the Long how to be a Long Term Thinker in a Short Term World and folks can find out more about me@doryclark.com, i have about 700 free articles on my website that people can get and you can get a free long game self assessment. It's a strategic thinking self assessment to help you become a more strategic strategic thinker in your life and your business and people can get it for free@doryclark.com TheLongame Amazing.

Well thank you both for letting us in, letting us all learn from you, sharing your hard fought information of the long game of becoming Broadway investors and a successful Broadway musical theater writer, producer, et cetera. See. So new to it. I gotta get all my lingo.

Thank you Jenny. Thank you so much for having us. What is so fun.

Thank you guys. Thanks everybody for listening. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter ennyblake. Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.

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