Tim Kashani explains what Broadway producers do and how they're listed on playbills. The lead producer is the "master problem-solver" handling everything from casting to financing. Broadway musicals cost between $6 million and $30 million, with producer credits descending as financial stakes and responsibilities decrease.
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Producer. It's one of those terms that a lot of people either go, wow, you're a producer, and some people go, what does that mean? Can you divide up the different roles of producers? And we'll just say Broadway. Let's not even worry about film right now.
Well, yes. Well, in Broadway, there are also a variety of types of producers. And, um, I think I was thinking about it, but to me, what a producer is at the top level, what a producer does is they're like the master problem solver. A lead producer, which is the person that oversees absolutely everything from marketing to advertising to the costumes to the set to the hiring of the cast to— you get to— you don't have to be the expert in anything, but you get to be a part of everything. And that's probably my favorite part of being a Broadway producer. And so The person who holds that role is usually the general partner or the managing producer, and they get the title of just the tippy-top name that you see on the playbill. The first name, that is what that person— or maybe the top 2 or 3 names you see on a playbill of producers. That's what their role is, and they're involved in absolutely every decision in making sure the show runs. Spearheading the financing and the everything. Then as you go down the list of names, it becomes less responsibility on those people, and a large part of that role is raising money, which is super important these days in the world of Broadway where budgets range on a musical anywhere from— I mean, $6 million is very low, and you can go all the way up to 30 million, excluding Spider-Man, you know, you go 20 million, some go up higher, you know, 30. Yeah, higher than that is not really responsible.
