Andy Sandberg brought the musical Hair from a Public Theater concert to Broadway despite critics saying it didn't belong there. He trusted his gut feeling while also analyzing the financial numbers, and says successful theater production requires balancing instinct with data.
You've had an amazing success, and you've had other projects that wouldn't fall into the category of amazing success. Let's start with the successes first. Hair.
Sure.
How did that come about?
Hair was one, you know, the Public Theater had been developing Hair, and they were doing that as a concert version in Central Park, which then they realized there might be something there. They brought it back for its full Shakespeare in the Park season as a full production. I had sort of around that same time time met Jeffrey Richards, who had jumped on board the ship with the Public Theater in looking toward Broadway. And I kept saying, "No, I'm already developing my own things. I don't know if I could take this on." But I started mentioning it to some people who were investing in projects of mine, and they got really excited and intrigued by it. And I thought about it more, and the more I saw the negative press about, "This is never going to work on Broadway. It's perfect outdoors. Why would anyone be stupid enough to take this to Broadway?" The more I went, "Those idiots are wrong." And I felt, like, almost violently compelled against them to just They're wrong, they're wrong, and I was so determined that they were wrong. It was a gut decision. As with anything, I mean, I looked at the numbers carefully, I made sure that they made sense and studied them and, you know, cross-examined them, asked a million questions, but it always has to ultimately come back to the gut. Do you believe it can and should do well? And yes, I've had enormous successes and enormous failures, and I think anyone in this business who's been around long enough has had a little bit of both and everything in between. But every time I bring someone a project, it's because I believe that it can and should be successful. I'm not blind to the risk. I always tell people, you know, look, if you're getting involved in this, this is theater, it's the arts, it's high risk, high reward. But I believe the reward potential is there, or I wouldn't be bringing this to you.
What have you learned from some of those failures?
It's always a tricky question because each one is very different. Sometimes I've learned some of the frustration about how much this business has become dependent on star casting for certain kinds of projects and certain kinds of plays. And, you know, sometimes you have to— especially when I'm wearing the dual hat of creative and financial— there are times creatively I just want the best actors possible who are most hungry for the project. And then other times, you know, you are looking to get talent that has name value and can bring people and sell tickets before you even open so that you aren't starting from zero. And hoping to hang on long enough to build up an audience. I've learned just the power of word of mouth, but word of mouth is not instant. You know, and the smaller the house, the smaller the project, the more time it takes for word of mouth to build. If you've only got 150 seats, that word of mouth may get there, but can you hang on long enough for that word of mouth to actually take effect? Whereas if you're in a 2,000-seat giant Broadway house and there's good buzz, That's gonna spread a lot more quickly and start to fill those seats more quickly.
