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“Put simply, my job is to sell something that doesn’t exist yet,” says theatre producer Vicky Graham. “When you’re British and a bit reserved that can be seen by some people as being a bit icky.”
“Yes,” chips in fellow producer Emily Dobbs, “like being a used car salesman.”
At least when you sell a car you have something tangible for the would-be purchaser to consider buying. When Graham and Dobbs try to persuade investors to put money into their productions, they are selling dreams. Their own dreams.
“Talking to a potential investor is a good way of seeing whether the idea you have has a chance of success. If they’re not interested, maybe an audience won’t be either,” says Graham. Dobbs agrees: “One of the reasons I prefer working in commercial theatre,” she says, “is that the audience is crucial to the enterprise. If you’ve got Arts Council funding, it doesn’t matter as much if there is only one person in the audience. Commercial theatre stands or falls by an audience wanting to buy tickets.”
But long before the tickets can start to be sold, the money has to be raised from investors. So how do Graham and Dobbs set about it? “Authenticity,” says Dobbs. “Believe in what you’re selling and tell the truth.”
The truth is that only around one in five West End shows turn a profit, but when they do, the returns can be considerable for both investors and producers. Producer Judy Craymer made millions for herself and her investors out of the success of Mamma Mia! and then lost a great deal on the Spice Girls musical, Viva Forever!. But with interest rates so low, it’s perhaps not surprising that investment in West End theatre is buoyant even when the risks are high. There are few investments that offer a quick 140% return, as one recent limited-run West End show did.
Putting a play on in the West End, you are unlikely to see any change from £500,000, but that’s exactly where Graham – who has already produced 19 shows in London and off-Broadway – and Dobbs are setting their sights. And they are getting a foot on the ladder with the help of the producer-led Stage One season at St James theatre, which has offered a trio of emerging producers the chance to pitch a commercial production to a panel of industry professionals and get it staged.
The three winning producers – Graham, Dobbs and Nicola Seed – are part of a new breed of young, often female producers who don’t see “commercial” as a dirty word, and believe that it’s horses for courses when it comes to staging work in the West End and beyond. They may prefer raising the money independently because of the freedom it gives them, but for the right project they will also happily spend three days filling in an Arts Council funding form.
Graham’s career to date has seen her dip in and out of both the commercial and subsidised sector, including her work with English Touring Theatre on a co-production with Sheffield Theatres of Brian Friel’s Translations. Dobbs produced Anya Reiss’s enormously successful new versions of The Seagull and Three Sisters at Southwark Playhouse, and is staging Reiss’s Uncle Vanya at the St James.
Seed’s St James play is the wildly applauded Emlyn Williams revival Accolade, first seen at the Finborough in 2011, where it launched the career of the director Blanche McIntyre. Other young producers may have raced to give what looked like such a sure-fire hit a further life, but it’s a reflection of Seed’s canniness that she bided her time to make sure that the production has the greatest chance of success. If producing is often seen as being about a willingness to take risks, it’s also about holding your nerve and choosing your moment and conditions carefully. Particularly if, as in the case of Accolade, it has a cast of nine.
Each of the trio of producers has received a £25,000 investment from Stage One, which pays the rent for a run at the St James, and they’ve been given invaluable support and advice from industry professionals. But they’ve still had to raise £100,000 each to make their shows happen. It’s a sign of Graham’s persuasiveness that her production of Ben Ockrent’s comedy Breeders – the first play in the season, which opened last week – was pitched before the script was written.
It’s an indication of the fact that the West End knows that it must find new blood that it is investing in these three women – all in their late 20s or early 30s – and supporting dozens of new producers through its Stage One workshops for new producers and bursary scheme. I sampled one of the workshops and it was completely fascinating, although as Graham says: “You only learn about how to produce by doing it. You have to graft 19 times so that your 20th production is better and more visible.”
But clearly the old West End ways are changing. Just as in the subsidised sector, there is more cooperation and sharing of information. It’s no longer every man for himself among West End producers – a group which, despite the huge success of women such as Sonia Friedman and Nica Burns, is still often seen as a bit of a boys’ club. Seed says that she would probably have never have been able to hang onto the rights for Accolade without the loyalty of more experienced producers who indicated to the rights agency that they should stay with her. And the trio are breaking with tradition – slightly to the shock of some in the West End world – in sharing each other’s weekly sales for the season.
“The image of the cigar-chomping male producer still persists,” says Seed, “but then so does the idea that all we do is raise the money and do the administration. None of us three do that – we come up with ideas and our own projects. We are all great collaborators.” They all raise their eyebrows and laugh when Graham says that a typical email she regularly receives from – often male – directors will read: “I have a brilliant, fully formed project; it’s the best thing ever, and can you raise the money for me.”
“It’s not the way we choose to work, tidying up after the boys,” says Graham tartly. “But of course, what always happens with producing is that if the show’s a success you end up taking part of the glory, and if it fails you end up taking all the responsibility.” This trio’s shoulders are broad enough to bear it.
• Breeders is at St James theatre, London, until 4 October. Uncle Vanya begins on 8 October, and Accolade on 12 November.
