John Breglio - I Wanna Be a Producer: How to Make a Killing on Broadway...or Get Killed

Copyright 2016 by John Breglio

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

Published in 2016 by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books
An Imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation
7777 West Bluemound Road
Milwaukee, WI 53213

Trade Book Division Editorial Offices
33 Plymouth St., Montclair, NJ 07042

Finishing the Hat and Move On from Sunday in the Park with George
Words and Music by Stephen Sondheim
Copyright 1984 RILTING MUSIC, INC.
All Rights Administered by WB MUSIC CORP.
All Rights Reserved Used by Permission
Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard Corporation

Vienna
Words and Music by Billy Joel
Copyright 1979 IMPULSIVE MUSIC
All Rights Administered by ALAMO MUSIC CORP.
All Rights Reserved Used by Permission
Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard Corporation

Printed in the United States of America

Book design by F. L. Bergesen

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Breglio, John.
Title: I wanna be a producer : how to make a killing on Broadway or get
killed / John Breglio.

Description: Milwaukee, WI : Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2016. |
Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015051499 | ISBN 9781495045165 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: TheaterProduction and directionHandbooks, manuals, etc. |
Breglio, John. | Theatrical producers and directorsUnited
StatesBiography.
Classification: LCC PN2053.B63 2016 | DDC 792.02/32023dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015051499

www.applausebooks.com

To Nan

But you know when the truth is told

that you can get what you want

or you can just get old.

Youre gonna kick off before you even get halfway through.

When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

Vienna from The Stranger by Billy Joel

Contents

You are in good hands with John Breglio.

For over forty years, since the early 1970s, John has lived and worked at the heart of the American theater. Lawyer, producer, consigliere, and friend, he has helped countless producers and artists find their way through the confusing and often treacherous thickets of the Broadway world. In this book, he is offering you the same wisdom, clarity, and precision that he has given to some of the greatest and most ground-breaking leaders of the field, from Joe Papp and Marvin Hamlisch to Johns great friend and colleague, Michael Bennett.

If you have ever wanted to produce, if you have ever been interested in the nitty-gritty of what creating a Broadway show demands, this book will be an indispensable aid. Nowhere else are the details, especially the contractual details, of commercial producing laid out with such clarity and completeness.

John spent the bulk of his career as a lawyer at Paul, Weiss, training under the legendary Bob Montgomery. By the mid-1970s he was the leading theatrical lawyer in the country, a position he retained for the next thirty years. During that time he put deals together for hundreds of Broadway shows, and represented artists, producers, investors and non-profit theaters. From A Chorus Line to Fences , John was at the center of many of the most significant theatrical productions of our era. He knows what went into making those shows successful, and in this book he is passing that wisdom on.

After producing the Broadway revival of A Chorus Line , which he lovingly put together in 2006, John left Paul, Weiss two years later to pursue his dream of producing full time. He has since added a decade of producing experience to his long service as a theatrical lawyer; that experience, too, has given him insights that few others possess.

This is not a gossipy book; John has too much class, and too much respect for his clients and friends, to write a tell-all memoir. But it is, inevitably, a personal book, and is filled with recollections and memories of theatrical figures great and small. Reading it, one comes to know the John Breglio I have known over the past decade: funny, smart, loyal, humane, and generous. When I returned to New York as Artistic Director of the Public Theater in 2004, John was a constant source of support, advice, prodding and clarity. To my great surprise, and great good fortune, I found that the Publics lawyer was the most reliable moral compass I had in charting our course. Although John left the law a year later, I have called on him often in the decade since, and he has always been generous with his time and brilliant with his insights.

I have benefited enormously from what John has had to tell me; I know you will, too.

Oskar Eustis
Director of the Public Theatre

I grew up in a family where no one ever cursed. We were observant, but not strict, Roman Catholics. Unlike many of my Irish American friends, my brother, sister, and I didnt attend parochial school, and none of our relatives became priests or nuns. But we went to church every Sunday and ate fish on Fridays. I also went to confession every month to be absolved of my venal sins (as opposed to a mortal sin, like murder). These were second-degree transgressions such as fighting with your sister, lying to your parents, or thinking impure thoughts. (I didnt know what an impure thought was until the age of eleven, when an older friend, Peter, clued me in.)

Anyway, cursing was just a lowly sin, but I never had to confess to it because neither my parents nor we kids ever thought about saying anything more than nuts to express frustration.

My parents loved popular music, especially musical comedies. They could see that it was in my DNA as well. I think the pomp and theatricality of the church served as a catalyst for my attraction to drama and music at an early age. My mother often told of searching the apartment for her six-year-old son only to find me behind the heavy damask curtains in the living room ringing a bell, genuflecting with a blanket around my shoulders, and muttering chants straight from a Sunday Mass. At first she worried that I was headed for the priesthood, but she soon realized this was my private fantasy playing out against the backdrop of the only dramatic event I knewa church service, with its staging, music, costumes, and lighting.

I tell you this so you can appreciate the dilemma my parents faced when, several years later, they considered taking my sister and me to see our first Broadway musical, Damn Yankees . By this time we had moved to Garden City, Long Island. Things were looking up for the Breglios, as they were for many families who in the 1950s made their exodus from the outer boroughs of New York City to the new suburbs farther out on the Island.

Leaving aside the title of the show, they must have also been concerned about exposing their nine-year-old son and thirteen-year-old daughter to the shows content. Keep in mind, in those days, Broadway musicals were mostly meant as adult entertainment, in the best sense of the phrase. Ultimately, given my sisters and my infatuation with music and the theater, their determination to introduce us to musicals as soon as possible overcame their ambivalence. Whats more, I think my father had his heart set on seeing the leggy star of the show, Gwen Verdon.

Still, when they told me we were going to see the show, I wondered whether Id be allowed to say the title out loud. I soon figured out it was fine. After all, Id only be referring to the play they were taking me to. So off we went in our new pale green Chevrolet Impala on a hot summers evening in August of 1956.