Hasta La Gadget!

How do you produce a Broadway musical? More specifically, what does a producer do? Or even more specifically, how does a producer set about putting a Broadway musical in motion?

This is the question addressed in John Breglio’s “I Wanna Be a Producer” [Applause]. The subtitle, lest you want a more complete description: “How to Make a Killing on Broadway…or Get Killed.”

Breglio is not a producer, exactly; he spent thirty-six years as a theatrical lawyer, including a long spell as one of the pre-eminent practitioners of the craft. In the course of which he had numerous celebrated clients on the level of Sondheim, Lloyd Webber and August Wilson. Most powerful, though–for a time, at least–was Michael Bennett. The two latched onto each other early on, and when Bennett formed his own production company, Breglio was by his side. The relationship has continued since the director’s death in 1987; Breglio remains executor of Bennett’s estate. In 2006, Breglio officially turned producer, with the revival of Bennett’s A Chorus Line.

As Breglio describes it, the producer doesn’t create the show. He or she (and Breglio’s book noticeably stresses the pronoun “she” instead of “he”) is more like the ringmaster of a circus. She doesn’t fly on the trapeze, train the animals, or spritz seltzer at the clowns; rather, the producer surrounds herself with the best talent she can line up, sets them all to doing their job, and collates everything into a whole. The author goes step-by-step through the process, with most of the twenty-nine chapters focusing on a separate element: finding source material, clearing the rights, selecting authors, hiring a director, raising money, etc. He also discusses the key personnel required, including non-creative members of the team like the general manager.

Some of Breglio’s early chapters are more general than compelling, at least for readers with knowledge of the field. But this is a book about the business of Broadway, not the act of creating art. As soon as he gets to contracts–specifically, discussions of the authors agreements, royalty pools, the APC (“Approved Production Contract”), raising money–we get a primer that is invaluable for those involved in, or merely interested in, the field.

I can’t stress how good a job does explaining these matters, especially the profit pool; this is the finest and clearest explanation I’ve ever read. It helps, I suppose, that Breglio was personally involved (as an attorney) when it was developed and refined.

John Breglio
Photo: Nan Knighton
“I Wanna Be a Producer” is peppered with examples from real life, as Breglio illustrates the discussion with tales drawn from his involvement on such shows as A Chorus Line, Fences, Dreamgirls, Ballroom and more. Bennett is frequently cited, as are a panoply of Broadway bigshots of the era. All in all, “I Wanna Be a Producer” is a fascinating and entertaining look at just what it takes to produce a Broadway musical.
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I Wanna Be a Producer: How to Make a Killing on Broadway…or Get Killed by John Breglio is available from Applause Books

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Before the Internet, moms met each other at Mothers’ Centers, when they dropped off and picked up their kids from nursery school, at child birth classes, in their neighborhood where moms used to knock on each others’ doors for coffee and a chat, and at work.

As time rolled on, depending on how chatty they were, moms also met at Starbucks, Legoland, and parenting groups at schools. Moms formed play date groups, had girls’ nights out, and also met at sports if they were so inclined.

Then Came Mommy Blogs!

There are now hundreds of Mommy Blogs, so how do you choose who to link up with? Searching the web myself and starting my own blog, I’ve discovered that different websites and blogs attract different mommy personalities, beliefs, and discussions.

There are varied topics on the wide range of Mommy Blogs from recipes and diapers to behavior and parenting angst. Some topics are about activities and others about parent education such as child development.

Different Mommy Personalities, Interests, and Beliefs

Different bloggers invite different levels of candor and even bluntness about “real life” as a mom. Compare Laurie Hollman, Ph.D. at Parental Intelligence to Magnolia Ripkin at Blunt Moms. The vast majority of blogging moms are cordial, mind their etiquette, are nonjudgmental, supportive and kind. A few, however, are argumentative, confrontational, and intense, not my cup of tea.

Some moms are soul searching for other moms who are adjusting to the changes motherhood brings. Some mothers want to discuss husbands, partners, stay-at-home dads, working life, and being different shapes and sizes as a female.

Then there are bloggers who are in a specific country or locale and others who span the world.

How Do You Make Friends on Mommy Blogs?

Once you’ve settled in to your favorite blogs, you find a community. This is very much the way friend groups used to form in small geographic areas before blogging. Moms find other moms who seem to think alike and feel for each other. You even find “best friends” who you can tell the “real stuff” to who reply in a jiffy when you need it.

As Relationships Deepen

In time, you can get to know who you’re talking to and to whom you can say what. Pictures and videos help you conjure up what your friend looks like which adds to the sense of knowing your new friend.
Then, certain moms begin to email so their conversations are more private than comments and replies on blog sites. These moms are focused on getting to know each other “from the inside.”

The biggest shift is when you use the telephone and hear a real voice behind the written word. Now, that’s making a friend. Or, you go to a mommy blogging conference and meet that friend or even fly across a country for a one-on-one meet!

Blogging Sites Have a Family Tone
Sometimes moms have kids of similar ages, though they benefit also if there’s a range of ages, too. With different age kids discussed on one site, moms can look forward to what’s coming and share what’s gone on already with their children. This is like any family where members are of different ages.

ALL -IN-ALL

As time flies by, which it always does when you’re a mom, you discover you are not alone. This is what friendship is about. You see in your friend’s face your reflection. You even mommy each other a bit.

Friends do that.

Laurie Hollman, Ph.D. is a psychoanalyst who writes a blog, Parental Intelligence, that discusses parenting infants, children, and teens. She is also the author of the recent book, Unlocking Parental Intelligence: Finding Meaning in Your Child’s Behavior found on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Familius and wherever books are sold.

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“At a certain stage in life… you begin to not think of success as much as you think of significance.”

Emmy Award winner (and two-time Academy Award nominee) Viola Davis received the Navigator Award this week at the Maui Film Festival, which “honors a film artist for carving a path of distinction through the turbulent waters of the entertainment industry without sacrificing her fundamental commitment to excellence.”

Following the award presentation at the Celestial Cinema at Wailea Golf Club on June 17, 2016, you could have heard a pin drop as Ms. Davis talked with Maui journalist Rick Chatenever about her incredible career in prestige films, on must-see television, and on the stage. Their conversation ranged from playing Harriet Tubman to motherhood to working with Denzel Washington on Fences to being a “citizen of the world.”

The audience was drawn in by her magnetic presence, and she really is a class act. Prepare to be wowed.

— Getty Video for the Maui Film Festival

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Last Sunday, I got in a fight with a man on the London Overground. A panhandler walked through our car, asking for change in a pretty low key way, and this man — white, middle-aged, didn’t look too scrappy — started muttering loudly about mugs and how the pandhandler should get a job.

“Dude, leave him alone,” I said, reaching for my headphones and thinking that’d be that. Instead, this guy ramped up, continuing to insult the man, calling him a waster, and again, shouting that he should find employment “just like the rest of us.”

“It’s not that easy,” said I. “You need to stop.” He moved on to insulting me. I put my damn headphones in. But the man kept going, and before I could find Mariah, a girl sitting opposite took over where I left off, following my line and standing up for me. Eventually, we arrived at her stop. I found Mariah, and the man continued his toxic rant.

***

It’s been a week of travel, and I’m now in Berlin — waking up to find a majority of voters have chosen for the UK to leave the European Union. Guardian journo Owen Jones reported this as a working class revolt, having predicted on June 10 that “unless a working-class Britain that feels betrayed by the political elite can be persuaded, then Britain will vote to leave the European Union in less than two weeks.”

In March, 3,000 right wing demonstrators, including a cohort of neo-Nazis, marched through Mitte, the typically crisp, quiet neighbourhood that is central Berlin.

Last week, a homophobe shot and killed 49 people at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, even as Donald Trump continues to hold ground in the U.S. primaries. Facism and its precursors are feeling a little too close for comfort right now. And that’s without even acknowledging the many hate-related incidents that regularly occur in countries far less free than the democracies I’ve lived and live in.

My current home is Salford, a neighborhood in Greater Manchester historically known for its poverty. I’m in a quickly developing/gentrifying part of it on the border of one of the poorest neighborhoods in the UK, Pendleton. The contrast between the apartments rising up around me, filling in the often trash-filled landscape a short walk from the center of town, is stark, and illustrates a trend common in many so-called developed countries: pockets of prosperity slowly, or swiftly, push poverty further and further out.

The poverty doesn’t go away. It gets squeezed further to the fringes, or onto the streets. Homelessness in Manchester has risen profoundly over the last couple of years. Indeed, one in five people in the UK live below the poverty line.

Last year, sitting in a pub in Sheffield, I got into a conversation with a Jarvis Cocker-lookalike who’d just played “Common People” on the juke. Clean-cut and educated, he was in his 20s and a member of Blue Labour — and spoke of feeling betrayed by the then-current drive to accept a greater number of migrants into Britain off the back of the refugee crisis.

“What about us?” He asked. “My community’s worked hard their whole lives, yet we’re still stuck — and poor people arriving from other countries get looked out for. We get forgotten, and it’s getting worse.”

For many on the fringes, the equation is as simple as that. Poverty leads to feelings of isolation and disconnection from local processes, let alone global ones. The reason I feel so strongly about addressing the systemic, structural causes of poverty — as opposed to (only) throwing financial aid and secondhand clothes at people who live it — is not just because I think it would be nice for everyone to experience a decent quality of life, and equality of opportunity (although I think that too), but because if you don’t fix a break, it becomes infected. And infection, when left to fester, can lead to far worse things.

The increasing volume of the conservative right wing — whether at the very wealthy or very poor poles of that spectrum — doesn’t solely signal a tussle over ideologies. It’s a fight over real world shit, that’s playing out around us, right now. The very wealthy are scared to lose control of that wealth in an increasingly fragile economic climate, and the poor feel already-forgotten and fear becoming even more marginalized.

In the lead-up to the Brexit vote, I saw a number of large billboards go up throughout Salford, shouting slogans like “Turkey is joining the EU, vote leave.” Both riffing off and tapping into xenophobia, the Vote Leave campaign knew that targeting poorer neighborhoods would play in their favour, and showed no shame in doing just that.

A Brexit billboard in Manchester, UK.

In my fledgling understanding of a complex economic, social and political global landscape, apathy seems like more and more of a fail. Smug leftism can’t continue to fly; us-and-them splits have proven themselves still strong around the world, and there are many reasons for conservative views like those expressed by my man on the train — or those still resisting improved gun control legislation in the U.S., despite last week’s massacre — to dig in their spurs.

I really didn’t think Brexit would result in a win for the Leavers, but I also couldn’t, like *most of us*, comprehend that Donald Trump would get as far as he has in the U.S. primaries. Poverty and wealth and income inequality are feeding feelings of resentment toward a political elite that have failed the working class, and helping to fuel prejudice and hate, and the actions they trigger, around the world. It’s time to drill down and address these things at a systemic level.

Read via Impolitikal.com.

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Bill Shankly, a successful football manager of yesteryear and a maverick in the eyes of many once said, “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that”. Over the past 12 years, my experiences have brought those words to life.

As a young adult I experienced something that shouldn’t exist: homelessness.

The death of my father led me on a downward spiral which saw me spend almost two years of my life as a homeless young person. Being homeless isn’t nice, I lost everything. Being homeless doesn’t just take away the roof from above your head, it often disconnects you from the society you once felt part of. The stigma of homelessness meant I disconnected myself from family and friends as I was ashamed of what had happened. I was broken by the hopeless person I felt I had become, my confidence was non-existent, I lost every ounce of self-respect and I spent most days waiting for it to end.

Back in 2003, Glasgow was home to some of the worst homeless hostels in the country. Often dubbed ‘open prisons’, the hostels were notorious for violence and drug dealers and only offered a basic ‘urine scented’ room. The staff members were nice, but instead of support workers, there were mainly janitors and security guards!

Thankfully after months of living there, I was offered a place at a young person’s supported accommodation, which provided me support and finally a feeling of safety albeit I was still ‘homeless’.

The rope that pulled me out a dark hole.

One day, I saw a poster advertising try-outs for a Scottish team to take part in a World Cup. It’s not often these days to associate a Scottish Football Team with a World Cup (hopefully in 2018 though!) but this was the Homeless World Cup, a tournament (in its second year) which united homeless people by football. With my confidence low, I forced myself along to the trials and luckily secured myself a spot on the team.

After being selected, I would meet up with the team and play football twice a week. Although this is something that most of us would take for granted, these basic football sessions gave me some hope. The training gave me structure to the week, a feeling of belonging and it triggered positive lifestyle changes both on and off the pitch. I was doing extra fitness training, eating better, not drinking as much and suddenly it wasn’t just my physical health improving, my mental health improved too. With a positive mindset, I went to the 2004 Homeless World Cup.

It’s easy to assume that playing for your country would be the biggest game-changer, but actually it wasn’t. It was the people I met. One guy from Namibia taught me a valuable lesson in gratitude. When chatting one day, I asked him the question, what’s next after the Homeless World Cup? He replied, “happiness”. This man lived in a place where education and training opportunities were limited, there were little or no job opportunities and the healthcare system was out of reach. His country didn’t have a welfare system like here in the UK and although it could be better, it served its purpose for me. For the first time since I can remember, I felt blessed.

When I returned to Scotland, I realized that even though I was still in temporary accommodation and homeless, I had the confidence and opportunity to change it. So I did. The football sessions stopped, but I started volunteering at a kids football club. Once I got my own home, I decided to study community development at college whilst gaining football coaching certificates. I then decided to commit my time to working in the community, combining supporting homeless people and coaching kids football. In 2009 I decided that I wanted to try and give other people the chance to change their lives using football, so I quit my job and set up Street Soccer Scotland, a social enterprise which uses football to create positive social change in the lives of socially disadvantage adults and young people.

We started with a £3,000 grant, working at the end of someone’s desk and running a weekly football session. This soon developed into delivering 32 weekly programs for around 1,000 attendees each week across eight regions in Scotland. We now deliver free drop-in football sessions, personal development and education courses. We have also helped represent Team Scotland at the Homeless World Cup (twice World Champions — believe it or not) and since 2009, over 10,000 people have engaged in our service. Many of whom, (not all) have made significant positive changes in their lives, which is great. But change can only happen only with the help of others. Our players become peer mentors to one another, supporting and encouraging each other when times are tough. Former players often give their time to volunteer and help out. As an organization, we work together with mental health charities and Addiction Centers to provide support to players when they need it. The government also supports our work by investing into key areas of our work. For example, businesses such as the Royal Bank of Scotland provide support financially but they also get their staff involved in volunteering. So when I say change is a Team Sport, I really mean it. Without my teammates, and the people around me, I wouldn’t have changed my life. Without the support of everyone mentioned above, Street Soccer Scotland wouldn’t be able to create change in other people’s lives.

@MrDavidDuke
Founder & Chief Executive of Street Soccer Scotland
www.streetsoccerscotland.org

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