It’s hard enough to keep up with the onstage parade of actors who pass through the West End’s long-runners; but there’s often an even more compelling drama being played out off-stage that most people aren’t aware of, but can have a potentially even bigger impact on what happens on the stage. That’s the sometimes-revolving door of who runs what amidst our leading production companies.
It was announced last week that Andre Ptaszynski, already Chief Exec of Really Useful Theatres, had now been appointed acting chief exec for the entire Really Useful Group of which RUT is a subsidiary. But with the consolidation of all of RUT’s theatres under Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sole ownership – having recently bought out the investment partners Bridgepoint that they were bought with – Really Useful is now putting all of its eggs in the one management basket so that Ptaszynski – a former president of SOLT and independent producer – will now oversee both the theatres and production arms, including overseeing next year’s revival of his paymaster’s Evita, while Lloyd Webber will himself concentrate on a pet project to bring The Sound of Music back to the London stage. Meanwhile, of course, the disposal of four of RUT’s theatres to the newly-formed Nimax Theatres saw RUT’s former production director Nica Burns (the Ni in Nimax) departing its fold, too.
Things are also in considerable flux at Clear Channel Entertainment, where global changes inevitably now impact on local matters, too. While CCE have, since acquiring Apollo Leisure, become a major local theatre owner and producing operator over here, the parent company Clear Channel Communications in the US is preparing to spin off the entertainment division into an independent, publicly traded company under president/CEO Michael Rapino. In the process, Chief Operating Officer of CCE Miles Wilkin was let go last month, with Britain’s David Ian – Managing Director for European theatre, sports and motorsports – assuming overall control of the theatrical division. But as the company seeks to reduce operating costs, staff overhead has had to be reduced, and further layoffs are expected here at CCE’s London HQ as well as at CCE venues around the country.
In a time of not just corporate financing but also corporate control of theatre producing companies, the days of the independent producer are clearly numbered. No wonder that the billing for the current Broadway musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels quotes, above the title, not just the names of the legion of producing entities, but also wittily adds, “and the entire Prussian army”.
