Off-Broadway General Manager — New York
I'm Daniel Kuney. I specialize in Off-Broadway, and I've managed it and Broadway for more than two decades: the budgets, the contracts, the opening nights, and the weeks that don't go as planned. Off-Broadway isn't Broadway in miniature. It has its own economics, relationships and trade-offs, and I know them better than anyone.
For years I ran KGM like every other management office: more staff, more shows, more layers. Then I made it smaller on purpose. I take on a few projects at a time, and I manage each one personally. If you hire me, you get me. A general manager who knows your show as well as you do is worth more than a firm managing forty shows at once.
I also write about how this business needs to adapt, and I build the tools I wish it already had.
The Night Before Press
Any general manager at my level will hand you roughly the same budget. We all know the same theater owners and the same vendors, and we all negotiate roughly the same contracts.
The difference shows up at eleven at night, when the turntable has failed and the critics come tomorrow. Who do you want sitting across the empty theater from you, beer in hand, working out how the show goes on?
A new show is a startup, and the producer and I have to work like cofounders. You don't build a startup with a firm that passes you off to a junior associate. The producers I've kept are the ones where we feed off each other, listen to each other, and meet the hard problems with respect on both sides. That's the fit I'm looking for, and it's what I mean when I say I choose my shows.
Recent Writing
Selected Productions
Ways to Work Together
Full General Management
For shows heading into production.
I take it from the first budget to closing night. Every contract, every hire, every check.
General Management, Without the Back Office
For producers who have done this before.
I handle the budgets, the deals, every contract and every hire. You or your bookkeeper run payroll and pay the bills. You get my judgment without paying for my back office.
Advisory
For shows already running that need another set of hands, often on short notice.
A weekly call, help by email, and a second look at the numbers.
Work Together
I choose my shows slowly, on purpose, because I'm looking for the right fit. If you think yours should be one of them, write to me. I read everything myself.
Also Built