Broadway General Manager

How Broadway really works––the essential guide to theatrical general management

The business of Broadway has always happened behind the curtain until now.

In Broadway General Manager, veteran theater insider Peter Bogyo opens the doors to one of the most essential yet least understood roles in show business. Drawing on decades of experience at the highest levels of Broadway and Off-Broadway, Bogyo offers readers a rare, authoritative look at how commercial theater actually functions from the first budget meeting to closing night.

With clarity, precision, and a wry sense of humor, Bogyo demystifies the mechanics that keep Broadway productions alive. Readers gain direct insight into real production and operating budgets, union agreements, contracts for award-winning actors, directors, and designers, and the complex negotiations that underpin every successful show. Far from abstract theory, this book reveals the practical realities of managing risk, people, money, and momentum in one of the world’s most competitive creative industries.

Topics explored include how general managers are hired and trained, how producing entities operate, box office programming, insurance and labor issues, financial oversight, sustaining a show’s run, responding when sales begin to slump, and making the difficult decision to close a production. Throughout, Bogyo enriches the material with personal anecdotes and behind-the-scenes stories that bring the business of theater vividly to life.

Broadway General Manager is both an indispensable professional guide and an engaging insider’s narrative essential reading for aspiring general managers, producers, arts administrators, theater students, and anyone who wants to understand what really happens before the curtain goes up and after it comes down.

Perfect for readers interested in theater management, producing, arts administration, and the business side of Broadway.