Women Producers on Broadway in the Late 20th Century

By Peter C. Kunze, Tulane University
January 13, 2023
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Peter C. Kunze is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication at Tulane University. His book, Staging a Comeback: Broadway, Hollywood, and the Disney Renaissance, is forthcoming from Rutgers University Press. He recently completed a Short-Term Fellowship with the Billy Rose Theatre Division at the Library for the Performing Arts.

A black and white photo of a woman with short, curly hair looking and smiling to the left of the image. 1950s cards are behind her

Ruth Mitchell on the street

Ruth Mitchell papers, 1956-1961. Billy Rose Theatre Division. NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: 57206572

My project, as so many research projects are, was inspired by another work of scholarship in the field, particularly Laura MacDonald and William A. Everett’s The Palgrave Handbook of Musical Theatre Producers. Theatre and performance studies, in particular, has been slower to analyze industry structures, practices, and stakeholders than my home discipline of film and media studies has, so this work was a welcome foray into this important area of inquiry. The book offers a rich range of case studies, both historical and contemporary, as well as domestic, international, and transnational. It is nothing short of foundational.

Every edited collection has its shortcomings since no single volume can serve all readers and address all lacunae. For me, I was surprised to see only one chapter on a woman producer—the penultimate chapter, by Laura MacDonald, on Daryl Roth (and her son, Jordan). Of course, women producers have been central to postwar theatre in the United States. Irene M. Selznick produced the original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Cheryl Crawford produced plays and musicals, including several revivals of Porgy and Bess as well as the original Broadway productions of Love Life, Brigadoon, and Paint Your Wagon. Many of the most influential producers on Broadway in recent years have been women, including (but not limited to) Bonnie Comley, Sonia Friedman, Irene Gandy, Carole Shorenstein Hays, Janet Kagan, and Fran Weissler.

For my research at The New York Public Library, I was interested in the women between the generation of postwar and contemporary women producers—that is, the producers who shaped Broadway theatre in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. The Billy Rose Theatre Division houses the papers of many of these key figures, including Elizabeth I. McCann and Nelle Nugent, Ruth Mitchell, and Claire Nichtern. The time I spent among these papers allowed me to build upon MacDonald and Everett’s work, and also extend my growing scholarly interest in theatre as a “culture industry.”

One of the earliest lessons a researcher may learn working in an archive is that the archive, not the research, shapes one’s inquiry. Going into an archive with specific questions in need of answering often can be a dead-end pursuit—sometimes, the necessary materials were not saved and preserved, or a voluminous amount was retained and cataloged, allowing for different questions altogether. In my research on the four women producers listed above, I found that I would need to revise my questions in line with what had been saved, even though each question was central to major trends and issues to studying theatrical production cultures.

Ruth Mitchell is a fascinating figure because she was a key collaborator for Harold Prince throughout his career. While Prince’s collaboration with Stephen Sondheim is more famous and appreciated, Mitchell had a longer and far more prolific relationship with the famed producer-director. Indeed, reviewing Mitchell’s papers reveals Prince at work, too, and at times, it is hard to separate their creative labor. I found myself asking if such divisions were necessary while also conceding that a great deal of the work of theatrical production—giving direction, debating and arguing, supervising others—often goes undocumented. Rather than fearing Mitchell’s labors were overshadowed by Prince’s formidable legacy, I wonder now if it is not more productive to foreground her contributions as inextricably interconnected with so many of his accomplishments. Like the creative partnership between Gwen Verdon and Bob Fosse, much of what we still remember and appreciate about Fosse’s artistry is because of Verdon's contributions and preservation efforts. Mitchell, too, helped "create" Prince—and her work helps historians recreate Prince in our scholarship. The inextricability of their efforts must be central to that understanding.

Two women, one sitting and another standing, are photographed behind a desk

Nell Nugent and Elizabeth McCann

Photo: Martha Swope. Billy Rose Theatre Division. NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: swope_1316868

Elizabeth I. McCann and Nelle Nugent were producing partners who helped general manage or produce many of the major productions of the 1970s and 80s, including The Gin Game, The Elephant Man, Amadeus, Crimes of the Heart, and ‘night, Mother. Their varied labors reveal the flexibility of Broadway producers: sometimes overseeing the entire production, and at other times supervising the day-to-day endeavors for their peers. McCann and Nugent’s joint collection features daily reports demonstrating the mundane aspects of theatrical production: the odds and ends that structure one’s workday, the range of issues and individuals needing management, the seemingly quotidian moments in between the landmark achievements of critically-acclaimed opening nights and Tony Awards. McCann and Nugent reminded me of the daily, labor-intensive reality of being a Broadway producer, so often left out of press coverage or theatre histories.

A woman in sunglasses smiles and holds on to a lamp post

Claire Nichtern

Photo: Friedman-Abeles, 1965. Billy Rose Theatre Division. NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: 5100114

Images from the Friedman-Abeles Collection have been preserved, cataloged, and digitized through the generosity of Nancy Abeles Marks and the Joseph S. and Diane H. Steinberg Charitable Trust.

While Claire Nichtern made her career producing hit comedies such as Murray Schisgal’s Luv, her papers also document her tenure as the head of Warner Theatre Productions. Long before Disney established itself on the Great White Way as a major producer, Warner Communication explored theatrical production in the hopes of nurturing plays and musicals into future film projects. She produced Woman of the Year, Crimes of the Heart, The Dresser, and Pump Boys and Dinettes. Nichtern’s tenure with WTP marks an important moment in the long relationship between Hollywood and Broadway, a history still waiting to be written.

My time in the Billy Rose Theatre Division allowed me to do a deep dive into this crucial period in modern Broadway. I learned a great deal about the job of the producer as well as their collaborators—and about these women producers, in particular. I also developed lines of inquiry and methods for studying this very work to begin with. In the coming months, I hope to develop my research into a series of articles that, in time, I hope will inspire further research into this exciting area of theatre history.