Tony Award Winning Producer Barbara Whitman

The Magic of Your First Work Friends

October 24, 2022

Popping in to wish you a happy Monday and a wonderful start to your Halloween week!Fall is definitely my favorite season, even if it's an aspirational idea for those of us living in Los Angeles. Life goals: go leaf pepping! Wear sweaters! Drink warm cider! 

Keeping this newsletter short and sweet. In case you missed it, sharing Barbara Whitman's episode below and some goodies in the Producer's Corner.As the year slowly winds down, who are some producer's on your wish list that I should invite on the show in 2023?Hit me on the spankin' new email address: [email protected]!And hey, thanks for doing this life thing with me...

HIGHLIGHT EPISODE

Oh so excited to share my chat with the lovely Barbara Whitman, Producer of the Tony Award Winning Broadway musical, A Strange Loop. I was lucky enough to meet her in person and watch the show in NY this summer.

It's remarkable to live during a time where bold, inclusive art like this gets made and seen.

Barbara's producing debut was with A Raisin in the Sun, starring Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, and Sanaa Lathan.Owner of Barbara Whitman Productions, she has won multiple Tony and Drama League Awards for producing musicals like A Strange Loop, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Fun Home, and The Humans.Currently, she is producing Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Doug Wright’s new play, Goodnight, Oscar starring Sean Hayes. The play will open on Broadway Spring 2023.

Gems from this episode include:

  • How the definition of a producer has evolved

  • The importance of introducing people to the theater

  • How to get started producing theater

PRODUCER’S CORNER

DISCUSS

"You’re a different person every minute when you’re in your 20s, but these friends really were crystallizing the person I wanted to become.” 

Emma Goldberg wrote this beautiful article for the NYT that really resonated with me.  The people we meet in our 20s set the foundation for who we ultimately become;  they are our mirrors.  In this age of working remotely, those "early-career friendships have become something of an endangered species." “

READ

This breakthrough book from James Clear is a very comprehensive guide on how to change your habits and get 1% better every day.I devoured it and my biggest takeaway is that you have to change the systems that cause the results. If you fix the inputs, the outputs fix themselves.It poses the question...if you become your habits, then are your habits helping you become the kind of person you want to be?

LEARN

What is the different between virtual sets vs. green screen?

Disney’s “The Mandalorian” and others are starting to use LED walls that are revolutionizing filmmaking by projecting 3D environments in real-time behind actors to provide the illusion of being in a physical location.

WATCH

Beth de Araújo (a fellow Brazilian!)'s debut feature received rave reviews at its SXSW premiere. Soft and Quiet is a nerve-shredding thriller that embraces tension and discomfort. The film follows a single afternoon in the life of an elementary school teacher as she organizes a mixer of like-minded women. When the group heads home, the teacher encounters a woman from her past, leading to a volatile chain of events. 

In theaters and VOD November 4th. Watch the Trailer!

WORDS OF WISDOM

"There is something in our culture that says your dream or the thing you’re pursuing has to happen immediately and all at once, and that is destructive to the creative spirit. I just embraced the idea that this was going to be a gradual exploration of the thing I was interested in – making films – and gave myself permission to go slowly.”              

- Ava Duverney