Theatre producer Ken Davenport has no limits when it comes to promoting his plays – he once offered free seats to virgins – but whether we like it or not, theatre is about 'fun and games' . . . and making money, he tells PETER CRAWLEY

ONE SUMMER a few years ago, the theatre producer Ken Davenport came up with a special offer for the opening of his new off-Broadway show: virgins could get in free. The production was called My First Time, a low-budget collection of internet confessionals about how people lost their virginity, and Davenport needed to generate some attention.

An enthusiastic and savvy man in his late 30s, Davenport was disappointed by the initial lack of media attention – was New York City really so short of virgins? – but soon his phone began to ring. The stunt attracted worldwide coverage. On opening night, a queue of virgins stretched around the 200-seat New World Stages theatre. Davenport, however, was not going to let any ersatz virgin take him for a ride. Each of them was carefully vetted by a mind-reader.

“I like to come up with these stunts,” he says at this year’s Theatre Forum conference. “But they have to make sense.”

One of three Davenport productions playing simultaneously off-Broadway (a record), that show ran for three years, launched several international franchises (including an ill-fated Irish version) and helped earn more than €21 million. Such clever marketing gimmicks – or what Davenport calls, "fun and games" – are the reasons why the New York Timesonce called him "an off-Broadway PT Barnum" after the legendary circus founder, showman and shameless huckster, or the New York business website Crain wrote, more kindly: "Nearly 90 per cent of all off-Broadway shows close within six months. Not when Ken Davenport's producing."

At this year's Theatre Forum conference – a two-day event of provocation, analysis and inspiration entitled " On With The Show" and curated by the the arts consultant Anne Bonnar – Davenport resembles an almost otherworldly figure; a man preaching a doctrine of success to a congregation besieged with budget cuts and thinning audiences, while its major players adopt commercial practices and look to America for validation.

“It’s nice to be the only person in the room without an accent,” says Davenport, and then he adds, self-deprecatingly, “that’s my joke. You may hear it again.” However he speaks, his language is one of unabashed commercialism. Everyone seems keen to learn it.

“I don’t like the word,” he says, “but, at the end of the day, I’m a salesman.”

How important Davenport considers his product isn't always easy to fathom. His first successful business – a candy shop he started at the age of seven in the Massachusetts office of his doctor father – peddled chocolate bars to cardiology patients. His stable of theatre productions can seem similarly driven by commercial nous; sweet treats that fulfil a consumer desire but which may not be much good for us. There's his boyband comedy, Altar Boyz, the interactive The Awesome 80s Promor, indeed, My First Time, of which Varietymagazine remarked, "it sounds like the result of a focus-group meeting, designed to pander to as many ticket-buying demographics as possible".

It’s unlikely that Davenport would consider that a criticism.

Besides the candy floss productions, Davenport has also produced major revivals that have grabbed attention in unlikely ways. When Angela Lansbury gave a Tony-award winning turn in his production of Blithe Spirita couple of years ago, it was revealed that the 84-year-old was using an earpiece prompt to feed her lines. ("She did have a little help," he chuckles).

In 2009, the Entouragestar Jeremy Piven cried off early from Speed-The-Plow, dubiously citing sushi-induced mercury poisoning, which prompted David Mamet's best line in more than a decade: "My understanding is that he is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer."

And now Davenport is making history with the first crowd-funded Broadway musical – a revival of Godspellwhich raised €3.5 million online. At a time when the Irish arts are embracing crowd-funding through Fundit.ie, or theatres cast imported stars in large-scale works, Davenport seems like an incantatory guru.

"FUN AND GAMES" is more than a diversion for Davenport – it's a business strategy, an ideology. This year he launched a boardgame called Be a Broadway Star, somewhere between charades and Monopoly where knowledge is tested, routines performed and points are scored: "Mercury poisoning, lose next turn."

Last year, Davenport released an iPhone app called At The Booth, which monitors ticket availability at Times Square’s TKTS booth. “Broadway’s a major institution and major institutions should have boardgames,” he says.

On his blog, Davenporttheatrical.com, he featured a post on the Top 10 Broadway Apps, only to reveal that there weren’t any. Readers were encouraged to send in ideas and 13 people suggested the Booth app (Davenport splits the profits with all of them). TKTS were not happy, he admits, and questioned its accuracy. “But I beat them to market,” he shrugs. “Consumers wanted something. I want to give my Broadway consumers what they want, because too often we don’t.”

It's the same deal with My First Time, which Davenport, a child of the gamer-generation, describes as Theatre 2.0: "user-generated content leading a play".

Even Godspell isn’t really about fundraising, but a stealthy marketing campaign; the creation of a hugely invested street team, the focus group as sponsor. “Anything I can do to get more and more people talking about theatre, the better,” he says.

What can Irish subsidised theatre, the equivalent of America’s non-profit sector, learn from commercial theatre?

“They’re closer than people think,” he says, but he has misgivings about the inflexibility of non-profits in new circumstances, unable to think about short-term benefits rather than their over-all mission. “I only eat if my shows make money. And I like to eat. I tell people that I’m not a theatre producer. I’m a Broadway producer and an off-Broadway producer. Broadway is a 10-block radius in the middle of Times Square that has a very specific audience. I produce shows that that audience is going to see.”

With the efforts of Imagine Ireland, the €5 million initiative to promote Irish arts in the US, success in America has become a more concrete ambition for Irish careers.

Davenport doesn’t think Irish theatre makers need to pander to American tastes or expectations. “A writer has to write what they’re unbelievabley passionate about. To make sure that your theatre survives, you need to make sure that your local audience is very satisfied.”

But when asked at the Theatre Forum conference about New York’s perception of Irish theatre, the temperature of the room momentarily drops. “I think the perception of Irish theatre right now is dark, challenging and not exactly commercial,” he replies.

He considers his mother’s tastes as a prospective Broadway punter: “A dark Irish drama is not what she wants to see.”

Davenport speaks variously about the success of Harry Potterand Coca-Cola, of The Book of Mormon and Angry Birds,but he also acknowledges that success can be as modest as getting a show on the stage and finding its audience.

Commercial success, however, requires more artistic compromise, less risk and, he says, a genuine glee for selling.

Ken Davenport’s blog, The Producer’s Perspective, is at davenporttheatrical.com

New ideas for selling seats

KEN DAVENPORT ON . . .

Selling yourself

"Everything we do in life is sales. Whether it's trying to get someone to go out with you. That is sales."

Crowd-funding Godspell

"It's a musical about a group of people who came together for a common goal. I found a business model to fit it."

Premium ticket prices

"There is always someone who wants to fly first class."

Spider-Man's troubled Broadway production

"I never would have produced a show that costs $65 million . . . but if I did, the people I would hire would be Julie Taymore, Bono and the Edge. She just missed. She just failed. The fall is harder when you climb higher."

On the future of theatre

"As more forms of two-dimensional entertainment pop up on the phone and TVs, the three-dimensional, the live form, actually becomes more rare. And when something is more rare, it's more valuable."

THE IRISH APPROACH TO . . .

Discounts

This year Bewley's Café Theatre introduced a new pricing scheme with cheaper tickets earlier in the week. It's more sophisticated than "2-for-1" deals, which may suggest something isn't selling well. Tickets still sell most effectively by word-of-mouth, so the more people see something early, the more others will hear about it – and pay full price.

Social Networking

Your "Friends" don't like being hustled and your "Followers" aren't blindly led. Instead, social networks have become vehicles for targeted, "pay-per-click" advertising. They can help display an organisation's (or its director's) personality/brand, be a notice board for review links and special offers, and an efficient, technologically enhanced platform to spread "word of mouse".

Star Power

Stockard Channing in The Importance of Being Earnest. Alan Rickman in John Gabriel Borkman. Brian Dennehy in The Field. When it comes to big-name recognition, some advance bookers just can't wait to be disappointed.