You live or die by your decisions in the world of commercial theatre, where you can make a fortune or, more likely, lose one. Peter Crawley hears how the women behind 'I, Keano', 'Alone It Stands' and 'Stones in His Pockets' have survived in an unforgiving business.
The play was up and running, the reviews were in and the house was full. On a midweek night at Andrews Lane Theatre, in Dublin, some in the audience may have failed to warm to Joe DiPietro's Italian-American comedy Over the River and through the Woods, but for each stick-in-the-mud there were far more who gave hoots of approval and sighs of satisfaction. And yet one person, who had crept into the performance after the interval, was barely looking at the show. She was watching the audience.
The next morning Breda Cashe, half of the producing partnership that makes up Lane Productions, went back to work: checking the previous night's box-office figures, seeing how the rest of the week was shaping up and deciding if they should adjust their advertising strategy. For the women behind such phenomenal successes as I, Keano, Alone It Stands and Stones in His Pockets, it was business as usual. After all, they might have another hit on their hands.
"It's too early to say," says Pat Moylan as she and Cashe sit on what the pair gleefully refer to as the casting couch in Moylan's small but immaculate office. Decked with a cherub and a rugby ball, the couch seems a little uncomfortable for casting. "You'd be surprised," says Cashe, with a grin.
Moylan has no illusions about the show. "This is an unknown play from an unknown writer, and we have no stars in the cast," she says. "It's a very difficult show to sell. So I would say the show isn't standing on its own two feet yet."
Commercial theatre is perilous. The producer of a subsidised theatre might worry that, were a show unsuccessful, the company could lose some of its funding. Commercial producers, on the other hand, worry about losing their homes. As Moylan puts it: "The audience pay our wages. The Arts Council doesn't."
For Moylan and Cashe, risk is more than just part of the job: it's what brought them together. "I have great respect for them both," says Marie Jones, the writer of Stones in His Pockets and A Night in November. "They are hard-working and take risks. I think that's what good producers do: they have to be gamblers."
Their first gamble was to set up Lane Productions, in 1998. Moylan, who has been Andrews Lane's owner and artistic director for 16 years, has mortgage repayments to meet, meaning the theatre must operate 52 weeks of the year: produce or perish. "There weren't enough independent companies out there," says Moylan, "so we had to make our own."
When Moylan met her, Cashe was working on the marketing for another high-risk venture - a show called Riverdance. "We had a working relationship which built up from there," says Moylan, who brought Cashe in as a consultant. "I suppose we have the same kind of vision."
Moylan and Cashe also have the same kind of thought patterns. Some partners can complete each other's sentences. Moylan and Cashe are different. They treat sentences as brisk collaborations, the words passing between them like the baton in a relay race.
Moylan: "If the audience enjoy it . . ."
Cashe: "If they have a good time . . ."
Moylan: "They'll tell other people about it . . ."
Cashe: "And that's the principle of how the whole thing works."
There is a similar lack of professional demarcation between the producers. As in their speech, it can be hard to tell where one person ends and the other begins.
"They're a funny pair," says Maura O'Keeffe, a producer who has worked closely with them on a number of projects. "They sit in offices across from one another and talk all the time. It's a small office, and it's very tight. When there's a crisis everybody is aware, and everybody mucks in to help. And, equally, when things are going well everyone joins in and gets a piece of the action."
The working culture of Lane Productions and Andrews Lane Theatre comes in part from a distaste for traditional business structures. "I came from a financial background," says Cashe, "and one of the things I never wanted to work in again was that hierarchy. It's counterproductive. We have a very loyal group of people here who work together. We all answer the phone."
Another difference is that, from box office to producer's office, Andrews Lane is an exclusively female operation. "It just happened that way," says Moylan, shrugging. "Maybe we're more involved as a result." She recalls bringing Stones in His Pockets to New York and, at the Tony Awards, meeting fellow Broadway producers who were too busy or too distracted to have seen the shows. "I was amazed," says Moylan. "People in New York put money in the show to get their name on the poster. We can't understand that. We do it because we love it. You have to absolutely love theatre, have a good business head and be a gambler."
Their wagers come in different sizes, and the stakes can vary wildly. Last year Moylan co- produced the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie in the West End of London, at a cost of €3.3 million; the London run of Stones in his Pockets needed a comparatively thrifty €200,000. Over the River and through the Woods needed about €100,000 to get off the ground and costs about €15,000 a week to run. The most the 220-seat auditorium can take in is €30,000 a week. At the same time, Moylan says, referring to I, Keano, "you can make great money if you want to".
Still, according to the Lane ethos, the investment goes beyond the financial. "We're considered to be commercial," says Cashe, "as if commercial was a dirty word. Commercial, from our point of view, means we take huge risks on things that people wouldn't normally see. And it's not a commercially viable situation always. In fact, most of the time it's not. Things like Alone It Stands are a huge commercial success, but they're also a dramatic success."
John Breen's hilarious and physically dazzling interpretation of how the Munster rugby team beat the All Blacks, in 1978, is now on its fifth cast, having toured the country several times over, transferred to the Duchess Theatre, in London, and opened at Sydney Opera House. It returns to the Olympia in Dublin next year before another national tour. "We took a huge risk on that at the beginning," says Cashe. "It had started in rugby clubs, and two or three people phoned us about it saying: 'This is something that you might like to have a look at.' "
Alone It Stands introduced Lane Productions to audiences unused to the theatre - ones it has cultivated with other sports-related productions, from Jones's world-cup themed A Night in November to the soaraway success of the singalong Saipan saga I, Keano and on to Alan Archbold's football drama A Little Bit of Blue, this summer. "I've always said it's amazing that we're two women with this sporting thing going through the company," says Cashe. "Five years ago neither of us knew what shape the balls were."
And yet, they agree, despite their successes, their nurturing of new audiences and the opportunities they give theatre-makers, the producer is generally the last person to get credit and the first person to take blame. "If the show is successful, the writers, the directors, the actors will be praised all over the place," says Moylan. "If it isn't successful," she says, laughing, "then the producer didn't know their job, they didn't cast it properly, they didn't know how to market it, there was no poster in the Bad Ass Café . . ."
Even if a show is a hit, things can turn ugly, as the pair discovered in February, when the original leads of I, Keano decided not to return for an extended run of the show, amid acrid talk of creative differences and lowest-common-denominator comedy.
Moylan and Cashe held their ground. "The bottom line is that the people who left I, Keano left because we were not prepared to meet their financial demands," says Moylan.
Two days after our interview, Lane Productions was hit by another departure, when Roy Keane's 12-year association with Manchester United came to an abrupt conclusion. Moylan heard the news in her car and called Cashe immediately. Within two minutes Cashe was on to Michael Nugent, one of the writers of I, Keano, whose response was reportedly: "Oh my God, oh my God." (The show, which returns to the Olympia in January, is being rejigged for a later run in Manchester and then, perhaps, the West End.)
Moylan and Cashe must work well in a crisis: they had already prepared their line on Keane. "We know why he's giving up the job in Manchester United," Moylan says brightly, with an eye, perhaps, on the casting couch. "We know he's good on the footwork. We're just wondering if he can sing."
Over the River and through the Woods, by Joe DiPietro, is at Andrews Lane Theatre, Dublin"The successes are what people hear about," says Pat Moylan. "They don't hear about the ones that just didn't make the grade financially. They faded and won't be heard of again." Or will they?
The hits and misses
ALONE IT STANDS (1999)
The pitch: Six actors play 62 roles as the Munster rugby team trounce the All Blacks, in 1978.
The players: John Breen directs his own script with a cast of virtual unknowns.
The payoff: Hit. More than six years of revivals, tours and international transfers. Alone It Stands becomes the byword for shows that will not die.
12 ANGRY MEN (2001)
The pitch: Reginald Rose's hymn to - or scathing indictment of, depending on how you see it - US justice.
The players: Lane Productions regular Terry Byrne takes the helm as a budget-busting 13 actors are required to reach a verdict.
The payoff: Hung jury. A national tour haemorrhaged money, but seeing it at Andrews Lane remains Cashe's proudest moment.
DINNER WITH FRIENDS (2004)
The pitch: Four astonishingly bourgeois Americans share a meal while their lives fall apart in Donald Margulies's drama. Book early to avoid disappointment.
The players: Lane Productions favourites Guna Núa set the table.
The payoff: Flop. "We had seen it in New York and decided to do it here," says Moylan. "It got good reviews, but it lost a huge amount of money."
I, KEANO (2005)
The pitch: The national tragedy of Saipan, recast as an all-singing, all-brawling farce of epic proportions. Surely, in any rational universe, an act of commercial suicide.
The players: Arthur Mathews, Michael Nugent and Paul Woodfull wrote it, Peter Sheridan directed and, originally, Mario Rosenstock and Risteárd Cooper starred.
The payoff: What a ride. A hit on opening, I, Keano survived the acrimonious departure of its original stars for two sell-out runs. It returns in the new year with designs on a Manchester run in March and then, perhaps, the West End. If only they could keep Keano out of the news.
THE FOURTH QUARTER (2006)
The pitch: "It's an Irish Glengarry Glen Ross," says Moylan, who, we trust, will not print that on the posters and attribute it to The Irish Times.
The players: Breda Cashe directs the theatrical debut of first-time playwright Robert Massey, about the world of contemporary Irish sales.
The payoff: Watch this space.