Leslie Broecker – President
Broadway Across America – Louisville Theatrical Association
By G. Douglas Dreisbach
Broadway in Louisville has been bringing the best Broadway productions to Whitney Hall at The Kentucky Center since the early 1980s, including hit productions of Hamilton, Wicked, CATS and more. Each season seems to outdo the previous one. Still on the schedule for this year is Come From Away (Jan 11 & 12), Moulin Rouge! (Feb. 18-March 2), Peter Pan (March 25-30), &Juliet (April 22-27), Shucked (May 13-18) and The Wiz (July 29-Aug 3). You will always find a wide selection of performances on the schedule, ranging from adult-oriented productions to ones geared more toward families and children. Plus, there is always a beloved classic sprinkled into the line-up, which always makes it exciting!
Listen to the full interview below.
We got the opportunity to talk with the President of Broadway Across America and the Louisville Theatrical Association, Leslie Broecker, who shared some of her insights on the season outlook, how she decides what shows to put on the schedule and more. Leslie has been with Broadway for 37 years and currently oversees the markets for Louisville, Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis, and Kansas City, so she certainly has a full plate, and we are always excited to hear what she has to say.
Doug Dreisbach: Thank you for your time today! So, 37 years with Broadway? When did you know that live theater was in the cards for you?
Leslie Broecker: I think that I’m one of those lucky kids who grew up with parents who loved the arts, so we started going when we were little. Moritz von Bomhard was conducting the opera, and we went as pups. It wasn’t a stretch to continue down that career path. Everybody grows up and wants to be a performer. I quickly knew that wasn’t in the cards, however.
DD: Day to day, can you tell us a little bit about what your primary roles and responsibilities are?
LB: Obviously, the biggest thing probably that I do is look for the right shows to bring to Louisville. I’m responsible for booking all of them, and while you might think, “It’s just a few months out,” or “She’s just started looking at the very next season,” we are in fact many years out. We have to look at how these shows skip across the country, because dates that I may have available in The Kentucky Center need to relate to dates in other theaters nearby so that the shows can move fairly effortlessly across the country.
On a day-to-day basis, it’s taking all of those shows that we have landed and really looking at all the pieces, including tying together the marketing pieces, the technical pieces, parts of the theater, stagehands, all of the things that go on backstage, along with ticketing and customer service.We’re sort of a full-service agency, and we have great teams that put all of that together. For the day-to-day stuff, I mainly make sure that everyone is working well together, and everybody is kind of clicking.
Leslie Broecker – Broadway in Louisville (Photo Clay Cook 2004)
DD: Your web goes over more cities than just Louisville. What other cities do you oversee, and what is it like juggling all the schedules?
LB: I currently oversee Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis, and Kansas City, and each of them are very different. Some are in municipal buildings. Others, like the beautiful Kentucky Center for the Arts, are performing arts centers. I navigate which shows can go into which city, and which theater has the availability to do so. We also must keep proper spacing between shows, because you need time in between each presentation, but then also making sure that it can make it to its next city on time. There are situations where a show may be so big that, when it closes on a Sunday night, it can’t make it to the next city to open on Tuesday. There are adjustments you must make, either in the performance schedule in the city you’re leaving or the city you’re headed to. So, it’s definitely a jigsaw puzzle trying to piece it all together.
DD: What about popularity from city to city? Do you see shows that are popular in one city tend to be popular in others? Or do you see some hiccups every now and then?
LB: You absolutely see some hiccups, or you know that they’re coming, so you avoid the hiccup. I think that in some markets, where the population skews a little bit older, there are shows that will play better in that arena. What we’re seeing in Louisville is a “youth-ening” of our audience base. I’ve been purposefully trying to book shows that appeal to that group of subscribers and single-ticket buyers, because the trend is younger, which is a great thing for an arts group these days.
DD: What are some of the harder things that are associated with what you do?
LB: I think managing the jigsaw puzzle of getting the shows across the country. That is difficult, because there are only so many shows that come from New York, and we want to book the best in every single city. You want to book something that is uplifting. You want to sometimes book a show that’s challenging and thought-provoking. You want something that maybe is for the family. The challenge is to find that right mix of shows that creates a package that somebody says, “I’m grabbing seats for the whole season. I want to have season tickets. I want to guarantee I’ve got the best seats.” Every year, it’s something that is somewhat out of your control, because we’re not producing shows. We’re buying the shows that are hitting big on Broadway, and clearly, that’s out of our control. I think getting that right mix, getting the right recipe, is always the hardest part of the job.
DD: What are the most rewarding things about what you do?
LB: I love walking backstage and seeing the show come together and the gals in wardrobe getting their costumes ready. You hear people warming up their voices and the instruments, and then you walk through a couple of doors, and you walk into the lobby, and suddenly, here are all the people who are about to experience that. And for me, really, that’s why you do it. That’s the payoff — everybody is happy on both sides of the stage.
DD: What are some accomplishments you are proud of during your time with Broadway?
LB: I think there are a couple things, but I’ll have to say that our education program just tickles me to death. We get about a thousand kids from across the state every year. Our subscribers have the option to contribute $10 per subscription, and that, along with other fundraising, helps us generate enough to be able to bring these kids into a production. We don’t have student matinees. We only have our normal, regularly subscribed performances. When these kids come in, they’re with an audience. They’ve been prepared. And to see a life-changing Broadway show for the first time, it opens their eyes to all kinds of possibilities. I think that’s probably the biggest thing.
DD: Louisville is such a great arts city. What are your overall thoughts about the arts in Louisville based on where we’ve been, where we are, and where we could maybe be in the future?
LB: I think our Broadway series is really doing great. We’ve hit almost two record-breaking years in a row, so clearly, there’s a hunger for it in our market. Our shows are selling out in advance, and that’s great. I think that overall, the arts are trying to find what its new place is. I think the changes in funding via corporations, and the way that that had been handled over the years, has softened a bit, as corporations have left or refocused their interests. I think our arts groups have challenges, but I’m very proud of what my colleagues are doing to make sure that they’re putting the art on the stage and making sure folks have something that’s creative and fun to attend. The arts are an economic engine, so we need that. We need people downtown. We need everybody to come to the theater.
DD: What are some of the other cities, outside of Louisville, that you really like to go to for live performances? Are there any theaters that jump out, that you look forward to going to see shows at?
LB: I have to be honest, all of my theaters that I work in are my favorite theaters! Now, part of my job requires me to be a Tony voter, and I have two tickets to every show that opens on Broadway. So, I would have to say that New York is my place, because I spend so much time trying to get in those shows, and that tends to be my focus, as the new ones open each season. Once we get to June and the Tony Awards, you just start all over again. So, yeah, I’d have to say New York, and you pick the theater.
DD: For someone who has never been to a Broadway in Louisville show, give us the elevator speech about why they should give it a try?
LB: Everybody’s got a little bit of Broadway in them! Every one of our shows covers a different topic in a different way. It should speak to you, or maybe I should say it should sing to you. But Broadway shows either tell a story about somebody you wanted to learn about, or it tells you something you didn’t have any idea about. It’s a discovery. It’s escapism, and it’ll give you goosebumps.
For more information about the rest of the Broadway in Louisville season and tickets, visit Louisville.Broadway.com
CLICK HERE for more interviews with Leaders of Louisville Arts Groups.
