Daniel Kuney

Off-Broadway General Manager — New York

Broadway went corporate.
I went the other way.

I'm a general manager who specializes in Off-Broadway and Broadway. For more than two decades, I've seen and done it all: the budgets, the contracts, the opening nights, and the weeks that don't go as planned. Off-Broadway isn't Broadway in miniature. It has its own economics, relationships and trade-offs, and I know them better than anyone.

For years I ran KGM like every other management office: more staff, more shows, more layers. Then I made it smaller on purpose, and I'm convinced most GM offices should do the same. A show doesn't need a contracts department, a row of managers and a stack of assistants. It needs one person who does the work, answers the phone, and knows the show inside and out. That's how I run KGM. I take on a few projects at a time, and if you hire me, you get me.

I also write about how this business needs to adapt, and I build the tools I wish it already had.

The Night Before Press

Any general manager at my level will hand you roughly the same budget. We all know the same theater owners and the same vendors, and we all negotiate roughly the same contracts.

The difference shows up at eleven at night, when the turntable has failed and the critics come tomorrow. Who do you want sitting across the empty theater from you, beer in hand, working out how the show goes on?

A new show is a startup, and the producer and I have to work like cofounders. You don't build a startup with a firm that passes you off to a junior associate. The producers I've kept are the ones where we feed off each other, listen to each other, and meet the hard problems with respect on both sides. That's the fit I'm looking for, and it's what I mean when I say I choose my shows.

Recent Writing

Selected Productions

  • Drag The Musical
  • Gazillion Bubble Show Now Playing
  • Half Man Half Bull
  • Frida
  • Reverb Coming Soon
  • Rutka
  • Heathers
  • Rock of Ages
  • Slava's Snowshow
  • Heartbreak Hotel
  • Puffs
  • Cleopatra
  • Rolling Thunder
  • Hard Road to Heaven Coming Soon
  • Fly More Than You Fall
  • Stalker
  • Asi Wind's Inner Circle

Ways to Work Together

Full General Management

For shows heading into production.

I take it from the first budget to closing night. Every contract, every hire, every check.

General Management, Without the Back Office

For producers who have done this before.

I handle the budgets, the deals, every contract and every hire. You or your bookkeeper run payroll and pay the bills. You get my judgment without paying for my back office.

Advisory

For shows already running that need another set of hands, often on short notice.

A weekly call, help by email, and a second look at the numbers.

Work Together

I choose my shows slowly, on purpose, because I'm looking for the right fit. If you've read everything above and find yourself nodding along, drop me a note.

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