Ken Davenport is a playwright and a Broadway and Off-Broadway producer. On Broadway he has recently produced Oleanna starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles, Speed-the-Plow starring Raul Esparza, Will Ferrell’s You’re Welcome America, Blithe Spirit starring Angela Lansbury, and 13. Ken is the only independent producer to have had three shows running simultaneously Off-Broadway—Altar Boyz, The Awesome 80s Prom, and My First Time. He was recently featured on a national commercial for Apple’s iPhone, named one of Crain’s “Forty Under 40” in 2008, and was dubbed the “P.T. Barnum of Off-Broadway” by The New York Times. While Ken has enjoyed the global success and enthusiasm surrounding his long-running productions of Altar Boyz, which he co-conceived, and The Awesome 80s Prom, which he wrote and directed, he raised the bar when he wrote and directed My First Time—which is the first play to rely on user-generated content, bringing to life some of the hysterical and heartbreaking “first time” stories submitted to a popular website of the same name. The “Virgins Get in Free” promotion Ken created for the opening received international attention from major media networks worldwide. Be sure to check out Ken’s blog, TheProducersPerspective.com, which has been featured in Vanity Fair, New York magazine, The Gothamist, and many other online and print publications.

Check out Ken’s plays,
available from Samuel French

My First Time
Awesome 80s Prom

Q & A with Ken Davenport

Q: Ken, you are a very busy man. Not only do you write, conceive, direct and produce—you also manage to find time to blog every day! How do you balance all of your projects and still find time for yourself as a playwright? How has being a producer, and working on the business end of the theatre industry, influenced you as an author?

To be a successful producer, you have to have a keen understanding of what people not only want to see, but what they will pay to see. Knowing what motivates theatergoers has definitely helped me in choosing subjects for my work. Balancing your time when you're passionate about something, whether it’s writing a play or a blog or producing a show, is actually easy. You just find the time. When I can’t find the time to write, that usually means I’m not passionate enough about the subject.

Q: MY FIRST TIME is (to borrow your term) Theatre 2.0. The stories shared in the play are based on actual experiences that real people had, which they all shared anonymously on a website of the same name. The site was an instant phenomenon when it was launched in 1998, and people from all over the globe wrote in to share stories about their First Time. When did you initially have the idea to turn this user-generated content into a play? How did you go about selecting which stories would be told on the stage?

I actually had the idea to do my first time before I even knew the site existed! I was going to do the website and accept submissions, and then write the play. But when I went to register the domain name myfirsttime.com, I saw it was already taken, and these two guys had done the work for me. So I optioned the website and off I went! I chose stories that were sweet, funny, heartbreaking, tragic . . . But most importantly, diverse. I want to show how there were so many sides to a "First Time". And I wanted to demystify this experience that all of us worry so much about. First times are one of the few things that almost every single person on this planet has in common . . . But we rarely talk about . . . Until now. :-)

Q: On your blog, TheProducersPerspective.com, you give out great advice and share your own experiences with producers and writers looking to be produced. If you had a blog called ThePlaywrightsPerspective, what would your first kernel of wisdom be to playwrights

My first piece of advice would be to set a goal . . . How many plays did you write last year? Decide you're going to double that in the coming year. With every play that you write, you get better. And you also run a better chance that you'll have something a producer will fall in love with. Oh, and if you can't find a producer to produce your play? Put it up yourself.

Q: When and/or how did you know that you wanted to create plays?

I've been involved with the theater since I was 5 years old. I took a break in high school to be a jock, but when I saw Les Miz when I was 16, I was bit by the bug again. I quit my basketball team and did the high school musical, and it was over. I call my generation the Les Miz generation. It showed me, and a lot of my peers, that theater could be more than ANNIE, or ANYTHING GOES. It could mean something. And I wanted to have the same effect on an audience that that show had on me.

Q: Have you ever come across a production that made you see one of your plays in a new or unexpected way?

All the time, but most specifically, I'd have to say the production of MY FIRST TIME in Madrid, spain. It has nudity, an almost 'orgy', and more that i can't even talk about in this interview. But it also has been running for a looooong time.

Q: What inspires you to take on a new playwriting project? Are there any new projects (as playwright or producer) that you’d like to tell us about that you are working on now?

I just opened MISS ABIGAIL’S GUIDE TO DATING, MATING AND MARRIAGE Off-Broadway a month ago, which has been going great, and will be seen in a lot of places in the coming year or so. www.missabigailsguide.com.

(Photo courtesy of the author)