Producer Eva Price has been working on Broadway for years now — but this year, she’s really making her mark, first as the lead producer of this spring’s edgy new revival of “Oklahoma!,” and then in the fall when she helps to bring in the buzzy new Alanis Morissette musical “Jagged Little Pill.”
Listen to this week’s podcast below:
Price got into producing after an early stint in broadcast journalism, and on the latest episode of “Stagecraft,” Variety‘s theater podcast, she recalled that she knew she’d made the right career change even after her first, money-losing project.
“I made a ton of mistakes, but the one thing I knew was that my instincts for what I was doing felt right,” she said. “I made zero money. I made negative money! … But even when the decisions we were making proved in failure, the process of making those decisions, and the way that people reacted to me, and the way I reacted to situations, felt spot-on. And that was a feeling I hadn’t felt before.”
In a producing field that has traditionally been dominated by older men, Price is something of a rarity: a young, female producer. On “Stagecraft,” she talks about her road to becoming a producer and the mentors, both male and female, who helped her along the way. She also revealed that she’s come to disagree with a very common showbusiness adage.
“Someone very clearly said to me when I was starting out, ‘You will never make a living, but you will make a killing,'” Price said. “The one thing I have actually figured out is I have no idea how to make a killing, but I have absolutely figured out how to make a living. Do the work. Roll up the sleeves. Take the chances, and you can survive.”
New episodes of “Stagecraft” are available every Tuesday. Download and subscribe to “Stagecraft” on iTunes, Stitcher, or anywhere finer podcasts are dispensed. Find past episodes here and on Apple Podcasts.
