In 1998, Nicole Kidman’s stage debut in David Hare’s “The Blue Room” was, as Newsweek put it, “one of the hottest tickets for a play in Broadway history.” In preparing a poster for the show, art director Drew Hodges and photographer Lorenzo Agius reviewed contact sheets from a shoot with Kidman and co-star Iain Glen. The actress turned to Hodges and said, “They would be better if I was naked, yes?” The flustered art director managed to nod. “Retouch them off,” she replied, referring to her jeans. The poster became a sensation.The anecdote is one of the many tantalizing stories that dot the cornucopia of stage poster art that is “On Broadway: From ‘Rent’ to Revolution,” Hodges’s 20-year history of Spotco, his advertising agency which has been enormously influential in the theater’s pivot from stuffy backwater to part of the national discourse. In 1995, when Hodges was tapped for his first show, “Rent,” he brought a rock n’ roll sensibility to theater marketing. It was a dynamic that served him well on such shows as “Chicago,” “Avenue Q,” “The Book of Mormon,” “Kinky Boots,” “Fun Home,” and, of course, “Hamilton.”Hodge’s coffee table book is confirmation that given the high prices and fierce competition, Broadway shows these days must be an “event” — whether powered by a star like Kidman or a bold and risky venture like “Fun Home.” The non-event is what would be most dismissive about a show, leaving the ticket buyer cold. Hodges has organized his book according to that rubric. For example, the entry on “The Blue Room” is headed “The Non-Event”: “Nicole Kidman naked on stage as a stunt.” Below is listed “The Event”: “Sex and smarts is one hell of a cocktail, and Nicole Kidman is naked onstage.” For “Avenue Q”: The Non-Event: “Dirty Puppet Show.” The Event: “Pure irreverent originality, and A Tony Winner, too.”Hodges recently spoke with ARTINFO about guiding his talented team of artists in the reductive art of image and tag line for often complex and layered plays — and the challenges of playing pitchman to insecure producers and and psychologist to nervous celebrities.How do you balance your conception of a campaign versus what a producer might want, which could be antithetical? Whenever a client says, “That’s lovely, it’s artful, but it’s the kiss of death,” I hear them. It’s their assets, their investors that are on the line. I never want the art to be the lead concern. The lead concern is to solve the marketing problem artfully. I always try to have somebody really understand what it is we do before we get to the aesthetic. I would maintain that what we do must be artful because then it will suggest that the production itself will be artful.How do you assess what you can promise to a viewer about a show without either being too subtle or going overboard? Whenever I’m thinking about how people should regard a show in a certain way, I make a list of how you can think of the show and all of them has to be true. You have to make sure that what you are promising, the production is going to be able to deliver. That’s something we work very hard on. It’s coming attractions.Do you sometimes run into trouble because your work is by nature reductive? For “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, I put a poster in front of [playwright] Edward Albee and it was a whiskey glass with the title printed on the ice in the drink. And Edward said, “I don’t like it.” He loves to argue. “My play is not about drinking!” I paused and started running through what I was going to say in my head. But there’s zero-win factor in arguing with Edward Albee. That was a case where it was too reductive for him.Do you win some? I’ve said to many playwrights that my job is to take a very complicated, nuanced thing that you’re doing and reduce it down to something very obvious, something very simple. I try to do that with some sophistication, but that’s what we’re doing. We’re saying to the audience, you’ll get this and all the rest when you happen to see the show.What has been the most effective campaign in terms of that simplification? “Chicago” is probably the most accurate to what the show is like. In the early days of the campaign, some people said, “You’re turning it into pornography.” But we wanted it to be as sensual as it is on the stage. I didn’t want women behind bars because that’s not erotic.As with “Chicago,” much of your work relies on photography. Why? It was almost never done when we did it with “Rent.” People thought it was weird. They said at the time, “Why would you do that? With people who are unknown?” But the idea of using photography was an emotional choice. It was new to Broadway but not new to me. We’d done it on record covers. We’d done it on film posters. We felt this was the best way to capture the energy and excitement of the show.And yet Philip Seymour Hoffman, in rejecting photos in the campaign for “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” told you that he thought photography was not appropriate for a play.It was kind of an interesting conversation. It made me stop and think, especially because we had used his photograph for “True West” but this was when he was a character actor. He hadn’t yet become a leading man but he was always this super-shy guy. When I showed him the poster for “Long Day’s Journey,” he was weirded out by it and vetoed it even though he had posed for the photographs. He said, “We shouldn’t be doing this.” I don’t think he was right. I don’t think there are any rules.Is there ever a situation when photography becomes too facile in marketing? I think it can be used less imaginatively than I’d want it to. I feel occasionally that I’ve created a monster. I’m very happy with “Hamilton” because it was really a joy to not do a photograph. But that’s not to say that photography can’t be incredibly powerful. The greatest actors have this strange quality. Ian McKellan can instantly drop into any character. And Vanessa Redgrave can almost open up her pores in front of a camera to show you something underneath. Edie Falco, too. You hired Don Dugdale, a sight-impaired photographer, to shoot stills for “The Miracle Worker.” Any trepidation? I thought it was either the best idea or the worst idea I’d ever had. I was really nervous. We were trying to find a visual image for a play that is about not having sight. I was worried this was too on the nose. But I’d loved Don’s work for a long time and he’d always loved the movie of “The Miracle Worker” well before he had sight issues. His photography is entirely mood and he was great at setting a mood that the actors responded super well too. He has a beautiful spirit and it showed up in the pictures.You didn’t want to use a photograph of Tom Hanks for “Lucky Guy,” by the late Nora Ephron. But in the end you were forced to when ticket sales lagged. You claim it was one of your biggest disappointments. The cult of celebrity and the uses of photography can come together in ways that are less imaginative than going in another direction. And illustration can be more powerful. For “Lucky Guy,” [director] George Wolfe was passionate about what Nora would have wanted in conveying this valentine to New York. He said what we could never have is Tom Hanks in a poster. And that’s what we ended up with. I must’ve written that chapter five times. It’s the only one where I show the poster I wish had run. The poster for “Hamilton” is now iconic. Was it a hard one to come up with? It wasn’t that hard. Working with Jeffrey [Seller, the producer] is a joy. He has such great taste. We knew that we wanted to make something that would convey a show that both your grandparents and their grandchildren would like. We started with what we didn’t want. Gold was something that was appropriate to both hip-hop culture and the revolutionary war, but Lin-Manuel was adamant: no clichés of hip-hop. And I knew I wanted to make a mark that was majestic, that would be classic immediately, like “Cats.” Nicky Lindeman initially came up with the star and Lin in a video just walked up and hit that pose with arm raised. Some people think it looks like Michael Jackson, some people think it’s Freddie Mercury. People will always bring their own imaginations — and opinions — to what you do. I’ve been told by a few people how much they hated that poster. I’m shocked because I knew how good it was.
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