Orpheum president invests in Broadway's potential hit 'Memphis'

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Sponsors and potential investors enjoy cocktails and barbecue at Pat Halloran's Broadway Club inside the Orpheum during a reception and fundraiser for the musical "Memphis." An effort is under way to bring the show home to its namesake city.

If any man in Memphis fits the bill of a Broadway producer -- the kind that shows up in New Yorker cartoons with a brandy snifter and a stogie -- it's Pat Halloran.

The president of the Orpheum theater is a big guy with a rugged voice and the swagger of John Wayne. His line of work takes deep pockets and a poker face.

Photo by Brandon Dill

Sponsors and potential investors enjoy cocktails and barbecue at Pat Halloran's Broadway Club inside the Orpheum during a reception and fundraiser for the musical "Memphis." An effort is under way to bring the show home to its namesake city.

Photo by Brandon Dill

David Bryan, composer for the Broadway musical "Memphis," plays while one of the show's leads, Montego Glover, sings at the Orpheum.

"Investing in a Broadway show is kind of like owning a racehorse," he said, "and let me tell you, I've done that before."

So what happens when the producer from Memphis is presented with a potential Broadway hit called "Memphis"?

He tries to get a piece of it. Even a small piece.

Halloran not only sinks his own money into musical theater, he also invests the Orpheum's money, and as president of the Independent Presenters Network, he convinces other theaters like the Orpheum to chip in, too.

Outside of Hollywood, there are few art forms that people gamble on. Certainly not ballet or classical music. And in most of America there's no such thing as investments in theater, only tax deductions.

But Halloran has a winning average. Since 2003, he's put about $400,000 of Orpheum money into 17 Broadway shows or tours, of which only four lost. Big winners were "The Color Purple," "Thoroughly Modern Millie," "Legally Blonde" and "Spamalot."

He speculates that the overall profit is around 20 percent.

"These are not foolish investments," Halloran said. "We usually get invited to join six productions a year, and the Orpheum usually picks one or two that we think will have the best return."

"Memphis," the musical, is a different kind of investment for both Halloran and the locals he asked to the table.

In part, there's civic pride in helping get the city's name in neon blue and red letters over Broadway. As Kevin Kane, president of the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau, quipped: "I can tell you that our budget at the CVB would never afford us this kind of advertising in New York."

Last Monday, the show's top executives came to town with the two creators and the two lead actors, who have all worked with "Memphis" for at least six years. The conference in the lobby of the Orpheum was the beginning of an "awareness campaign," but also a sales pitch to get Memphis -- the city, that is -- on board. Investors could ante up $25,000 per unit in the show.

"Memphis" is a rock and roll musical set in the late 1950s. It's about a radio deejay named Huey. Rhymes with Dewey (like Dewey Phillips, the real-life Memphis deejay). He's white. But he wants to bring black music from the edges of the radio dial to the center of it. He falls in love with a black singer while hanging out on Beale Street. Can love and music simultaneously break through the racial barrier?

When it opens Oct. 19 in the Shubert Theatre, "Memphis" will be among the costlier Broadway productions, at about $12 million. That's about the same amount Playhouse on the Square paid for its brand new theater, now being built.

There are no big stars in the show. It's not based on a movie. And the Memphis story, a story of race and music, was conceived by a couple of New Jersey guys: the playwright Joe DiPietro ("Over the River and Through the Woods" and "All Shook Up") and David Bryan, the keyboard player for the rock band Bon Jovi.

Stax songwriter David Porter, who attended the Memphis presentation along with about 60 other potential investors, was impressed by the gospel and R&B-style songs as played by Bryan on a piano and sung by Chad Kimball (from Seattle) and Montego Glover (from Chattanooga).

No problem with a couple of white tourists tackling issues that Memphians have long struggled with? "A good songwriter is a good songwriter, white, black or green," Porter said. "And that's what I heard in my first impression. That's what we can hope for."

Seattle-based producer Kenny Alhadeff has had a hand in all four tryouts of the show since 2003 -- in Beverly, Mass.; Palo Alto, Calif.; Seattle and La Jolla. He still tears up when he hears the song "Memphis in Me." Last Monday, he took his first steps on Beale.

"This is not my city," he said. "But watching this musical I get a sense of the city. I was walking on Beale Street and I looked around and I thought 'We got it right. This is real. We don't have a plastic creation.'"

The presentation drew real investors, too. At this point, Halloran has raised more than $100,000 for the show; $25,000 are in Orpheum dollars, $25,000 are his own.

He said that the Playbill will note the "Memphis Orpheum Group."

"If it were just a musical called 'Memphis' it wouldn't make a difference to us," said Halloran. "But we are a historic venue, and have a warm spot for telling a story about Memphis music."

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