BWW Interviews: Glass Half Full's Adam Blanshay And Gareth Lake

You might have seen that Tony-winning producer and Chief Executive Officer of Just For Laughs Theatricals Adam Blanshay has teamed up with Gareth Lake, Chairman of the Board of The Active Theatre Company in New York to form new producing company Glass Half Full Productions.

After co-producing and financing shows for years, they're now collaborating to produce plays and musicals on both sides of the pond - most imminently co-producing the Broadway transfers of Richard III and Twelfth Night, starring Mark Rylance and Stephen Fry, the US tour of Evita, the forthcoming UK tour of Shrek, and In The Next Room (The Vibrator Play) at the St James Theatre this Christmas.

It's a diverse body of work.

"Obviously I have a finance background," says Lake, "and investors in shows have often been my friends and colleagues. We think a portfolio approach is definitely the way to go - the risk and reward is great. And yes, they are diverse shows - but they're also works of art that we appreciate."

"We're dipping our toes into major commercial markets," says Blanshay. "We've made conscious efforts to diversify, and create relationships with producers."

Their plan is to continue lead producing and co-producing shows, or, as Lake puts it, "a combination of supporting great theatre and making great theatre."

And a cheeky question - which shows would they love to have had a stake in?

"Phantom of the Opera," says Lake, without hesitation. "And Book of Mormon, in the US."

"The Broadway version of Wicked," adds Blanshay. "So many people passed on it. I wonder, had I been co-producing at the time, what would I have said?"